When music journalist Martin Fry popped ’round a practice by the band Vice Versa in Sheffield, England, in 1980, it’s unlikely that he had any idea that he was embarking upon a journey that would, in 28 years time, find him playing dates alongside Belinda Carlisle, The Human League, Naked Eyes, and A Flock of Seagulls on an endeavor known as the Regeneration Tour. And, yet, that’s what’s keeping Fry’s band, ABC, hopping around the USA this summer. For the first time in many moons, ABC even has a new album to promote: Traffic, a record which harks back to…well, pretty much every single stage of the band’s musical evolution, really. Popdose had the opportunity to speak to Fry about the tour, and we took the opportunity to quiz him about not only the new record but also his entire back catalog, stopping along the way to have him explain a lyric, reflect on his VH-1 appearances, and discuss working with Trevor Horn.
Martin Fry: Hello! I was expecting your call. How are you doing?
Popdose: I’m doing well! We actually talked about two years ago…
MF: Oh, yeah?
PD: Yep. So it’s nice to have the opportunity to speak with you again.
MF: I’m still at it! We’re still out there touring!
PD: So you are! In fact, you’re going to be in my area in just under two weeks. So let’s start by talking about the new record, Traffic. How shocked were you when the first single, “The Very First Time,” was added to Radio 2’s “A” playlist?
MF: It was a good feeling. It was nice to walk back into the BBC. I walked back in, and I saw Doctor Who! Are you familiar with Doctor Who?
PD: Absolutely. I’m a big fan.
MF: He’s a big part of the BBC franchise. And Jonathan Ross, he’s another guy there. But it was nice to be welcomed back, yeah, and it was great hearing a brand new ABC tune on the radio.
PD: Were you pleasantly surprised?
MF: Yeah, I was, really. I’ve been touring a great deal, and I get associated with the 1980s, and I’m proud of that, but it’s good to be able to pepper the set with some new songs, yeah.
PD: Now, reports of the impending release of Traffic were exaggerated, to say the least. By, uh, years.
MF: Oh, yeah! I wrote a new song ten years ago, and I’ve been itching to make a new record for a long time, but what can you do? (Laughs) But having said that, with Traffic, in a way, it’s opened a lot of doors for me, so I’m hoping the next ABC album won’t take ten years to arrive. I don’t want it to be like a lunar eclipse; I’d rather it be a welcome friend you’ve not seen for a little while.
PD: You and David Palmer wrote most, if not all, of the album…
MF: Yeah, pretty much all of it, with Chuck Kentis.
PD: How quickly did you fall back into writing together? Because it had been quite a while.
MF: Well, we wrote in quick bursts. He’s playing drums with Rod Stewart…and still is. He’s in Cincinnati right now, I think. But I went over to L.A., Pacific Palisades, and we started just writing songs in his garage, and it took us right back to when we first started in the early ‘80s. It was just good to get back to doing it for the love of the music. We wrote “The Very First Time” and “Sixteen Seconds to Choose” and “Ride” and “One Way Traffic” together, and it just felt good again. In the meantime, I’ve been playing live with ABC on the circuit a lot, and, in a way, making a new record and 12 new songs just felt like a sort of added bonus.
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For the life of me, I could not imagine how someone could watch Zbigniew Rybczynski’s eye-popping video for “Close (to the Edit)” and not think that was the coolest song or video ever made. Three guys in business suits bashing the shit out of various instruments to one colossal drum beat (Alan White of Yes, as sampled by Art of Noise founder and producer extraordinaire Trevor Horn), and the main instrumentation consisted of the sound of a car starting at various speeds? (A VW Golf, if Wikipedia is correct) It was a veritable cornucopia of awesomeness! And yet, whenever I sang the song or video’s praises to any of my cooler, macho friends, the response was always the same: “Fag.”