Over the past five years, demand to see 1980s synth-pop sensations A Flock of Seagulls has been as high as it’s ever been since the band’s heyday from 1982 through 1986s. Led by founder and primary songwriter Mike Score and featuring a number of line-ups over the years, the band has always been a consistent draw on the circuit, but as the new millennium began to enter it’s second decade, there seems to be a growing appetite for 1980s music and pop culture.
And A Flock of Seagulls was at the centre of both, as they became one of the bands to epitomize the music, fashion and attitude of what many called the second British Invasion, the synthesizer-based pop bands out of England that dominated the charts throughout the 1980s. In company with the likes of Duran Duran, Human League, Spandau Ballet, Japan and others, A Flock of Seagulls helped lead a major shift in the look and sound of music – a seismic shift that never really left us, but which is seemingly coming back in vogue as many younger music lovers are discovering it for the first time, and the original fans are still youthful enough to come out and enjoy the music in a live setting.
A Flock of Seagulls never left the road, even though it’s been more than 20 years since they released an album. But Score noted that the past five years have seen the band’s touring schedule skyrocket.
“Before that I maybe did around 30 to 40 gigs a year. Now it’s getting to the point where I actually have to look and see if I have time to do them, do I have the energy to do them. This year is ultimately going to be the best because we have a new album out [Ascension, which sees a reunion of sorts with the three other original band members] and I am doing a lot of dates on the Lost 80s package tour, so it’s probably going to be 70 or more shows, which is almost double. It’s mostly happening in America with a few in Europe and England,” said the native of Liverpool who splits his time between homes in Florida and back in his home city.
“We would actually like to do more in Europe and down in South America but it’s difficult to move your whole show and everything 5,000 miles across the sea. In America you can load all your stuff up and drive from show to show.”
To what does Score attribute the reason for bands like A Flock of Seagulls seeing an uptick in interest?
“I think a lot of it is nostalgia. It’s people who lived through the 1980s as teenagers and maybe did not get a chance to see us. The chance is now there, and they also have money. Those people are in their 40s to mid-50s and they want to go out and have a good time again. Their kids may be grown and gone, and they want to relive the memories of the 1980s, which was a great time – especially if you were in a band,” he said with a laugh.
“But the ages at the shows is pretty wide. We have down to younger kids who are maybe 12, 13 or 14 and I think it’s because their parents have said ‘maybe you should listen to this instead of what’s going on now.’ Or they hear it in a movie and they are interested. It’s not like today’s stuff where it all sounds the same. 1980s music has its own sound and each band had its own qualities. So, if they are really interested in music they are going to look for stuff like that. When I was a kid I used to look for radio stations that played stuff I could normally never hear and ended up listening to Radio Luxembourg at five in the morning. So, I think that’s what kids are doing now, but with movies, video games and the internet – those are their mediums.
“I also think people who remember the 1980s and the kids today see the 1980s as a very positive period in time. It was just a good time and gave off a good atmosphere. After that you’ve got the 1990s which was kind of dark. The 1980s has its own atmosphere and its own feel. The closest I can think of is that it’s like the 1960s, where from the first two notes of a song coming on the radio, you knew who it was. It was the same in the 1980s, when you knew it was Duran Duran or A Flock of Seagulls or ABC or something like that.”
The band is touring throughout the United States this summer but is making one jaunt north of the border to play at the Empire Theatre in Belleville, Ontario, sharing the bill with fellow 1980s hitmakers Mr. Mister (Broken Wings, Kyrie) on July 10. The band then moves on to shows in Peterborough July 11 and London on July 12.
Score said he still enjoys touring and having the opportunity to play for the aforementioned ever-expanding A Flock of Seagulls fan base.
“Playing to people is always what bands are about. I enjoy that part. I used to enjoy the travelling but as I get older it gets more tiring. And the other thing is, of course, as you get older you’re finally going to reach the stage where you just can’t do it any more. So, I try to enjoy it now. As I have gone along in more recent years I have been able to put nice spaces into the touring schedule where it’s a couple of weeks on the road, and a couple weeks off and a couple weeks back on again,” he said.
“The thing is, I get offered quite a lot of gigs that I just can’t do because it doesn’t make sense financially or it’s too compacted a schedule. It used to be non-stop; it used to be five or six days a week, and when you’re young you can handle that. And you’re also looking forward to the party afterwards. These days I look forward to the room service and comfortable bed back at the hotel.”
Like many fans, both young and not-as-young, Score is thrilled with the results of the new album, Ascension, which sees all four original members of A Flock of Seagulls (brother Ali Score, Frank Maudsley and Paul Reynolds) re-record their greatest hits to the accompaniment of the Prague Philharmonic. One interesting aspect of this project, and one that may actually be a little sad for long-time fans, is that at no point in the process were the band members together at the same time. Thanks to modern studio technology and file sharing, parts were recorded in separate studios – even separate continents – and artfully and successfully blended together in the mixing stage.
“The people at August Day Recordings contacted me and asked me about doing something like this. I mulled it over and tried to imagine how it would sound in my head, and then they asked if we could get everybody involved from the original band. I thought, ‘we were together when we wrote these songs, so yeah, why not?’ The thing was I am in America and the other guys are across the Atlantic. Everyone is so far apart, so we came up with the idea that everyone will just do their own parts in different studios and then the orchestra can do their thing separately. And it worked – technology is a wonderful thing,” Score said with a chuckle.
“The tracks got sent from one studio to the other and then things got mixed and layered together, before those tracks were finally sent for the orchestra to put their parts on it. And you wouldn’t know any different by listening to it. You would think everybody went into the same studio and made an album.”
Score said while the outcome is an excellent musical project that should be a real pleasing listen for fans, it doesn’t necessarily mean there with be more to the reunion, such as a new original A Flock of Seagulls album featuring his brother, Maudsley and Reynolds.
“It’s a great way to do something like we did, but in another way, I don’t think it’s as creative. But in this instance, we were just recreating not creating something new. Right now, there is nothing more than talk of maybe doing one or two shows, perhaps with an orchestra. I don’t think there will ever be a tour with the originals, or any new music. I just don’t think it’s feasible,” he said.
“I am actually working on a new solo album right now, but after that there may be something. I have been talking to people about doing a new Seagulls album with both the new guys and the old guys. Maybe a couple from the original and a few from the new guys. It’s all in the pipeline, but whether the pipeline reaches an end, I don’t know.”
A Flock of Seagulls formed in Liverpool, the same city that spawned The Beatles and many other acts of the 1960s British Invasion, in 1980, when Mike and Ali Score joined up with Maudsley and Reynolds. Within a couple of years, the band had a record deal, and a top selling album and one of the most successful and memorable songs to ever hit the charts.
For the masses of music fans, A Flock of Seagulls is best known for the massive and iconic hit song I Ran, which is still played regularly on both terrestrial and satellite radio and is a staple on pretty much every collection of 1980s hits.
It came from the band’s self-titled debut album, which was released in 1982, and the video has become emblematic of the 1980s look, feel and fashion. Score said the band knew the song was pretty good during the writing and recording process, but of course being a new band, had no idea that the song would continue to be popular more than 35 years on.
“We were just in rehearsals and we were doing some writing and it all just came together. And we were like, ‘wow, this is great.’ Every time we played it in rehearsals it got better and better, but to us it was just one of our songs. ‘Let’s put it away and work on a new song, the next song,’ which might have been Wishing or Space Age Love Song [two other hits from the eponymous first record],’” he said.
“Although we thought it was a great song for us to have written, of course you never imagine that in 35 years that people will still be listening to this and someone will want to do it with an orchestra. At the time it came out we just hoped it might be a hit and help put us on the map a bit. I mean, personally, I have never written a song thinking it’s going to be a hit. I write songs for myself and go, ‘oh I really like this one,’ or ‘this one is not as good as the last one, but the next one will be better.’
“I have been asked several times if I could rewrite I Ran and I say no, it’s impossible. I Ran kind of wrote itself once we got going in that particular rehearsal session. You can’t just sit down and say you are going to rewrite it. It has to be the right feel, the right time. I really do think songs like I Ran came out just because of the atmosphere at the time.”
As for the video, which seemed iconic and cutting edge at the time, and a delightful glimpse into the culture and style of three and a half decades ago, Score said it was essentially done on a shoestring budget and, like the song itself, no one had any idea that it would become as legendary as it has become.
“I think it was done about as cheaply as you could possibly do a video. We were, at the time, a small band. We didn’t have great big loads of money to spend on things. We had done our album and it was just sitting there. MTV was coming out and they wanted a video or something, so we made it. We just went along with what the record company thought, what the video director thought and I guess it was that old adage where everything seems to line up properly, so you just go with it,” he said.
“Again, I don’t think we realized what we were doing and how good the video was at the time. We basically said, ‘okay, we’ve got four hours to make a video.’ The producer and director told us what to do and we thought his ideas sounded great, and then you just get on with it. And all of a sudden it’s there and 35 years later people are still telling me that it’s a great video.”
As well as the song itself and the video, one of the iconic traits of A Flock of Seagulls is the hairstyle Score boasted onstage and in video which also became emblematic of the 1980s British pop style. And it came from both his experimentation as an actual trained hairstylist, and a prank from a band member.
“I would say it was semi-deliberate. We wanted to be fashionable and spacy. The story was that I was trying to do a spiky Ziggy Stardust thing before we went on stage at one of our early shows. Frank [Maudsley] put his hand on top of my head and flattened it, but the sides stayed up. And then our manager told us we had to get out on stage right away, so we did. And throughout the show I noticed the people were pointing at me and saying wow look at that. They thought it looked crazy but cool. And from then on it just developed as part of our image. It’s just another one of those things where you do the right thing, but almost accidentally,” he said.
As with many pop bands in the fickle 1980s, A Flock of Seagulls could not repeat the success of the debut album. 1983’s Listen spawned three excellently composed singles, including the hit (It’s Not Me) Talking, but sales declined, and dropped even more for their third album, The Story of a Young Heart, which came out in 1984.
For 1986’s Dream Come True album, the band relocated to Philadelphia, but splintered shortly after the record’s release, with Mike Score remaining as the only member by 1988. The last A Flock of Seagulls’ studio album was The Light at the End of the World, which came out in 1996.
Since then the original members have reunited for some tours, with Score soldiering on with varied lineups over the years, right up to the present day. The most recent change in the band’s roster has a distinctly Canadian connection, and a quite well known one at that. In 2017, Gordon Deppe, co-founder and frontman for Canadian pop icons The Spoons, was tapped to be the new full-time guitar player for A Flock of Seagulls. Score said it’s been a very positive experience having a seasoned musician and touring professional such as Deppe in the band.
“I went up there to do a show where basically I was stepping in with The Spoons. They were doing a show and I went onstage and I think I did four Seagulls songs and they backed me up. I met Gord and [Spoons bassist] Sandy [Horne] and everyone was great. Once I realized I needed a new guitar player, I thought, ‘well, Gord is cool.’ I had met him a couple of times and played a couple of times with him, so I just asked if he would be interested in filling in while I get a new guitar player and he said he’d love to,” he said.
“From there it just developed to the point where everything was working well. We like each other, and everything was going smoothly so I just asked if he would stay and do both Seagulls and Spoons. And he did. Gord is a really nice guy, a great guitar player. He is also very relaxed and that’s what we like. He’s a real pro and it just seems to work so well.
“We don’t have to babysit Gord if you know what I mean. The main thing is that it happened naturally. It was just a fill in to start and it worked so well that we both wanted it to continue. Of course, he’s going to work what he is doing between us and The Spoons, but he has adapted and we’re happy that it works. He’s a great guy.”
For more information on A Flock of Seagulls, visit http://www.aflockofseagulls.org, or https://www.facebook.com/seagullsrunning.
For tickets and information about their show in Belleville, Ontario on July 10 with Mr. Mister, visit https://theempiretheatre.com/live-events/a-flock-of-seagulls-and-mr-mister.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for a quarter of a century. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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