SPILL FEATURE: FROM OBSCURE CUTS TO NEW CLASSICS – A CONVERSATION WITH VINCE CLARKE, NEIL ARTHUR & BENGE OF DOUBLESPEAK

FROM OBSCURE CUTS TO NEW CLASSICS

A CONVERSATION WITH VINCE CLARKE, NEIL ARTHUR & BENGE OF DOUBLESPEAK

Whenever three superstars get together to form a band or complete a project, it is big news. In this case, anyone who has followed electro-pop or synth-based rock will be excited with the idea of Neil Arthur (Blancmange, Fader), Vince Clarke (Erasure, Yazoo) and Benge (Blancmange, Fader) coming together to record an album. The project is called Doublespeak, and the three have recorded an album of cover versions of songs from the 1970s right up to the 2020s.

I had the chance to sit down and talk with the group as they launched their promotion campaign for the album. In all honesty, it was a bit intimidating to have the three all on one screen, given I have been listening to their music since I was 16. But I was curious how the project came together.

“Vince and I have known each other for a long time,” said Arthur. “Although Vince and I have connected through messages and saying hello to each other, I thought it might be a good idea to see if we could do some work together and I suggested a couple ideas of covers as a starting point. I wasn’t sure what would happen, really, it might be fun. That’s what I remember of it.”

Clarke agrees, “you sent me some ideas, a couple of tracks, and there was no schedule, no expectations, no ‘let’s make an album.’ Then Benge got involved, and then London Records got involved and it became a real thing. It wasn’t a real thing in the beginning; it wasn’t a real thing until the very end.”

And although the album is entirely cover versions of pop songs, the album did not happen quickly. According to Benge, the group had been working on the album for “nine years.” Although Arthur is quick to point out that the trio had not been working on it constantly for those nine years. “I got involved in 2021,” Benge continued. “I came in a bit later into the project. It was already quite well established by the time I got involved. A lot of the tracks were up and running. But yeah, it is one of those projects that is sporadic, really. When I got involved, I got sent some very advanced mixes. Not demos, but they were not demos, but they were not really produced or mixed. So, I got all these tracks and pulled them together. The first one I worked on was the “Rock On” track. That was my baptism of fire, because that is a really hard track to get your head around. As soon as I got that sound together, I knew it was going to be a pretty incredible project. The tracks were done, so my input was more mixing and curating, and adding extra drum tracks, synths and sequencing. They are exciting tracks to work on, you finish one and want to get to the next one.”

“You say it quite casually, Benge, but the equipment you had in your studio. There are some pretty cool synthesizers that were dusted down and heated up.” said Arthur.

There are some very interesting choices of songs for the trio to record. Artists such as The Carpenters, ABBA, Fad Gadget, David Essex and Glen Campbell to name just a few. “Most of the song suggestions came from Neil,” Clarke said. “Other than ABBA, and The Carpenters, I didn’t know the songs, and I didn’t know the band, which made the whole thing more interesting for me because it was like working on new stuff. Because they are not all well-known songs, there is not that pressure. You can’t make a well-known song better. You can’t make “Heroes” better by doing a cover of it. So, Neil got very obscure, and more minimal, which I love and very electronic. But, The Carpenters, Neil needs to explain,” Clarke laughed.

PURCHASE DOUBLESPEAK VIA BANDCAMP

“The first song Benge worked on was “Rock On’ (originally by David Essex). Shortly after that we had “Back to Nature” by Fad Gadget. Then he worked on “Can’t Escape Myself” by The Sound. All those songs, you can imagine, linking together quite well. In terms of “Rock On,” it is so naked as a song and so sparse and it is so unusual. Whether you listen to it now or when it first came out. I think Vince bought it when it came out in the 70s (“I have it still,” Clarke said), so we got those three together. In the back of my mind, I thought we should do “Gentle on My Mind,” the John Hartford song, but always remember Glen Campbell singing it. I always loved that song, and I started thinking about other songs from that period when I was younger, when I was just absorbing music. It might lead to Bowie, or Mott the Hoople or Roxy Music or Phil Manzanera’s 801. But in the back of my mind I knew there was other music around. It had a different meaning probably because of family connections. One of these songs was “Goodbye to Love” by The Carpenters. And the other aspect to it was I thought the solo on it was amazing, but you won’t be hearing that solo on our version, it is a very, very different feel.” All three have a laugh at that comment.

And while they are cover versions, they do make the songs their own, with their own distinct touches and sound. And there were other songs that did not make the final version for one reason or another. “There were a lot of songs that didn’t make it onto the album,’ Benge confirmed. “There were four or five other tracks that didn’t quite fit on the album, as a body of music. There was “The Hustle,” they were all kind of out there and eclectic. In the end we went with the songs that worked together as a group. There were outliers that didn’t really fit in.”

“We actually worked on a couple of new tunes for B-sides,” Benge said. Arthur continued, “that came about because the record company, London Records, asked if we had any B-sides. None of us wanted to release the other songs, so that is when the three of us recorded two originals that we said they could use.”

“People have been asking if we would ever do anything together again,” Clarke added, “because those two tracks went so well, then I would definitely be up for writing an album of original material. It’s just that the workflow was really easy and the ideas came quite quickly and easily.”

In fact, those two tracks are included as a bonus single on special editions of the new album.

Benge continued. “It was just one of those words that has been bouncing around my head for a while. It seemed to fit the project in a way, because we were doing cover versions, and we were in disguise. It also has that cold war sort of feel to it and it is a great word. It seems quite appropriate right now because of what is going on in the world and the weird politics, and the weird doublespeak we get every day.”

For this trio, the album was fun to make and differed from the other music they produce and release. “At the end of the day, the defining aspect of this album is Neil’s voice,” said Clarke. “It’s so completely different from the other artists and collaborators I have worked with. And that almost sets the scene for the way you do the music. You hear the vocal, and you go, oh ok, and it steers you in a certain direction. It is something completely different, so I didn’t find it difficult to switch from one mode to the next. I wasn’t going to make this into an Erasure record for instance.” Benge thought about it before he remarked, “I think as Vince said, Neil’s voice is so distinctive and easy to work with in a way. It has its own Lancashire accents on songs that come through, even with all the processing. You can still hear that in there. In terms of juggling, that’s why this album took so long to do. We are all doing millions of different things all the time. It was one of those things that we didn’t know where it was going to go really. We just wanted to do it because we enjoyed doing it.”

The final word goes to Neil Arthur. “It is very kind of you to say about my warbling. It’s no effort when you are working…Vince mentioned the two new songs, and if you don’t tread on each other’s toes, and everybody’s just giving what they can, there’s no problem. It should be fun, and it was fun. We get to do music, bloody hell! God knows how I get away with it, but it is always a pleasure and when you are involved in projects that are not a pain. And you learn all the time, it doesn’t matter how old you are, so you keep learning. With Blancmange I start the ideas, structure them and take them to Benge. With Fader, even though it is the same two people, it is very different. It starts with a different brain. Fader always starts with Benge and I react. With Blancmange, the crucial difference is that I give Benge something for him to react to. And it sets the colour and the tone and everything. With this project, it is different, and with every project, you are just a tiny part of it that makes up the whole, and that’s it. I would say.”

Artist Links