A Flock Of Seagulls' Mike Score Talks Playing On ‘Lost 80s Live!' RetroTour
More than 40 years after they first burst onto the scene with radio-friendly hits like 'I Ran (So Far Away),' 'Space Age Love Song' and 'Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You)' and stylish videos, the British synthpop band A Flock of Seagulls is still performing to audiences and recording music. And although the era of big hair, pastels and Pac-Man has long gone, A Flock of Seagulls and their '80s contemporaries left an indelible imprint on pop culture with their New Wave sound and look.
'I think anything that keeps our name upfront somewhere is good,' says Mike Score, the band's founding singer. 'Suddenly, you find out that every era has some great music…And a lot of new bands, I think, are very inspired by the '80s with a bit of '90s and of what's going on now. So it's basically a case of: you just stick with it, stick by your guns, and it'll come back around for you.'
This summer, A Flock of Seagulls is back on stage again for this year's installment of Lost 80s Live!, the long–running 1980s retro tour for which the band has been a regular staple. The tour, which kicks off on July 31 in New Haven, Connecticut, also features such artists as China Crisis, Big Country, the Vapors, Josie Cotton, Belouis Some, General Public, Polecats, Peter Godwin and the Icicle Works, — all of whom will be performing their biggest and well-known hits from that decade.
'We do it every year,' Score says. 'I think we missed one — I don't know whether it was last year or two years ago. When you're gigging all the time, you just forget what you've just done. You do a gig, you move on, you're onto the next one. Suddenly, you know you've been on tour for four or five months. And you're like, 'Where did the time go?' It's very strange.'
To Score, the appeal of Lost 80s Live! is that there are no backstage egos but rather a spirit of respect and camaraderie among the different acts. 'It's great,' he says. 'The main thing there is that all the bands know each other. We're all happy to be doing it.
'The crowds are great,' he continues. 'Usually, they know all the songs from everybody. So they're all singing along. They're all having a good time. And that comes from them to the band. So you know by the time we go on, we're having a good time. It's just a good vibe all around.'
It's a guarantee at Lost 80s Live! that Score and his band will play their famous hits that defined '80s pop music. It all began in Liverpool in 1979 when Score, his drummer brother Ali Score and bassist Frank Maudsley founded the group; guitarist Paul Reynolds later joined, solidifying the classic lineup.
UNITED KINGDOM - NOVEMBER 01: Photo of Frank MAUDSLEY and Paul REYNOLDS and Ali SCORE and FLOCK OF ... More SEAGULLS and Mike SCORE; L-R: Ali Score, Mike Score, Frank Maudsley, Paul Reynolds - posed, group shot, studio (Photo by Fin Costello/Redferns)
'In the old days with the original guys, it was just fun,' Score recalls. 'It was so weird that we rehearsed probably for a year every night for like six or seven hours and wrote a bunch of songs. Somebody heard them. We did a gig. And, I think, like a month after that, we got this huge deal with Zomba Records.'
Released in 1982, A Flock of Seagulls' self-titled debut album became a huge success, featuring such songs as 'I Ran (So Far Away),' 'Space Age Love Song,' 'Telecomunication,' 'Messages' and the Grammy-winning 'D.N.A.' The band's music was a perfect amalgam of futuristic electronic pop and guitar-charged rock.
'When you've got an album like that, you've got to realize that it took a year to write,' says Score of A Flock of Seagulls. 'We rehearsed five or six nights a week. And every night, I would say we would write two new songs. So you're talking maybe 100-150 ideas that came down to maybe 10 or 12 ideas, and that became the first album,' he says.
Of the classic lineup, Score says: 'The chemistry was there. We had a ball when we were rehearsing. We always had a great time. And we knew that we were writing some good stuff. But even so, we thought, 'We're going to get a deal here. We're going to get a single out or something.' We didn't expect the five-year deal from Zomba. That came as a big surprise.'
'I Ran' was the runaway hit that introduced the U.S. to A Flock of Seagulls ('When we played it to people, they were like, 'That song is amazing. It's got synths. It's got guitars. It's got rhythm. It's got a story. It's got everything,'' Score remembers). The song's accompanying video gave further exposure to the group, who became recognized for their look, particularly Score's distinctive and unforgettable hairstyle.
'It's indescribable, really,' he says of making it in the States. 'I remember we arrived in New York to do a couple of club shows. 'Telecommunication' was pretty big on the dance charts by then. And 'I Ran' was just starting to scratch around the Top 100. We got off the plane and we got into a limo. As we went to New York, 'I Ran' came on [the radio]. We were stunned. It's like, 'How do they know this song here in New York?' We all just looked at each other and it was smiles from ear to ear, and 'Wow, we're in America.''
During that period, A Flock of Seagulls not only became MTV staples but also toured with the Go-Go's and the Police and headlined themselves. 'We were going up and up and up,' Score says. 'It was literally a case of 'Do not look down. It's too far. If we can't stay this high, it's going to be a hell of a fall.' We just closed our eyes and kept going.'
For A Flock of Seagulls, writing and recording the second album, 1983's Listen, was a bit of a challenge, although it yielded another hit in 'Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You).' 'We had no time to write it at all,' Score recalls. 'So that's where you fall into the trap of second-album problems. We did the second album straight on tour. I think we recorded it in three or four weeks but straight back out on tour because the first album was still doing well. The second album was riding on the back of it.'
The group's third album, 1984's The Story of a Young Heart, produced another hit single in "The More You Live, the More You Love." Its reflective and moody tone departed from the first two band albums, as indicated on the poignant 'Remember David,' which was inspired by the death of Score's best friend from school.
'I wrote that whole album about him. I went into rehearsal every day, and I wrote a new song for 12 days or something like that. Steve Lovell, who was going to be our producer, was with me and he'd make his production notes. Then we brought the band in to work on it. The whole thing is about that except 'The More You Live.' I had a relationship that broke up. And my mom said to me, 'Don't worry, lad. The more you live, the more you love.' So that became the inspiration for that song.'
By the end of the 1980s, the departures of Ali Score, Frank Maudsley and Paul Reynolds left Mike Score as the only member from the popular lineup. 'We'd lived in each other's pockets for a couple of years, and things happen,' he says. 'You're all in the same hotel room. You're all traveling together. You're playing together. You're getting drunk together. Your wildness comes out on tour and you're having a great time, and you end up getting on each other's nerves. And after three years, we split.'
During this period, Score moved to the U.S., where he has since lived for many years. 'The girl I was going out with at the time just said, 'Come over here and hang out for a bit.' So that's what I did. My brother married an American girl, so he moved. I think Frank stayed in England. He was back and forth for a bit. But now I live between England and America. I love going back to England. Because I've been here so long. I'm an American citizen now. So to me, America is home and England is a second home.'
Although there were many personnel changes in the group with Score being the constant, the classic lineup reunited for the albums Ascension (2018) and String Theory (2021). 'I wouldn't say we're best friends now, but we are friends again,' Score says. 'We got together and did a few things, the orchestral stuff. That was good fun, but I don't know if we could all live together again and do stuff on the road.'
In addition to touring, Score released new A Flock of Seagulls music in 2024 as the Some Dreams album. "I never stopped writing songs,' he says. "In fact, I was trying to write a song before, and I was just like, 'You've lost it, man.' But I'll give it another go this afternoon and I just sit down at the computer with a guitar or something and start playing. And if the song comes out, great. If it doesn't, there's always tomorrow. We didn't stop in the '80s. And there are new songs that they may go for. Who knows?'
'Some of the songs, even on the new album, I experimented a bit,' he says. 'But I also have to reach back to where my inspirations came from. I look back at our first album, and sometimes I go, "Oh, this one sounds like it could have been on the first album.' Then I write it that way. Then other songs, I go, 'Well, this one's not particularly Seagulls, but it's got a Seagulls core.' And then I try and push that into a more experimental area.'
The durability of A Flock of Seagulls' music lives on through the Lost 80s Live! tour. which is not only an opportunity for fans of the band and members of Generation X to relive the music of their youth, but also for younger people to experience the 1980s.
'A lot of people bring their kids to that,' Score says. 'And of course, they're showing the kids the music they liked. To us, that is great because it helps it carry on to another generation. We've been going, I don't know, 42 years or something silly like that now. Personally, I like it when a little kid comes along and he's got my old hairdo. He's a baby Seagull, you know what I mean.'
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And there was something about the odd combination of people where you would say what is it that this group and it was Tom Hanks and others and so there was something that appealed to our instincts to want to have different entry points into the pop culture moment. There were different kinds of viewers who would have looked at that scene and said, oh, I'd like to know what that conversation was like around the lunch table. And later when Oprah was asked about it, she said, you know, what happens on the yacht stays on the yard. And so that maintaining some sense of the perception at least of exclusivity is essential to the stew. That's part of what makes it appealing to people on the outside. Audie Cornish 00:03:51 You know, one of the things I didn't get to hear you talk about in other interviews is below deck. Like the yachties, apparently they're called, the people who work on these ships. 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And so if you're somebody whose job is to clean the guest rooms, that's not just a regular level of cleaning. I've talked to a lot of crew members who describe the experience of, I mean, quite literally using a. A Q-tip, for instance, to clean the rim of a toilet in order to achieve the most maximal conceivable level of immaculate cleanliness. Or they'll use- Audie Cornish 00:05:31 Slash humiliation Evan Osnos 00:05:33 'And yeah, that's a big piece of the operation. I think this is part of it. And, you know, honestly, what's weird about working in this environment is you're in numerical terms, you're working for what is essentially a floating corporation that has no HR department that is subject to the whims of the captain or the owner and some combination of it at the same time, though, it can be to some of them, quite a nice environment. You're- you're- almost literally insulated from the worries of life on land. 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She went to school and trained and then her first cohort that she specialized in were actually incarcerated people. She, and then, she discovered that having worked with captive populations that it was quite well suited to working with crew members because there are some things in common and, you know, she saw the irony in that. And there is a... World that is, frankly, and this applies to so much about the superyacht world, that is just beyond the horizon of our awareness in regular life. It is in all kinds of ways. Unbound by the laws that we live our normal lives under. I mean, almost literally. And if you're in international waters, if you are in the waters of some small island state that has a prime minister who might be friends, let's be honest with the owner of that yacht, you can find yourself in quite perilous straights when it comes to trying to. You know, let's say you've been mistreated at work, for instance, when you're working on it. Yeah, it can be very hard to try to see. Audie Cornish 00:08:10 Like you failed to switch out the supplies of the incoming affair partner in the bedroom. Evan Osnos 00:08:17 You are a close reader of the book. Audie Cornish 00:08:21 I am a close reader, because I'm like, oh, the Coldplay situation's got nothing on this. Like, this is insane. You're getting your fancy melons helicoptered to you, and then you're getting your lover's helicopter to you. But then the whole ship, everyone is arranging the world to the way they need it to be. Right. It's like their own little Lego land. And they can move the people and move the pieces. And I know it sounds weird that I'm obsessed with this. But I feel like there is a clue in there about why the tech billionaires have suddenly gravitated to this space as well. Evan Osnos 00:09:00 You're right about that. I think that if you are somebody, for instance, let's just speak theoretically. Let's say you've invented a company as a teenager, you dropped out of college halfway through and have spent, okay, let's forget the theoretical. I'm talking about Mark Zuckerberg. You've been able to then build your world around you, literally handpicking your lieutenants, building a company that reflects your values. In Zuckerberg's case, to give you a very... Concrete example, the reason why Facebook is blue, that very distinct royal blue, is because he is red, green colorblind. And so he created a world that quite literally suits his preferences and avoids his blind spots. And I think you can take that example in the most superficial way, the design aesthetic, and you can apply it more broadly to his perception of how society functions, of what friendship means, of how people want to build connections, of what the definition of hate speech is, of how violence travels through cultures. I mean, that is what his life has been. And it shouldn't surprise us that he has also, in the last couple of years, taken ownership of a yacht. According to the yacht trade press, he got it for a relative bargain in the 300 million range. And so somebody who has had that professional experience can now transport that same level of absolute control into their social and vacation life. Audie Cornish 00:10:37 But isn't their obsession with being in our world a reflection of the limits of that power? Or, I don't know, or what happens when their own greed and psychology takes over, right? Like Bezos is not content to be a silent kabillionaire. New wife has to be in vogue, they have to have a wedding that has, like, every actor in it, whether they know them or not. Even Zuckerberg, all of a sudden being Mr. UFC guy. Like, they're actually not content with the power that they have. And I know I sound really biased talking like this, but I'm really wrestling with it, because I don't know how it's different from, like, the actual Gilded Age, the period of history we call the Gild'd Age, but there's something that does feel different. Evan Osnos 00:11:25 'I have to tell you, the word that you just used is really the central idea of this project, contentment, or more importantly, the lack of contentment. What we find is that, and this is true both in our own lives in kind of small ways, and then it becomes simply truer when you get more zeros attached, that there is a level of unsatiability that is- Defined really by the competition and the sense of status competition that goes on between people So we might say to one another how could anybody who has already accumulated all of the possible You know toys and trappings and luxuries that a human being could ever seek to want Why do they then try to surround themselves with celebrities who they scarcely really know and is you know, what? How fulfilling could that really be? Well, because that person, if we're talking about the Bezos newlyweds, they are seeking to be in a way that perhaps they don't even fully appreciate, satisfied by the idea of being surrounded by the most famous and wealthy people in the world. For them, that's become, for the moment, at least. The threshold that they're seeking to cross. I think when I talk about insatiability, I mean that there is a level, and this has been true to human beings. And I think it's been a subject of some focus in faith traditions going back as long as history has existed. The idea that you may never find yourself satisfied with the earthly delights, no matter how many you accumulate. But we're living in a moment when you can actually see people trying to satisfy that place in their lives with objects that are as distinct and visible as a super yacht on the high seas. Audie Cornish 00:13:33 More of my conversation with Evan Osnos in just a moment. Stay with me. Audie Cornish 00:13:41 We've known each other for a while. Our families know each other. Evan Osnos 00:13:45 That's right. Audie Cornish 00:13:45 And the weird thing about being friends in America, I think is, well, maybe other countries too. We've never talked about money. I now know more about you and your history with money than in all the time we've known each other and it's weird because we're all doing a version of this aspirational dance. Evan Osnos 00:14:07 That's true. Audie Cornish 00:14:08 But nobody is honest about where their supplies come from. And I'm not saying that about you, but I remember reading a review of the book where someone made a joke that it seems though you could pass. Like that you visited this boat, you visited this world, but that you're not the kind of guy they would turn away. Evan Osnos 00:14:31 Yeah. Audie Cornish 00:14:32 There's aspects of you and your life and background that like fit. And I was wondering what that was like for you to read. Evan Osnos 00:14:40 In my case, my life is this combination of two very distinct experiences of money. I mean, on my mom's side, I come from a kind of Midwestern waspy family where nobody ever talked about money. There was always a sense that there was enough in the background, but it was a very kind of, you would make a point of try to do it subtly. So it was, there was a lot of, shall we say, kind of. Threadbare cuffs. And then on the other side of my family, which is my dad's side, were descended from Jewish Polish refugees from Europe. I mean my grandfather was one of seven siblings and he's the only one that survived World War II. And so they came to this country with nothing and so had a very different experience of trying to rebuild a world that had been destroyed. And for them, that meant actually, no, you should try to get into the best apartment you possibly can. And I remember they spent $40,000 on an apartment in New York City and then over the years built up as much as they could of the things that have been lost, you know, the books, the carpets, the artwork that was some of it fake, some of real. And it was this collision of these two very different cultures of money that for me felt like it reflected different elements that coexist in the American relationship. Audie Cornish 00:16:11 Oh no you don't, New Yorker. What did it mean for you? How did you feel as a kid? Evan Osnos 00:16:17 I guess I felt both of those elements in my life. I feel frankly kind of at home in both. I mean, I think the idea that I can be comfortable in a place where there is either an allergy to talking about money, meaning it's all kind of right there in the background and nobody does it very explicitly. Or, you know, you get into this world where it's much more overt. It's funny, you though, because in my family, Nobody really was in the money business, particularly. My mother worked for a human rights organization. My dad was a book publisher, but we were working around the edges always of, I was very conscious of the money that was in our atmosphere. I grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut, outside of New York City, which is a very rich suburb. Audie Cornish 00:17:05 I was about to say, that's a lot of money in the atmosphere. Evan Osnos 00:17:07 Exactly. And I remember kind of being very alert to the subtle distinctions of class, you know, what did it mean to be if you were in private school or public school, you know what kind of cars people were driving and, you know. Audie Cornish 00:17:24 And it's like a weird, I joke that you learn to code switch. Evan Osnos 00:17:28 Yeah. Audie Cornish 00:17:29 Like for me, I was a kid in a working class community, but we were immigrants. But more importantly, I was bussed at one point to this community out in Massachusetts that has like very expensive high school. And that's when I sort of learned the tiers of class, right? It was like, I'm getting bussed to this place, which is supposed to be so great, but like, oh, public school, you know, like the people there are like, you're going to the public school. Evan Osnos 00:17:54 Right. Audie Cornish 00:17:55 'And then there's another other whole world of private school, and Volvos, and NPR, and all of these. Even reading the New Yorker, I didn't, Evan Osnos, I did not read or pick up or see the New Yorker until I was in my mid-20s and I was a working journalist. I did no know there was a whole world people who like tore out the covers and put them inside their cabins, right? Evan Osnos 00:18:20 Yeah. Audie Cornish 00:18:20 And the reason why I'm so obsessed with this is like For you, like, can you code switch or have you crossed over? Like, have you reached the point where you're so fully in this world that it's hard to remember what it was like to struggle? Evan Osnos 00:18:35 'It's very much a code-switching experience in the sense that I feel like part of that, and I, at this point, you know, I'm 48 years old and so it's hard for me to know what is a product of my professional life, which in our business is so kind of complete. And I've spent my life as a foreign correspondent and a national correspondent, and that's different. For people who are outside of our business, I don't think they know, that's different than being like a lifer in Washington who covers that world and is like a part of that world. Like when you're a correspondent, you dip into different worlds and you try desperately to have them not kick you out. That is what it means to be a correspondent. And in a way, that's how I've spent my adult life in, whether it's in China or in the Middle East, or it didn't feel that different than when it came time to go to the Palm Beach International Boat Show and sort of sidle up to people and start chatting with them about boats. And the reality is, I had never, I don't know, the first, before this, I'd never been on a yacht. I had no knowledge of it. Audie Cornish 00:19:39 Yeah, but I went to a book party and someone came up. And mention they had a boat, maybe. And you were like, ah, how many sails? And I was like, Evan? Evan? Como? Who is this? Evan Osnos 00:19:53 Yeah! 00:19:53 What is this party? And I remember even feeling there like, oh, it's funny, all these people don't think they're rich, right? Like they're adjacent to their own thing that seems out of reach for people. Given all this writing you've done in this area. Given the conversations I assume you must have had with your parents after the book came out, if this kind of came around, how are you addressing wealth with your kids? Evan Osnos 00:20:25 I really do find myself, and I think this is something that applies even to people who haven't written books on these topics, is like I was talking with my daughter this morning and I was talking to her about how we have to try to separate out what she admires of Taylor Swift for talent and what she admirers of Taylor Swift, for this phenomenon of fame that is such a, I think, really dangerous seduction for kids right now. We're trying to parse it out. And, you know, she'll roll her eyes at me. She's seven and she's like, all right, daddy, whatever. But I just want to be friends with Taylor Swift. But I'm like, yeah, but let's, let's focus. I'm Like, some of this is, is a celebration of art, of artistic power and of her ability to speak to people and to, to connect to their experience. And then there's this other thing, which is right now, our society is celebrating to an unhealthy effect of money, power, and fame. And I think I am trying to talk to them about it in a way that hopefully makes some of this seem like it's not God knows about the objects, but is about what it says about our society, which we care about. Audie Cornish 00:21:37 'And about responsibility. And I think that has been one of the things I've struggled with to say, because my kids are growing up in a house bigger than the house I grew up in. I grew in rental apartments. And they are completely like, yeah, this is how life is. This is how we roll. And I'm like, uh-uh, little prince. Evan Osnos 00:22:01 Yeah. Audie Cornish 00:22:02 'There's an old school version that's like, this ain't your house, this isn't my house. You know, like, you're- But there's also a version that says, what's the responsibility of having this? And I know this sounds far off from where we started, but that's one of the things I think that most of us who are now maybe polling a little less interested in the billionaire class, it's that sense that they feel no responsibility to the rest of us, right? Like I'm gonna get on my boat and I'm going to do things to the environment and when something goes wrong, I'm to go to space. It feels very far philanthropy age and all this other stuff. And somehow I have to tell my kid, like you can invent something and be incredible. And also you then have a responsibility to the people around you just because, right? And I literally have to explain that because I don't see anyone modeling it. Evan Osnos 00:22:55 It is exactly the era that we find ourselves in and people have described it in different terms somebody described it as noblesse without oblige this idea that we're in this period when suddenly the there is a celebration of the accumulation and absolutely no talk about what are the obligations to society that come with that power and that's a dangerous evolution in culture. And so part of the what's happening now is that you've got all of these little aspiring Elon Musk's out there, you know, who have, they're building their fortunes. They're somewhere in Silicon Valley. We haven't even heard their names yet. And yet they are patterning themselves after individuals who have made it pretty clear that they don't see much commitment or responsibility to the thriving of a broader society. And I think part of the reason to document it in this kind of detail, it's sort of the anatomy of this culture, is to then be able to say, when we look back on this period, or even frankly in the present, is this really the way we want to be applying the wealth of society that's been accumulated into the hands of a tiny number of people? Is this really how we think it should be used as a culture? That's a plastic matter. That's something that can change with public acceptance or rejection and public pressure, and it can change internally too. You know, I remember once a CEO of a company in Silicon Valley saying to me, the thing I hate most about Silicon Valley is the conversations that people have about where we'll go in the event of a collapse of society, even if it's our own doing, he said. You know when that happens, I want to say to people, well, if you're so concerned about the pitchforks, what are you doing? To help the homeless in your community. And I think that there is a way in which talking about it, making explicit, putting it out into public view, what is usually shielded from view, is part of the process of pressure testing it. Audie Cornish 00:25:04 That was Evan Osnos, journalist with The New Yorker and the author of "The Have and The Have Yachts" a book of essays that is out now. I want to thank you for listening, please do rate and review the show, definitely share it, it really helps. And I'll see you next week.
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The Quiz #483
Red and blue are two primary colors. What's the third? Play. Share. Listen with Orlando Magic forward & founder of UNITUS, Jonathan Isaac .
