WITHOUT MIDGE URE AND RUSTY EGAN, MOST OF THIS WOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED. THEY CREATED VISAGE, THE ULTIMATE FACES OF NEW ROMANTIC, ENLISTING STEVE STRANGE AND MESHING HIS BOLD IMAGERY WITH BRAVE, EXPERIMENTAL MUSICIANSHIP. HOW DID THEY DO IT? “SELF-BELIEF,” SAYS EGAN; “NAIVETY AND GUT INSTINCT,” COUNTERS URE. CLASSIC POP QUIZZES THIS REMARKABLE PAIR TO FIND OUT HOW THEY MANAGED TO PULL IT OFF…

JOHN EARLS

When Midge Ure recently interviewed Gary Kemp for a documentary about the 80s, he was taken aback when Spandau Ballet’s songwriter pointed out how influential Rich Kids were. Rich Kids was a punk band formed by Glen Matlock when he left the Sex Pistols; their drummer was Rusty Egan, with Midge Ure singing. At the time the band wasn’t taken seriously, partly because of Midge’s past in proto-boyband Slik – but their later music featured the synthesiser Midge bought, much to Glen and guitarist Steve New’s disgust. “Gary told me he sees Rich Kids as the bridge between punk and electronic,” says Midge, with an air of baffled pride. “Gary saw Rich Kids in 1978 at the Nashville, trying to incorporate technology with traditional instruments. I can see what Gary means… though having a synth is what split Rich Kids in two!” Although Rich Kids ended in disarray, the singer and drummer stayed friends. “We’d walk around the streets of Notting Hill, skint but enjoying the fact we were in London,” says Midge. “Rusty was starting to earn money as a DJ, so he’d buy us cheap chicken pilau, always throwing out ideas.”

One of those ideas was gloriously simple. “Rusty said ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we had a band with our favourite musicians?’,” Midge recalls. “Before he had the chance to come up with another mad scheme, I said ‘Woah! Stop! Let’s think about this…’”

“RUSTY SAID ‘WOULDN’T IT BE GREAT IF WE HAD A BAND WITH OUR FAVOURITE MUSICIANS?’ BEFORE HE HAD THE CHANCE TO COME UP WITH ANOTHER MAD SCHEME, I SAID ‘WOAH! STOP! LET’S THINK ABOUT THIS…’” MIDGE URE

MEETING OF MINDS

At the tail-end of the 1970s, Ultravox were in disarray, mocked by the music press for using synths, beset by rumours that they didn’t play on their albums. After three albums had been met with indifference, singer John Foxx left and Island happily kicked them off the label. Meanwhile the band Magazine, stuttering after the promising start of Shot By Both Sides, were open to offers of helping further Howard Devoto’s ideas to make more forward-thinking music than punk. Down in London, however, Rusty Egan was busy making plans – and Rusty Egan is a very hard man to say ‘no’ to.

“I’m very arrogant,” barks Rusty down the phone to Classic Pop from London members club The Groucho. “It’s a method of self-belief. If you doubt yourself, you won’t kick down the doors and change anything. If you say ‘I’m going to kick down the doors!’, if someone responds ‘Are you sure?’, you can’t then say ‘Er, no, maybe I should just knock. Or send a letter. Actually, maybe I’ll just leave it.’” It’s no wonder, you realise, that Midge calls Rusty ‘Mr Connected’.