John Foxx - The Quiet Man

Dennis Leigh is one of those people you'd never want to stop talking to. A true gentleman, with quiet poise and measured tones. He enunciates every word slowly, almost under his breath, and unpacks ideas with precise composure, expressing his worldview even through measured gestures. A world in which distant pasts and futuristic presents coexist in harmony: machines and steel, certainly, but under the aegis of the time that has passed from his night to ours.

Metropolises, cars, present-day landscapes alongside quietly remote places, gardens and cathedrals: all of it captured in melodic frames that know how to grasp the common denominator with art and perception. The modern approach as the essence of an artist who synthesizes without reducing, who immortalizes our era while handing nature the ultimate synthesis.

A new waver before new wave, an unsung mystic of ambient music, electro before electro. Man and the city, music, architecture, cinema, and even the thinly veiled instinct to put Ultravox back together. In his own words, here is the fascinating portrait of a futurist with a romantic sensibility.

John, you released four albums in a little under two years. The ambient project "Cathedral Oceans", then "Tiny Colours Movies", and finally the pairing of "From Trash" and "Sideways" with Louis Gordon. Can you tell us about the spirit behind these projects, and the reason for all this creative urgency?

Simply put, I have a lot of music to make, and I want to make it while I can. Everything seemed to be going well during this period, so we were able to work non-stop, whereas often one of us is on tour, or doing something else, or it's not possible to meet up because people are abroad. For some strange reason, over these two years everything worked out as it should, and so I was able to focus on the various projects continuously. At times we tackled two albums at once, as happened with "Sideways" and "From Trash". I didn't experience it as work: we just kept going, and in some ways it seemed easy to produce so much together. Only at the end of the year did I realize I'd made five albums, because besides the ones you mentioned, I made another one with Robin Guthrie, and started one with Harold Budd. It all happened simultaneously and "easily".

Maybe because you hadn't released anything for a long time…

That's true, but I was always writing and recording, so I'd already conceived part of the material I used for some of these albums.

I don't think your contribution to recent developments in ambient music has been given its due recognition. There's so much talk about "Metamatic", about "The Garden", about Ultravox, but in recent years you've released records that in some way update this genre, even introducing mystical-religious themes.

No, not religious ones!

Mystical, then?

Yes, I suppose you could put it that way…

Can you tell me about your experiences with ambient music?

The “Cathedral Oceans” project has been going on for many years now, so much so that I'd recorded a great deal of material, for about six albums, I'd say. It all originally began in Milan, in the Duomo di Milano. The first time I went inside the cathedral I realised I'd never actually been there before, but the acoustics and the architecture were so evocative that they sparked the inspiration to bring to life a lot of ideas I'd been thinking about since I was a kid.

As a child, in fact, I sang in a church choir: it only lasted a short while, about a year. But every now and then I'd go to the church before rehearsals, before the others arrived, and I'd start singing on my own because I was seduced by that sound; that's how I sketched out my first songs, improvising, although I wasn't aware of it at the time.

All I wanted was to get close to that particular atmosphere, but because of the echo I couldn't achieve it anywhere other than in the church. As you can see, it has nothing to do with spirituality, it's simply a matter of… acoustics!

Growing up, with hindsight, I realised that when you sing in spaces like that, a delay occurs, a refraction that you can harmonise with your own voice. In other words, when the note comes back, you can create a harmony and develop it. My theory is that all “church music” evolved this way, starting from the buildings themselves. A kind of “architectural music”…

I was thrilled when I understood this, and, as I said, it happened right there in the Duomo di Milano: when I went in I caught a choir singing, but when the choir stopped you could still hear the echoes inside the building. The voices were still there, because there's such a vast empty space that the reverb becomes exaggerated, wonderful. That illuminated for me everything I'd been trying to understand all those years. So I went home and discovered you could get a cathedral inside a digital box: you can have a digital reverb that's like a cathedral in a much, much smaller space!

So I thought I could compose music that was very modern by using digital architecture, while still expressing a very primitive kind of sound: I think it was used even before Catholicism, sung in caves and by the oceans…

So there's no connection with religion at all…

No, I'm not particularly interested in religion, I think it has to do with structures of power and politics. I'm equally convinced that there are some very important human feelings that have ended up connected to religion, but which religion itself, in and of itself, does not possess. Feelings and human experiences that existed well before religions did.

John, you've been one of the most influential pioneers in the use of electronics in pop music. What's your take on the contemporary evolution of the more abstract and radical forms of electronic music?

They only interest me in an… abstract sense. Because what I want to make is music that isn't abstract, but on the contrary more literal, connected to songs, to voices, not so detached from them.

Although I appreciate that form and use elements of it in my own work, what really interests me is writing songs. I like melodies, I prefer simplicity.

I prefer to keep the creative process as streamlined as possible, precisely because I'm convinced that doing the simple thing is really the hardest thing to do: it takes a lot of work to strip away everything that isn't necessary.

Of course, with abstract forms of music you can channel theories, and sometimes tap into more intense experiences and sensations: I've always been aware of this, and it's the same with the visual arts. However, in a lot of current artistic expression, we've reached a point where the concept behind the object matters more than the object itself, and I never wanted that to happen with my music. I want the object, the music, to keep its centrality.

In short, I appreciate and continue to appreciate simplicity in melody, and I think it's the hardest goal to achieve. So if something isn't melodic, I find it hard to work with, and in fact I don't want to work with it at all.

One of the recurring themes in your work is the urban landscape: "Shifting City", "Quiet City", "Cities Of Light", "Uptown/Downtown". What does the city represent in John Foxx's artistic imagination?

I think it touches on everything: I think everything in my life is experienced from the point of view of man in the city; that's what I describe, and it's what I know best. I've also lived close to nature, so I can say I know it, but like most people, I live in a city.

Do you live in London?

Yes, I live partly in London and partly in Bath. I've lived in cities pretty much constantly throughout my life, although as a child I lived in a village near Manchester, right on the border. I think the "Cathedral Oceans" project is very geographical precisely because I lived along that border: going in one direction, I'd find myself in the Lake District, while in the other I was in the city. Ten minutes from home I'd find myself in profoundly different landscapes, and that must have made me a bit schizophrenic.

Anyway, I spend most of my time in London, and I've lived here for many, many years. All my important experiences have to do with cities: I think of New York, Milan, Rome, Paris, Tokyo. I find it interesting to understand what it's like to live in a metropolis, what you can do there, in what states of mind, and, ultimately, what kind of place it really is.

Because if you stop and think about it, you realize we still don't really know what a city is. We've been building them for thousands of years, but what is a city really? It's a bit like a coral reef, built by the animals themselves, a bit like a beehive for bees, or an anthill. It's the evolved version of those structures, and humans carry out the same activities there, just more sophisticated than those in an anthill, a beehive or a coral reef.

If you look at a bee, you find that it isn't necessarily the organism. The real organism is the hive, because it's to keep the hive alive that the bee spends most of its time. The bee is like a soul, so maybe the city is the organism, and we are the soul, and we don't really know why we do all these things. That's why the city matters so much: if you look at things from this angle, you get a new dimension, and that's the perception I want to keep in mind.

And then there's the power of association that a city holds: I remember the first time I arrived in London, I was very young and so excited. At first, though, I didn't like it, it scared me: it was too big, I felt like an alien. But the more I walked its streets, the more, over the years, I gathered memories and associations: I'd run into someone by chance, and I'd remember it. I'd go to the theatre, or to a restaurant, or to a concert, and make friends: suddenly, well, let's say after a long period, you programme yourself, enriching yourself with countless experiences. The city becomes so familiar that every time you walk through it, it becomes an occasion for new associations.

It's a long process to come to love a person, or a place, and eventually you feel that place getting inside you, and that you too, in some way, help change it through your work, through the things you do. Now when I walk down the street, in London, in New York or elsewhere, I'm part of the city both for the people who recognise me for what I've done, and as the anonymous face I might represent to others, and I like all of that.

In the end all these things come together, and that's what I've tried to write about, although it's so difficult to do that it's taken me a lifetime just to express a part of it.

"Metamatic" is a very important album for the use of electronics in music. The fascination with mechanicalness comes through in the sounds and in the use of the voice: "Metal Beat" seems to be influenced by Futurist aesthetics and enthusiasm for technology. Were you interested in Futurism?

Certainly, Marinetti and the others were the first to theorise an aesthetic of the machine and of modern technology. The most important thing is that the artistic vision of Futurism really went further, running through every field of art and thought.

Unfortunately there's also the connection with fascism and the use of Futurism for political ends, and that certainly doesn't sit well with me. Still, I admire that kind of intellect capable of observing modern life: the hardest thing is managing to see the present, in other words exactly what I've always tried to do. The Futurists were simply seeing the present that most people failed to recognize.

It's very hard to do that in the moment it's happening: you can do it twenty years later and see what happened, but understanding it in that exact instant is something else entirely.

People imagine all sorts of things about the future, but I'm not one of them. I never write about the future, I like to write about what's happening now, well aware that it can take 20 years for people to recognize the present. Even for me, with some things, it took many years, but if instead you manage to sense it right away, it's incredibly exciting. Even so, you have to be aware that a lot of people won't get it for a long time, and that's what happened with Marinetti. So many of his contemporaries failed to recognize the scope of his work: only 50 years later did people understand how significant it was. That's true of Futurism, but Italian art as a whole has always meant a great deal to me and to my career.

I heard you were in Italy before making "The Garden". How much of the love for Europe's sense of decadence that we find in "The Garden" is down to the Italian landscape and the amount of historical ruins you can find here?

It's curious to notice a parallel: as a child I grew up in the industrial cities of Northern England, when the factories were gradually starting to close down, to fall into disuse. Nature was taking over, little birds were nesting inside the abandoned sheds, so when I saw the ruins of Rome, I realized that the architecture of Northern England was a natural imitation of Roman architecture. But the incredible thing is that sometimes those very industrial buildings were designed precisely to resemble Roman temples: seemingly similar materials were used, and at that moment they were turning into ruins in exactly the same way as the Roman buildings.

It was also the idea of overgrown, abandoned gardens, and of cities from the past that keep existing within new constructions: people took material from the ruins and built houses with it. So in Rome, for example, you can find small dwellings built from parts of temples, like a series of stratifications. A lot of the music I was making had to do with those stratifications, that same connection with the past, the same architecture, since it wasn't one single thing, but the result of a series of buildings assembled together.

Let's talk about Ultravox. A hugely important band, because they were playing new wave before new wave even existed. What do you remember of that experience and those years?

Well, it was all very exciting, because the first time I was in London in 1973 there was no music on the streets, yet I kept meeting people who wanted to make it happen, like Mick Jones, Glenn Matlock and others who would go on to be part of the Clash and the Pistols.

Is it true that there was a moment when you were about to become the Clash's frontman?

The first time I met Mick Jones he looked like Keith Richards, he dressed in leather just like him, and I thought that couldn't mean anything good. You see, most people who dress like that aren't any good, they can't play: they've got a great look, but they can't play!

Then Mick formed the Clash, and at that point he started thinking we had gone too far ahead, since we were already playing shows, and in fact the band I was in was already opening for other acts, on stage. One night, after a gig somewhere, he asked me to join them, but by then my own path had already, in a way, become set, and in the end nothing came of it.

You'd already met Billy and the others…

Yes, I met Billy, Chris and the others who would go on to be in Ultravox. We changed our name every week: The Zips, The Fire of London, The Plims, there were loads of names. We could change it whenever we wanted: it made no difference, because nobody knew who we were anyway.

And wouldn't you like a reunion with Billy and the rest of Ultravox?

I recently spoke with Rob (Robin Simon, Ultravox's guitarist at the time of "Systems Of Romance", ed.) and I think he's one of the greatest guitarists ever. You see, even though he's never been fully recognized as such, or at least not entirely, Robin has truly been imitated by everyone.

You invented a certain guitar sound that belongs to new wave…

Yes! Even new bands keep imitating it, though often they're not even aware of it. That's because they're trying to copy artists who were, in turn, influenced by Rob. He really was the first to play guitar that way, with that echo and those effects that weren't extras: they were part of the sound, that's how he built it.

I remember how thrilled I was the first time I heard him play, I really couldn't believe it. He'd just keep playing, and when I gave him ideas for a song, at some point I'd have to tell him: "Stop! Stop! I only need one, you know!" He was brilliant, to say the least.

And what about Billy Currie?

Oh, Billy too! He's a classically trained musician, a great musician, not the kind you usually find in a band like this. Classically trained musicians don't always manage to grasp the power of rock music, but Billy does it in such a way that all that force and rage get reshaped with refinement, in a fantastic combination: I've never met anyone else able to do that like him.

And he's also very intelligent, he understands how a sound needs to be built, he always knows how to create something new: he's hugely talented and I'd love to work with him again. So yes, we've talked about it, maybe we'll do something together again…

A technical question: on "The Garden" you use that mysterious device called "Human Host". Can you tell me what kind of mechanism that is?

It's a device based on a very primitive Roland vocoder, one of the first that could sound like a choir, like real voices. When I got hold of it, I was so pleased that I immediately added other electronic instruments: harmonizers and echo machines; so really, it was more like several devices put together.

Singing through the "Human Host", I sang like in a choir that sometimes felt truly out of control, and I myself felt out of control. I couldn't use it often, it was impossible, it was really very complicated.

Was it your own invention?

Not exactly, the individual components already existed; I just put them together in a way that worked for me, I adapted them.

Let's talk about film. Can you tell us how your collaboration with the maestro Michelangelo Antonioni came about?

Yes, I worked on part of the soundtrack for the film "Identificazione di una donna". So, Michelangelo Antonioni's assistant, Dante, had come up to London asking me if I knew Antonioni and whether I wanted to work with him. I told him: "Absolutely. Of course I want to!"

I was thrilled, because I love European cinema, Italian cinema, and I knew Antonioni's work; so I went to Rome, to Cinecittà, and walked into this huge screening room that had only two seats. He was sitting there showing me scenes from the film, but he deliberately ran them so fast that I couldn't quite make out what was going on! And mind you, he didn't even explain it to me: he refused to tell me anything at all.

That must have been difficult for you…

I simply found it funny, and only afterwards, when he explained to me what it was about, did I just exclaim: "Oh boy!".

It was an interesting experience. I kept coming back to Rome and staying there for a while. I'd fallen in love with the city, but once I finished working on the soundtrack, I went back to England. Still, I kept returning, staying for a few months at a time as a tourist, just to walk around and discover the city. That experience was my introduction to getting to know Rome. I was really excited to see, from that vantage point, a part of Italian cinema I'd only ever heard about, the studios... I could go around and meet Antonioni or Monica Vitti, and so many artists I'd read about and wanted to see.

Like what's happening to me with you, right now…

Thank you. You see, I was so excited. I was a very young guy, in Rome, and I could talk to Antonioni and all those other people around him — I couldn't have been happier.

Ride the wave of great music

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