FAD GADGET - Frank Tovey - Interviewed by Darrel Hughes - ELEKTRA.

FAD GADGET - Frank Tovey - Interviewed by Darrel Hughes - ELEKTRA.




Fad Gadget, dark, abrasive alternative electronic pop. Formed in
England during 1979 Fad Gadget (Frank Tovey), was the main man
within the explosion of post punk bands embracing new technology
via synthesizers and drum machines, along with other artists at that
time such as; John Foxx, The Human League, Cabaret Voltaire.

Fad Gadget lyrically explored the underworld of the human psyche
and having crafted a pioneering sound that harnessed classic songs,
singles, and albums, too many to mentions here, it was testament to
the quality of his dark art that Fad Gadget spawned a legion of post 80’s
dark electronic, industrial hybrid artists and bands that praised his work
and sighted him as a very strong influence to the 90’s and present day
alternative electronic music culture.

Early 2001 Fad Gadget returned to full activity, performing at various
festivals across Europe. Having just completed 29 shows as support
for Depeche Mode on the European dates of their Exciter Tour, Fad
Gadget is now on the eve of recording a new album for release in
2002, and has plans for more touring.

Here I find myself listening to Fad Gadget carrying out a sound check
for the Birmingham NEC show of the Depeche Mode Exciter Tour. Now
behind stage, I finally get to meet the living legend himself, a very polite
man then shares his views and wisdom.

DH: What inspired the name Fad Gadget?.

FAD: When I first started I was just performing by myself, I didn’t have
a band, it was just me and a drum machine, an electric piano and a
synthesizer. I didn’t want people to think it was just one person if I used
my own name, so I wanted a band name. I wanted a band name that
was unpretentious, something that sounded like a soap powder, and
it was after punk and everyone had silly names.

DH: When did Frank Tovey decided it was time for Fad Gadget to return?.

FAD: The last few years I’ve been doing some production work, I produced
a band called Temple X, their from Austria and they are now my backing
band. I produced an album for them, and last November they were doing a
show in Austria and they got me on stage to do three songs, I did that and
it felt kind of good again, so I decided to start playing again, funny thing was,
I only decided last Christmas to start playing again, I was in Austria at that
time, the first day I came back someone phoned me up and asked me if I
wanted to do the Electrofest in London, so I said yes. As the members of
Temple X were the only guys I had been working with at that time, they
became my band.

I was introduced to Temple X by Iris Luchner, my manager and girlfriend,
she is from Austria and they are from her home town, and she played me
a tape as they were looking for a producer, I didn’t think it was going to be
that good, but I thought it was really promising, so I decided to do it.

DH: How does it feel to be on tour with Depeche Mode as support band,
when it was the other way around back in the 80’s.

FAD: It’s nice really, I would see them every couple of years and have beer
with them at Mute parties and things like that. What happened was, I did
the Electrofest in Easter 2001, Andy Fletcher came to see it, and he came
back after the show and he thought it was a great show and all that, and
am I going to be doing anymore gigs, for a joke I said yeah, I’m supporting
you at Wembley, and he went hmm, maybe that’s not a bad idea, he was
considering it, so I thought oh well, that’s nice.

So now I’ve done the whole of Depeche Mode’s European tour dates,
but I did actually do a couple of festivals before this; Electrofest in London,
Aquaplaning in South of France, I was headlining the Eurorock festival in
Belgium, where there was about 10’000 people, with support like Gary
Numan, Nina Hagen, Paradise Lost, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, so things are
happening anyway. People are talking about this 80’s revival, but I was
unaware of that, and I was never part of the 80’s thing anyway and I don’t
want to be connected with it now. I just did my thing and moved on, I did
the electronic stuff, and thengot bored of it, and changed, where as that
wasn’t very commercial, I should have maybe stayed on one thing, but
through my own interest I’ve move on everytime.

DH: Having seen you dance during your performance in Manchester last
night, it seems you were one of the early inspirations for Dave Gahan’s
early dance style. Would you agree with that?, (smiles).

FAD: I don’t know about that (smiles), I wouldn’t say that, he gets a lot
of his inspiration from Tom Jones, Mick Jagger and Elvis I think as well.
Everybody influences everybody else you know, it’s not that important is
it really, if you put on a good show. I can’t dance, so I just twitch, I don’t
know what I’m doing.

DH: Have you sustained any injuries during this tour due to your stage
acrobatics?.

FAD: Well my knees are all bruised, it’s not as bad as it used to be, like
the last gig I did seven years ago, (opens shirts to reveal a nasty scar
in the shape of an x), smiles and says glass.

DH: Your voice still seems to be on top form, I take it you must practice a lot?.

FAD: No I don’t, (laughs) luckily it’s held out.

DH: How does it feel to be performing live as Fad Gadget in 2001?.
How do you find your new generation of audience react to you?.

FAD: Really good, I feel like an eighteen year old again, it feels great,
it doesn’t feel that much different. I’m a bit safer on stage, it’s not so
confrontational, in the past I still had that punk attitude, it was a battle
between me and the audience, as it often was, as I used to get into
fights with the audience and stuff. Depeche Mode’s audience are quite
straighter and generally seem to be quite friendly towards me, it’s less
confrontational now.

DH: What are the highlights of this tour for you so far?.

FAD: I’d have to look at my dairy, it’s all a blur now, it’s like all the gigs
are mashed into one. There’s a few gigs where I did a dive into the
audience from a high stage and it went well. Germany was really good,
the German audience was great, they all were, Paris was great.

DH: What do you get up to after performing on stage and later that night?.

FAD: Well last night we just went back to the hotel because we was too
knackered to do anything. But we have had some mad parties and stuff.
When we were in I think Oslo, or somewhere in Scandinavia we had a bit
of a mad party in Martin Gore’s room after the show, we hadn’t booked a
hotel for that night, we were in the bar, and I said to Martin, we’ve got to
leave, we’ve got to go and find ourselves a hotel, and Martin said, I’ve got
three rooms, come and stay in my room, so we all piled into his hotel
room and we had a bit of a mad one in there. It’s nice, it’s friendly, it’s
a good atmosphere.

DH: What plans regarding music do you have after this tour, are you
going to record any new material?.

FAD: I haven’t written anything yet, I’ve been too busy doing this, but I’m
definitely planning a new album and it will be under Fag Gadget and
it’s likely to be more electronic than the past albums I’ve done.

DH: Having heard the Regurgitated Mix of Swallow It recorded in 2000,
how about releasing an album of just new remixes made in 2001 - 2002,
which would quench the thirst of the industrial and dark electronic
scenes world-wide.

FAD: I was just messing around with that last year, I’m totally up-to-date
now with the technology, I do everything on a Mac, and I use Logic Audio,
and I was just playing around with something, and when the idea of The
Best of Fad Gadget compilation came out, I had that mix lying around
and I thought I might as well throw it on there.

DH: What are the chances of releasing an album of Fad Gadget songs
that have been remixed by other artists - bands?.

FAD: That’s up to the record company really (Mute), we did try that a
year or so ago, we got Dr. Motte to do a mix of Ricky’s Hand, and I hated
it, it was crap, it sounded like he’d just already had something on his
computer and he just sampled Ricky’s Hand and just dropped it in,
and I think that’s really a lazy way of making music and I wasn’t happy
with that.

DH: When you start recording new material who would you like to work
with in terms of production?.

FAD: Well I’m a producer myself so I don’t really need anyone, there
are various people who I like, but I think I would do the next album more
independently, as I say, I can do everything on my computer myself now.
I’d be interested in working with Martin Gore actually, he’s a good song writer.

DH: What bands or artists have impressed you in the last ten years?.

FAD: Not many really, I think Radio Head are cool, I think they are brave
in a way that their last two albums were experimental, but I don’t think
all the songs on those albums worked, I don’t think their great albums,
but I think it’s brave of them to go from having an album like OK Computer
and then going in that direction, I think that’s very brave of them. I tend to
listen to quite old music really.

DH: Fad Gadget music could be grouped with the industrial music scene,
however your lyrics or song writing style comes from a dark-synth-pop
view point?, do you listen to music from those scenes?.

FAD: Everything is a mish mash, I like all kinds of stuff, I don’t listen
to industrial music, the kind of music I do listen to at home if I’m relaxing
is Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, maybe some Al Green, it funny I don’t necessarily
work in the same field that my leisure is in. When I listen to music for leisure
I kind of want to get away from what I do.

DH: What musical direction will the new Fag Gadget material take?.

FAD: I think it’s going to be more electronic this time, just because that’s
the way I’ve drifted, I’ve started out in electronic music and gone all the
way through folk music, rock music and kind of come back to the electronic
music.

DH: When working on new material, what comes first, the music or the lyrics?.

FAD: I don’t know, I wish I did know how I did it, every song I write comes
about in a different way. I’m not a musician as such, I can play chords on
a guitar, I could pick a guitar up and strum a few chords and maybe some
words would come to mind or sometimes the words come first. Anything
can trigger an idea for a song, and I can never remember how I do it, and
I think maybe that’s the magic of it, that I don’t. If I had to work to some sort
of formula, then I maybe wouldn’t be able to do it. It comes at moments
of inspiration and I don’t know where they come from.

DH: At what point do you involve other musicians when you are writing,
recording or producing?.

FAD: It’s different because the last album I did was all actually written on an
acoustic guitar, I wrote the words down and worked it all out on an acoustic
guitar, that was Worried Men In Second Hand Suits, and then I just went into
a rehearsal studio and started singing the songs and playing them, and the
band joined in, that was a great feeling working that way. In the past I’ve sat
at home with a sequencer or a synthesizer or I’ve made a tape loop, and got
a song from that, Collapsing New People came about and it’s a good example
of a pop song really that came from experimental music. What happened with
that song is that we were recording in Hansa Studios in Berlin, where Bowie,
Iggy and Eno recorded, it was by the wall before it came down. Where we was
living was above a printing works and every morning I was going to the studio
I could hear this printing press machine noise going, which I thought was a
really good rhythm, so one morning I went down and recorded it took it into the studio,
made it into a tape loop and then the band started jamming and improvising to it,
and we recorded some of that and I took that back that night and listened to that
and wrote the words to Collapsing New People, and took it back in and then the
whole song came from an experiment, and I think that’s one of my best pop songs.

DH: Was Love Parasite about anybody in particular?.

FAD: Well yeah, it wasn’t about anybody in particular, it was inspired by, it’s
kind of nasty when you think about the idea but it was when my ex-wife was
pregnant with my daughter, I was reading up on it and I read somewhere that
the baby is like a parasite feeding off the mother, everything in the mothers
womb is set up to make the baby survive even if it weakens the mother. I
thought that was a very dark way of looking at it, just an alternative way to
looking at all the lovely frilly bows and stuff.

DH: What happened to the Official Fad Gadget website?.

FAD: It’s not working yet, we put it on the sleeve, because I’ve been on tour
I just haven’t been able to sit and work with the people that have been working
on it, but it will be up and running in maybe a few weeks time.

DH: When can we expect to see Fad Gadget on tour again with new material?.

FAD: I’m talking to an agent now, I don’t know about new material, but in
January 2002 maybe I could begin touring by myself, but we’re still negotiating
all that. But as soon as possible, I’m really enjoying it, I want to carry on touring
and recording.

21-10-2001 - ELEKTRA

It is with great sadness that I have to report the death of Frank Tovey aka
Fad Gadget. Frank died on Wednesday 3rd April 2002 at his home in London
of heart failure. Frank had suffered from heart problems since his childhood.

My deepest sympathy and condolences go out to Iris, family and friends.

Source: krusafix.co.uk

Bellissima intervista con molti spunti interessanti!!!