![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/920e2b64-08b9-44bb-99fb-e2cfa6b1140f.jpg\")
Largs, where childhood holidays felt like a world away from home for UreAlamy<\/p>\nBorn in Cambuslang, Midge Ure was the frontman of Ultravox and co-wrote Do They Know It\u2019s Christmas? with Bob Geldof. He also helped to organise Live Aid.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s your earliest memory?<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve probably invented this, but I remember hearing a piece of music called Sleep Walk by two American guys called Santo and Johnny. I seem to remember listening to it in the pram, which doesn\u2019t make any sense at all. But that\u2019s my memory and I\u2019m sticking to it.<\/p>\n
Largs, where childhood holidays felt like a world away from home for UreAlamy<\/p>\n
What was your first family holiday in Scotland?<\/p>\n
Largs. It\u2019s a real oddity because we\u2019d leave our one-bedroom tenement slum in Cambuslang and go 30 miles down the road, having borrowed my uncle\u2019s car, and live in an equally old tenement building in a square on Largs seafront. But there was something magical and exciting about it. It didn\u2019t really matter where you were staying \u2014 it was the fact that you could get up in the morning and go buy a dozen rolls and some eggs and your dad would do the breakfast.<\/p>\n
Is there a moment that changed your life?<\/p>\n
Coming back from Ethiopia the first time. I found myself in a big house with a bunch of classic cars sitting in my garage, all doing nothing. I altered my lifestyle at that point, having come from a place where people had nothing.<\/p>\n
![\"Aerial](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2cfc3b6e-db60-4740-b7bc-b9c91fe222d3.jpg\")
Calgary BayAlamy<\/p>\n
What\u2019s your favourite place in Scotland?<\/p>\n
Calgary Bay on Mull. We were married in the castle grounds. After the wedding we all walked down to the beach and took our shoes and socks off, and paddled about in the water with a glass of champagne in our hands. It was sunny and stunning, and it\u2019s still my favourite place.<\/p>\n
Any rumours you\u2019d like to dispel?<\/p>\n
There\u2019s been a dreadful rumour that when Ultravox were writing Vienna, I told the producer Conny Plank that I had no idea what to sing \u201cbecause it means nothing to me\u201d. He\u2019s meant to have said, \u201cWell, just sing that.\u201d Absolute nonsense.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s been your most embarrassing moment?<\/p>\n
Maybe when I was with the Rich Kids [Ure\u2019s band before Visage and Ultravox] during the punk era, and we\u2019d often walk on stage to a sea of spit. On one occasion someone in the audience wasn\u2019t well and had spat, and this horrible globule of green stuff was hanging off my microphone. I thought it would be really cool to scissor-kick the microphone and have someone come on and change it for me. Of course I couldn\u2019t kick that high, missed the mic, spun over and landed on my back, and this green globule thing was still there when I got up, so it wasn\u2019t very successful.<\/p>\n
Who was your childhood hero?<\/p>\n
Way too many to mention. Musical childhood heroes would include Steve Marriott from the Small Faces, the Beatles and Eric Clapton.<\/p>\n
What three words sum you up?<\/p>\n
Honest, realistic, fantasist.<\/p>\n
Who would you say sorry to and why?<\/p>\n
Mick Ronson, who was David Bowie\u2019s guitarist during the Spiders from Mars period and an absolute hero of mine. I plucked up the courage to ask him to play guitar with my solo touring band in 1985, but during rehearsals it became apparent it wasn\u2019t working out. Even though everybody else in the band was a massive Mick Ronson fan as well, they talked me into saying, \u201cThis is dreadful, it isn\u2019t going to work out.\u201d I\u2019d like to go back \u2014 which I can\u2019t, of course, because he\u2019s no longer with us \u2014 and apologise.<\/p>\n
![\"David](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/bef9fca3-b68e-4a70-8f4e-7f56c60a7871.jpg\")
David Bowie and Mick Ronson in 1972ITV\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n
What song would you have played at your funeral?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t want one of these comedy songs \u2014 George Martin chose to have The Hole in the Ground at his memorial. I want something like The Black Isle: something haunting played on pipes or accordion. I want the congregation on their knees, crying. None of this jovial celebration stuff. I want sobbing and wailing and flailing of hands!<\/p>\n
What has been your most memorable Scottish gig?<\/p>\n
In about 1974 I played the Glasgow Apollo with Salvation, my first band, and Tiger Tim Stevens, who was a huge DJ at the time. It was just before Christmas and we played John and Yoko\u2019s Happy Xmas (War Is Over), and the entire audience of 4,000 people sang along. It felt absolutely, unbelievably amazing.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the best meal you\u2019ve had in Scotland?<\/p>\n
The steak pie we used to have on Hogmanay. It was always great, with the mashed potatoes and all the other stuff that went with it, but it was the fact that we ate it at 11pm that made it really exciting for me as a kid.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Can you describe your new album, A Man of Two Worlds?<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been working on it for 12 years, which is ludicrous. It consists of two independent parts \u2014 one album of songs and one of instrumental music, where you can hear my roots, which are slightly Celtic and very melodic. It harks back to the laments we used to sing at school.<\/p>\n
What do you have planned for the tour?<\/p>\n
Hopefully to make it to the end. It\u2019s always a stressful thing. The idea for this tour is that I segue a large chunk of the songs and instrumental pieces together, which in theory sounds easy but in practice is quite difficult.<\/p>\n
![\"Album](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4998b0ba-e65a-492f-8cb4-cd7f3f72db1b.png\")
Ure says he has been working on A Man of Two Worlds for over a decade<\/p>\n
Who was your first celebrity crush?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Alexandra Bastedo, who used to be on The Champions. She was a stunningly elegant, beautiful woman.<\/p>\n
![\"Alexandra](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/0b6f96b2-b4bd-482f-8075-3028af7e33d6.jpg\")
Alexandra Bastedo, Ure\u2019s first celebrity crushAlamy<\/p>\n
If you could have done anything differently with Live Aid, what would it be?<\/p>\n
I would have asked Phil Lynott to put Thin Lizzy back together, the way we asked Pete Townshend to put the Who together for it. Phil was an equally powerful frontman as Freddie Mercury, so the same thing that happened with Queen could quite easily have happened with Thin Lizzy. Even though Bob [Geldof] and I were friends with Phil it never crossed our minds, possibly because we didn\u2019t think he was in good enough shape to do it.<\/p>\n