WHEN THE HUMAN LEAGUE MK.1 DISINTEGRATED, SO BEGAN A RACE WITH BIG, BIG POINTS AT STAKE. WHO WOULD CREATE THE BEST ALBUM? GLENN GREGORY SHARES HIS SLANT ON THE INFAMOUS SPLIT…

ANDY JONES

Band break-ups can be not only extremely messy but also creatively and commercially disastrous, so the fact that both The Human League Mk.2 (with Phil Oakey and Adrian Wright from the original Human League, plus assorted new members) and Heaven 17 (with Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh from Human League Mk.1, joined by Glenn Gregory on vocals) actually produced anything at all in the period following the demise of the original League is, in a way, quite astonishing. The fact that they each promptly produced the best albums of their careers, the year and arguably the decade – and at the same time, and in the same studio – is as near as dammit the most miraculous pop fact in music history.

One man who witnessed it all, and also had a unique connection to both parties, was Glenn Gregory. The ‘new boy’ in Heaven 17 was not only one of the original movers and shakers in the original Sheffield scene of the late 70s but had also been, at one point, a contender to become the League’s lead singer.

1981 was when the Sheffield steel blades were forged and the battle lines drawn between the new League and H17, and the height of the fighting eventually resulted in the mighty Dare and Penthouse And Pavement albums. Never, perhaps, has animosity between two rival bands proved so fruitful. But, as Glenn reveals to Classic Pop, this most prosperous of phases was the culmination of years of Sheffield creativity and a straightforward South Yorkshire-style solution to that very awkward studio situation…

Take us back to those early days in Sheffield when you first got to know the various members of The Human League.

I met Martyn when I was 15 and he was around 17, at an arts workshop called Meatwhistle, a project to bring kids from all over Sheffield together. Ian Craig Marsh was there, Paul Bower, lots of people – it was great fun, a lot of freedom, like-minded kids, theatre projects and loads of different bands.

I was in one band with Ian called Musical Vomit. Paul Bower introduced Martyn to us and we got on really well; he was quite a character and we liked the same music – glam rock, Alice Cooper, New York Dolls, Bowie, Bolan. He quickly became involved. We were definitely punk, vomiting on stage, and the songs were about necrophilia or whatever – it was pretty out there! In Poly Styrene’s [of X-Ray Specs] book she said she saw Musical Vomit and that they were ‘punk before punk’. We dressed kind of like…