Midge Ure

“In the music industry, you meet some not very nice people, some very strange characters.”

“You think that religion is a thing that is there to help you and to see you through life, and then you wake up one morning and find the entire Irish situation, the civil war that's based on religion.”

“But the guitar is my favorite, first and foremost instrument.”

“You are talking to a man who can only play a plastic keyboard. Give me anything weighted and I've had it. I haven't got the strength in my fingers to push them down. So I don't get a lot of expression on the keyboard.”

“At the beginning of this album I discovered the computer and had great fun playing with the thing. And I realized that, not being a good keyboard player, I could write things in very small sections, give them a certain feel and mess about with bends on the keyboard.”

“I start with the subject matter I want to write about. Then I make a musical base for that and create an atmosphere with the music. Once I've done that, the lyrics come last.”

“So I concentrated on the rhythmic side of things, and therefore left a lot of holes. I didn't want to use big pad chords everywhere. All of the songs are built up of small melodies and counter melodies all played very rhythmically.”