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Heaven 17 open up about heartwarming David Bowie moment the day before he died
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May 9, 2025
Heaven 17 legends Martyn Ware and Glenn Gregory talk to Heart 80s' Simon Beale about their new tour, working with Tina Turner and more! _ Subscribe for regular entertainment! http://bit.ly/1qyfc2T Watch videos in full + exclusives here: https://thisisheart.co/heartglobalplayer Honest Celebrity Interviews: https://thisisheart.co/honestinterviews Music Artists: https://thisisheart.co/3YVm8wN Film and TV Stars: https://thisisheart.co/filmandtv _ We're the UK's biggest commercial radio brand creating memorable moments with the most recognised names in entertainment!
View Video Transcript
0:00
And I can honestly say it was one of the most difficult things I've ever done, ever
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Let's meet two people who have many a story to tell from the 80s
0:08
Martin Ware and Glenn Gregory from Heaven 17. Good morning. Good morning
0:12
How are you? Yeah, I'm really well. Chop form, chop form. Let's talk about this tour
0:16
This is very exciting. Sound with Vision tour, 13 dates across the UK
0:21
starting in London on November the 6th. What can you tell us about this as a show, as a tour
0:26
What can people expect? I guess it kind of started at the end of the last tour
0:33
which was probably, I don't know, maybe 18 months ago, something like that. And James Strong, who's a film director
0:40
a friend of mine who I do a lot of work with, I write music for film and television
0:44
and so that's how we met. But we've become really good friends
0:49
And he came to see the last M17 show of the tour
0:54
and it was Shepherds Bush Empire. and he was just blown away by it, not just the kind of concert
1:00
not really the, I mean, this as well, the music as well, the songs as well, but the kind of relationship
1:06
that we've got with that audience and the way we are together on stage
1:10
and just the kind of love, I guess, that he felt, you know
1:15
for the whole thing. He said it was really emotional and he really wished he'd brought a crew
1:20
and filmed it, you know, not necessarily just the gig again, but just talking to people
1:25
and it just kind of tricked something in my mind, and I just thought, well, how about for the next tour
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Because, you know, it's always nice to have a reason to do a tour, whether it be your 30th anniversary or your 40th anniversary
1:37
or the first time you've... whatever, you know. So I just said, why don't we make that the reason for the tour
1:43
We'll actually film parts of the tour, but not just, like, filming the gig
1:51
Filming them, filming that reaction, filming the audience, talking to the audience
1:55
getting involved in what they think about Heaven's 17, what makes them come to Heaven's 17 concerts
2:00
10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 200 times, which some people do, you know
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So there's obviously a lot of love there. And we kind of talked about the idea and threw it around for a bit
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and we just thought, yeah, we love it. That's a really quite individual
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I don't think that's ever been done before, really. No, and also it's not just about us
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it's really about this phenomenon of people of a certain age who used to follow us back in the day
2:27
and their children coming to see us and wanting to obviously relive their youth to a certain extent
2:35
but also just almost supporting like a football team and doing multiples
2:41
I mean, I don't think I've ever been to see any individual act more than ten times in my life
2:47
Well, I was going to say this Because I'm the same as you on that front. And yet we did a request show for our birthday a couple of weeks ago
2:55
And I had people phoning in. I had a Duran Duran fan that has named his kids Rio and Taylor
3:00
I had a Bon Jovi fan that's seen them over 200 times
3:05
And your audience is very loyal like that, aren't they? They're major fans of yours
3:09
Tell me about Sumo. Who's Sumo? Sumo is the guy that's been to actually one more concert than I have
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He's actually beaten me. How? How is that even possible? No, it's just a kind of..
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We were supporting Erasure on a tour quite a while ago, mid-90s, I think, towards the end of the 90s
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And we were supposed to go to Toronto for a date. Everything was set, everybody was going
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all the tickets are sold But for some reason I don know if something had happened and we had to cancel but Sumo still went He was there he went to the venue That amazing
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So he's been one more time and quite often, you know, I'll mention him on stage and I'll just say
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come on Sumo, how many gigs, how many gigs is this today? It's about 250 now
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That's amazing. Yeah. Every band needs a Sumo really today, let's be honest
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I get the audience shouting, Sumo! Yeah, absolutely. This is particularly special as well, because obviously through the 80s, you didn't do any live gigs
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You chose not to play live. What was your reasoning behind that
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I guess really it was just when we started. It was kind of 81, and it was pretty much the inception of MTV
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and the idea that you could now make videos and kind of sell your wares, as it were
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But am I right in thinking you also did turn down money to perform in America
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Quite a lot of money, yeah. What are we talking? I think it was half a million for like four dates in Southern California
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Do you regret it? Yeah. Damn right. Are there other things that came your way that you said no to
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that you regret in hindsight? I definitely, there's a couple of things, yeah
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when I was doing my production stuff after Tina Turner and stuff
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I was offered Bette Midler. And I thought, well, I think she's over
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And then she went on to have a 25-year career winning multiple awards, number one albums in America
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What do I know? Wow. This is before Wind Beneath My Wings, I'm guessing
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and all of that stuff. Yeah, she was a massive star. It was almost like a curse for me
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having said that though you did make lots of right decisions let's just mention some of the
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other artists that you guys work with because it's quite the list like abc chukka khan grace jones
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terence trent darby mark armand erasure and we have to talk you've mentioned tina turner already
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we must talk about tina turner because you helped turn her career around effectively turn turn turn
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around yeah god this is working very well today isn't it um how did that come about it was um
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When the Humor League split, we formed a production company called British Electric Foundation
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which is like a kind of, we were envisaging it as a mini Motown type thing, like a production unit
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We'd write songs and blah, blah, blah. And Heaven's 17 were the first act
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Anyway, we put out an album, a BF album. One of the tracks, which was like cover versions in an electro soul style, was Tina
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and we did a cover version of Bald Confusion. And we loved it and record company loved it
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and it came out and it got to 43, I think, so he didn't get on top of the pops
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and didn't think anything more about it, really, except she was brilliant
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And then Roger Davis called us one day and said, would Heaven 17 write a couple of songs for her new album
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Talking about regrets. but we were right in the middle of writing and recording a luxury gap at the time so we just
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simply didn't have time to do that but managed to find i said trying to find a way around it i said
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look could do a couple of cover versions and so fortunately the two things that i most wanted to
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do with her was um let's stay together and bowie's 1984 because i knew she liked bowie
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and liked Al Green. And she agreed to both of them and they both made it onto the album And they did pretty well didn they Oh I think Let Stay Together was the biggest selling 12 record in American history at the time Am I right in thinking you both on backing vocals on this as well
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Yes, absolutely. In fact, that's the most nervous I've ever been on a TV show
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singing backing vocals live with Tina Turner on Let's Stay Together. Wow
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I was absolutely terrified. And I would have thought just working with her in the studio is quite overwhelming, isn't it
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She's such a lovely person and calm, very calm person. It puts all that to ease. She's lovely
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And also, everything's first take. She was only in the studio about half an hour, I think
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One take, Tina? Yep. Amazing. Can we talk about how you guys met
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Because we've talked about you being from Sheffield. Martin, you were in the Human League, obviously. You were a photographer, Glenn, is that right
8:08
I was, but I met Martin before that, even before the Human League
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We met just playing in bands together with really stupid names, like Musical Vomit
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So you then get your record deal with Virgin and you work on the Penthouse and Pavement album
8:25
Did that come together quite quickly for you both? It came together very quickly because the Human League had just split up
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The only asset that they had that they couldn't split was a recording studio in Sheffield
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So we worked nights, the Human League worked days, and we wrote Penthouse and Pavement there
8:44
and they wrote Dare in the same studio. Wow. Like on shifts
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and because of the split, you know, it was quite acrimonious at the time
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It's absolutely fine now. Everybody loves each other again. But everyone wanted to prove that they were the best
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Our songs are the best. These are the ones that are going to make the hit. So it was like working in a kind of volcano of ideas
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and excitement and fast. I arrived back in Sheffield after Martin asked me to join M17
9:15
from London, I arrived back on the Monday and by the following Friday, we'd finished, recorded
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completely done Fascist Groove thing, five days, and it was ready to go
9:29
And the rest of the album kind of followed that pattern. Was it partly because it was probably a time
9:34
where you felt quite liberated creatively? Yes. Particularly for you, Martin, coming out of Human League
9:39
and going, actually, we're going to do our own thing here. Well, we had a kind of..
9:43
Well, it wasn't unwritten rule. it was a written rule, we actually had it on the wall
9:47
We had like a manifesto almost saying, you know, everything has to be electronic, i.e. no guitars, drums
9:55
anything like that. No songs about love, couldn't have that, etc, etc
10:02
There was a bunch of stuff. And it was semi-serious, but it was real. And then, of course, as soon as 717 started
10:08
it was like getting out of jail. All of a sudden, we could have bass
10:12
We were all big fans of funk and soul. So incorporating those elements into our new stuff was like a joy
10:19
because we were all going clubbing all the time, weren't we? That was the stuff we were listening to
10:24
We weren't listening to electronic music except at home. In the clubs, it was all, you know, black American import music
10:32
So the thought that we could incorporate that into what we were doing
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all bets were off and, you know, we could do anything we wanted
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real piano, you know, anything. And so the first album is like a kind of hybrid
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In fact, the second side of Penthouse and Pavement were the original, done when we were in the Human League, actually
10:55
were the original backing tracks. We just wrote different top lines over the top
10:59
The first side was the New Direction, with the lindrum and the real bass and guitar and blah blah blah Just out of interest you touched a little bit on this but what are your musical interests What would you like to listen to aside from what you doing Kind of for me it I like still like I like a lot of film music
11:17
Kind of always have, you know, sort of composer film music. I still very much enjoy listening to David Bowie
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and a lot of black dance music. It's kind of always been the same way, really
11:32
Well, you've got a lot of connections with Bowie because you were in the, maybe still are in the Holy Holy Tribute band
11:37
That's right. We're playing in May, actually. We started a tour in May. We were all massive fans of Bowie
11:43
Yeah, sure. Wasn't he the first gig that you went to? Yes, yeah, definitely
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We were Bowling and Bowie, I think, pretty much same week, same time
11:53
Electric Warrior period. Yeah, fantastic. Amazing. So to perform those songs is something else
11:58
And David, it was with the full consent of David that we played
12:03
And in fact, just before he died, we were playing, and no one knew he was ill, by the way
12:09
only Tony Visconti knew, but nobody else knew. And we were playing live in New York at the Highline Ballroom
12:17
and it was David's birthday. And just on a spur-of-the-moment thing, I said to Tony
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phone David, I'll get the audience to sing Happy Birthday. So Tony did, he called David
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and I got the audience to sing Happy Birthday, so it was amazing, brilliant
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It was a fantastic gig. So, so much fun, so much love
12:35
We then got on the tour bus, 15, 16 hours to Toronto
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or whatever it is. I was then going in a hotel at some time in the morning
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woke up at maybe three or four in the morning by someone from the BBC asking for a quote on David's death
12:53
and I had no idea. And literally I sung Happy Birthday to him
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what seemed to me two or three hours ago. Wow. I know, it was incredible
13:02
And so we all then met in Tony's room and he told us about what had happened
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and he knew that David was early and he hadn't got long left. And he said, but I've spoken to David about this
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He wants us to carry on. Do you all want to carry on? It's up to you
13:16
It's obviously going to be difficult from now on, doing all the, you know, we've still got half a tour to do
13:21
kind of like 10, 12 gigs. Everybody said, yes, we'd love to do it
13:25
We want to carry on. and I can honestly say it was one of the most difficult things
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I've ever done, ever, on stage. Standing there and watching, because all the gigs were totally sold out immediately
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all the days off were cancelled and extra gigs were put in, and I was standing there with all this grief and love and worship
13:47
that has really nothing to do with me, but it was being focused at me, and I found it so..
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I felt like just like saying I'm not him it's not me
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but knowing his support of it I mean what a privilege as well
14:03
oh it was yeah it was really really good and another lovely phone call
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I got from Tony once was when he was playing David the live version
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of us doing the Man Who Sold The World album and he called me
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and I could hear it on in the background and he said I just wanted you to know David's dancing about the studio
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listening to you singing I know, I was like, oh, thank you Tony
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That's all I need to hear That's it, that's great Martin Ware, Glenn Gregory from Heaven 17
14:34
Can I just say good luck with the tour Starts on November the 6th It goes right across the UK
14:39
Tickets are on sale now Thank you both for coming in Thank you so much
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