With more than 25 million records sold and a clutch of Brit Awards in her pocket, Alison Moyet’s got much to be happy about as she celebrates her silver anniversary as a solo performer.

Steven Russell finds the edginess of the 1980s has faded and the Ipswich-bound singer is more chilled these days

There was a time in the 1980s when, despite being worshipped as the Queen of electro-pop and a sorceress with a powerful bluesy voice, Alison Moyet was a bit . . . well . . . spiky.

Twenty-five years on, things have certainly changed. Blimey, she’s just sung live on Woman’s Hour, on BBC Radio 4. The publicists have also secured appearances on Paul O’Grady’s programme and The Alan Titchmarsh Show to bang the drum about her new “best of” albums and 26-date tour that kicks off at the Ipswich Regent. All this, plus a round or two of media interviews like this one . . . Sounds like she’s more comfortable nowadays with the PR circus.

“I am, yeah. When you’re younger, you always suspected larceny! Now you’re in a place where you realise why you’re doing this stuff. We’re just all doing a job together, and you can either make it difficult or just get on with it, you know.”

Britain’s biggest-selling female solo star – between 1984 and 1987 – was young when fame arrived unexpectedly, like a battering-ram. Sorry, that sounds condescending . . .

“No, no, but it’s true. I was young, and it’s a shocking world to move into. I was always a bit of a black sheep and was left to my own devices, and suddenly having somebody interested in you  . . . god,” she half-laughs.

Here’s the story for anyone who missed the poptastic eighties.

Born in the summer of 1961, Genevieve Alison Jane Moyet was the daughter of a French printer (a patriarch who spoke poor English) and his English wife (who taught French), and grew up in Basildon.

“I was playing in a couple of bands, but never imagined I’d be doing that full-time. It was always going to be a semi-professional thing as far as I was concerned.”

She knew Vince Clarke “because I was in a class with a couple of the Depeche Mode boys at college. Vince’s best mate was a guitar player in my punk band, and when Vince left Depeche and was looking for a singer, I came to mind because I was a little face on the local scene.

“He called me up and asked me to demo Only You with him, and then he said ‘The record company have heard it and want you to stay on the record.’ The label were really happy and said we should do an album together.

“Within a couple of months I went from having been at college studying restoration to having a single out, made an album and suddenly we were massive pop stars.”

Oh yes; it all went ballistic in 1981 and 1982.

Alison and Vince, as the synth-pop duo Yazoo, got to number-two in the charts with the ballad Only You, while Don’t Go peaked at three. And then, like a Roman candle, it was over almost before it had begun. Yazoo broke up after 18 months.

A solo career, which followed in 1984, proved even more triumphal, however. Debut offering Alf (her nickname from punk days) topped the album charts and produced three hit singles, including All Cried Out, which got to number eight.

Along the way, Alison had son Joe and combined single-parenthood with the life of a somewhat reluctant pop star, rarely socialising with anyone in the industry.

Fame had been like the birth of the universe: a big bang from a standing start.

“Absolutely. I’d never even had ambitions to have a solo career. It was all unexpected and all of my achievements outdid my ambition, which is really strange.”

Was her aggression, in those days, a shield to protect a slightly vulnerable core?

“I think it’s that, and then it’s also about how you learn to communicate. You learn that in your family, and I come from a very combustible family. It was loving and it was loyal, but you did what you were told to do the minute you were told to do it – at volume.”

Has that upbringing moulded her as a mum? (Apart from Joe, 24, who recently graduated from Cambridge), there’s 21-year-old daughter Alex (at Cambridge herself) and Caitlin. 13.)

“Yeah, I think it does. I think that when I was younger I was certainly very quick to ignite and it was something I always found unpleasant as a kid, and has been one of the biggest things I’ve worked on.”

Here’s another condescending query. The singer’s recently talked about issues from the past such as agoraphobia and depression, which seems brave considering her appreciation of privacy. She’s also had to field continued questions about weight, including recent weight loss. Twenty-five years ago, dealing with such prying would have been hard, wouldn’t it?

“When it comes to weight, I feel no shame about my various forms, but I have got to a point in my life where I think ‘Do you know what? I’m a middle-aged woman now – I’m 48 – and since I was eight years old I’ve had people commenting on my body. Enough!’ Which doesn’t mean to say I’m rebuffing the question – I’m happy to have the question asked of me – but my answer now would be that the only person with any business about the shape of my body is the person I’m sleeping with! As I’m not looking for new contenders, it shouldn’t matter to anyone!”

Wild horses won’t drag from her the secret of shedding the kilos.

“Let them (sections of the media) speculate what I did – just like they did when they said I ate all the pies. My career has not been about my body, and I don’t intend it to be about my body. I’m no cleverer than I was; I’m no more talented than I was; and I want more than anything for it to be inconsequential. Like I say, I’m middle-aged; it shouldn’t matter. I’m not about to do a fitness DVD or diet pages!”

Her Revisited tour, marking the singer’s silver anniversary as a solo performer, is complemented by two albums – a 20-track The Best Of: 25 Years Revisited CD and an 11-song version featuring new interpretations of Alison’s favourite songs from her back catalogue.

In ye olde days, she described herself variously as an oddball, fiery and argumentative. How about today?

“I’m in a pretty good place now. I like who I am. I think I’ve got a lot of compassion, and I’m reasonable and I’m loving. That’s where I got in the end, and I got there through a lot of reflection.”

Alison Moyet is at Ipswich Regent on Wednesday, November 11th

Moyet moments

• Sang at the Live Aid concert in 1985
• Was married to hairdresser Malcolm Lee and had a relationship with tour manager Kim McCarthy
• Has now been married to David Ballard for well over a decade
• He’s credited with curing Alison’s agoraphobia by taking her to football matches at Southend!
• The singer lives in Hertfordshire
• Made stage debut in the West End production of Chicago in 2001, playing Matron “Mama” Morton
• Alison’s Labrador, Tilly, is named after Steve Tilson, a former Southend player and now the club’s manager
• The singer reunited with Yazoo colleague Vince Clarke last year for some live dates

Comedian Ed Byrne puts the success of his new show down to his personal happiness. He tells James Rampton why.

Lovable stand-up Ed Byrne is in the form of his life.

Don’t just take my word for it though. The critics have been queuing up to praise his dazzling new show, Different Class.

One enthused that “his wit won deafening cheers and feet stomping,” another said that “tickets for his shows are like gold dust”.

He’s been called “masterful” and “at the top of his game”. It’s enough to swell a comic’s head.

The good news for us in Suffolk is that Ed Byrne is bringing Different Class to the Ipswich Regent on November 10.

And having spent an hour in his company I can testify that Ed is just as charming off the stage as he is on it. He possesses a genuine magnetism which he exudes like one of those force fields in an old episode of Star Trek. It is a real pleasure to spend time with him. It’s like being treated to a command performance to an audience of one. 

Ed, who hails from Swords in Dublin, starts our interview by assessing why his Different Class is striking such a chord with audiences.

He thinks they are lapping it up because he reveals so much about himself in his act. What is appealing is how candidly the comic discusses everything from his recent wedding to his frustration at only thinking up the appropriate bon mot long after the moment has passed.      

“The best comedy comes from a personal angle,” declares 36-year-old Ed, who has shone on numerous TV shows including Have I Got News For You, Mock the Week, Never Mind the Buzzcocks and 8 out of 10 Cats.

“Sometimes you hear a comedian on stage saying, ‘I’m single,’ and you think, ‘no, you’re not, you’re married with kids!’ I think it makes a great difference if as a comic you can take your own life and tell the truth about it. If it’s real, it makes it so much better. It gives it much more authenticity and has far greater punch.”

The Irishman, who married in 2008, continues that, “you could be accused of self-indulgence, but my experience has been that audiences really like it when you reveal something of yourself on stage. It’s not funny unless they believe it.

“For instance, one section of Different Class that goes down very well is where I talk about my status. I discuss the difficulty of neither being massively famous nor totally obscure and how strange it is simply to be known as ‘that bloke’. The audience really enjoy the feeling of getting to know me better.”

One of the many outstanding sections of the show, which completely sold out during its month-long run at this year’s Edinburgh Festival, concerns Ed’s recent wedding.

He extracts loads of laughs from highlighting the numerous rip-offs in the wedding industry. He jokes, for example, that, “the best thing is that since I’ve been married, I haven’t had to plan a wedding!”

He also wants to congratulate the man who invented the tradition that the groom should never see his bride’s dress before The Big Day: “I want to shake his hand for getting us out of that particular shopping expedition. ‘Honey, nothing would give me greater pleasure than watching you try on infinity wedding dresses!’”

Ed reflects that in this part of the show, “I’m not slagging off my wife; I’m slagging off the wedding industry. Everyone can relate to the minor frustrations that any wedding involves, such as arguing about stuff that you don’t really care about!”

In this show, the comic also proffers some very strong material on that perennial obsession: the class system. Ed comes up with some great lines about it. “Pheasant is posh,” he muses at one point, “even if you eat it with Alphabetti Spaghetti!”

He observes that, “we’re all fascinated by the subject of class, and there’s a lot of comic mileage in it. It’s a leitmotif that runs through the show. The funny thing is, when I asked the audience in at the Riverside in London, ‘who would call themselves middle class?’, only one brave soul usually puts his hand up. I can’t believe that in an affluent West London there is only one middle-class person!” 

Ed is delighted that Different Class is quite rightly receiving so much acclaim. He tries to appraise quite why it has chimed with audiences to such a degree. “I’ve been reliably informed that this is my best show yet,” he smiles. “It’s partly down to experience.

More than anything, though, as mushy as it sounds, it’s down to the love of a good woman. That really helps my comedy because it means I’m freer to focus on it.

“In 2004, a lot of my show was centred on my bitterness about a previous girlfriend. It was cathartic, but at the same time it wasn’t very fair, as she wasn’t there to stand up for herself. That style didn’t suit me. I think what I’m doing now suits me much better.”

The stand-up adds: “I’m now leading a life that lends itself much better to comedy. I’m doing lovely things like getting married and reporting on that and audiences seem to warm to it.”
Never more than a minute or two away from the next joke, Ed concludes with a mischievous grin that, “of course, if my wife ever left me, I’d end up doing the divorce show, and it’s quite possible that that wouldn’t go down very well at all! People prefer me when I’m happy.”

Ed Byrne will be at Ipswich Regent on Tuesday November 10 to perform his live show, Different Class, the DVD of which is released on November 23.

Curtis is taking a new look at old favourites.

Curtis Stigers played Ipswich’s Regent Theatre on October 17th. LoveMusic chatted to the singer about his new album and love of performing.

Curtis Stigers started his musical career in punk bands.

He said: “I wasn’t from a musical family but there was always music around. We were always listening to music in the car and I became a fan of music early on.

“Added to which there was a good music programme at my school. I played punk rock after school and clarinet and saxophone during the day and that’s how I got into jazz.”

Now 44, for two decades, Curtis has demonstrated time and again that the lines between jazz, pop, soul, rock, blues and even country are not as clearly defined as they may seem and the vocalist-saxophonist-songwriter has spent the past several years cementing his reputation as a formidable jazz performer.

He said: “One of the great joys of what I do is being able to hear past the common perceptions about songs – based on a well-known original recording or a classic arrangement – and get right to the issue of whether it’s a great song or not.

“In the end, it’s a matter of answering some simple questions. Is it honest? Is it real? Is it emotional? If all those basic elements are there, it’s amazing how easily some very disparate songs can fit together.”

His latest album – Lost in Dreams - was released at the end of September.

He said: “When I started talking about making this record a lot of people were telling me, ‘We love that you do these modern songs as jazz tunes, and we love the way you’re really pushing the envelope in that regard, but it would be really great to hear you sing standards.

“So I decided I would just do it. And not only would I make an album of standards, but I’d do the most obvious, overdone standards. I’d do the ones I said I have hesitated to record because they’ve been done so many times, or the perfect version has been done already.”

And Lost in Dreams includes standards like My Funny Valentine, Bye Bye Blackbird and In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning as well as jazz renditions of Annie Lennox’s Cold, Ron Sexsmith’s Reason for Our Love and John Lennon’s Jealous Guy.

Curtis added: “As the album of standards was coming together, I started falling back into my old habits.

“I love the idea of finding songs by modern composers and modern singer-songwriters – songs that no one ever thought of interpreting in a different way – and then doing just that. Very seldom do people hear a song by John Lennon and say, ‘Hey, that could be a really swinging jazz tune if it were done a different way’.”

The father of one said the four-week UK tour is a chance to perform – something he loves to do.

He said: “I know a lot of people are turned off by jazz but I love to communicate with the audience and make mu-sic for people. That is the whole point of what we do. We have a good time and we are entertaining.

“What I like about what I do for a living is that it’s never boring. It’s always changing – from song to song, from gig to gig, from album to album.

“It’s always a surprise – not just to the audiences and the critics and the record company and the publicist, but to me too. Every time I sing a song, something in it surprises me. There’s always something I hear that’s new.”

Did you know?

Curtis Stigers recorded a track for the soundtrack to the Whitney Houston film The Bodyguard.

Q & A

What is the highlight of your career so far?

“Tomorrow night – every time I get to play to an audience is a highlight.”

What’s the best thing about being a musician?

“I get paid to do what I would do for free. I adore being on stage.”

What car do you drive?

“A 1997 Nissan Pathfinder.”

Do you have a diva demand in the dressing room?

“Yes, a pint of real ale.”

What have you been up to today?

“Promos and interviews, I went out for a curry last night and I’m out tonight for dinner with some friends.

Punk band The Adicts prepare for Ipswich gig

For more than 30 years Ipswich punk rock band The Adicts have performed, toured and recorded with the original line up. JAMES MARSTON meets Kid, the band’s drummer.

KID Davison is like any other father of four. He’s anxious his young son cycles carefully to football, he likes playing with the family dogs. 

But Kid is also a rocker and has been for more than three decades.

The drummer with the punk band The Adicts, Kid, 48, of The Avenue, Trimley St Mary has travelled the world, played to thousands, and loved music all his life.

He said: “Music is on all the time. I don’t watch tv, I listen to music. Me and Pete are brothers, our old man was in the forces and was stationed in Suffolk so that’s how we ended up here.

“We have always been into music and punk, we had our first band which was called The Dumb and then a band called The Afterbirth. Then we met Monkey and Mel and we formed in late 1976 early 1977 and the original line up has stayed.

“Everybody asks how we’ve kept the original line up but we have just evolved, we’re like anyone else we have our fights but it’s more like being in a family, we have grown up with each other.”

Kid likes the description of cabaret punk for their act.

He added: “We were brought up on punk, in the early 70s there was lots going on, there was glam rock, heavy metal, there was a lot of outlets on the music scene and when I was a teenager there was punk.

“We are an amalgamation of everything, we’re not scared to mix it up, we play anything.

And writing music for the band is a collaborative effort.

Kid added: “Me, Pete and Monkey have always been the songwriters and in the studio Pete likes to do the production.”

On Thursday (August 13) the band will be performing in Ipswich at the Regent theatre’s circle lounge, tickets are available from Out of Time Records in Fore Street.

“It is a warm up gig because we have got some shows coming up, last year we played the corn exchange, we all live in different parts of the world so it’s good to meet up. We also have a new album coming out this month called Life Goes On.

Kid said: “People can turn up if they like and see what happens, we like to break the rules.”

Back in the 1970s the band was initially a youth club band performing in Ipswich and later cutting its teeth at the town’s Manor Ballroom.

Kid said: “It took us three years to get a gig outside of Ipswich. When we did we went to London and played at the Brecknock Club in London and we got banned.

“We took two coach loads of fans with us and I don’t think London was ready for Ipswich.”

Kid admits the band have had their “fair share” of the rock and roll lifestyle.

He added: “We’ve seen a lot of passers by over the years but we’ve all still got our hair and we’re still rocking. It is hard work and late nights and punk rock doesn’t pay the bills.”

A charity support worker, Kid said touring can be very hard work.

He said: “We were away a couple of months ago for three weeks in a van and as soon as we get back I go back to work so there’s no down time.

“The Adicts isn’t our main source of income and the tax man loves me. But we don’t do it for the money. We have played for ten people in Coventry and 10,000 people in Mexico and been mobbed.

“We work in Europe a lot and we do big shows in Spain and we’re very popular in California. I have been recognised in an American supermarket which was funny, it doesn’t happen in Trimley.

“It is a buzz, we can talk about the travel and the hard work but as soon as you get on stage it is all worth it and the adrenalin flows.”

Above: The band are led by Keith 'Monkey' Warren, known for his joker-style make-up

The band’s new album is released this month. It has 13 songs.

Kid said: “It is a mish mash, there’s love songs and songs about daily living, we have never been political we are a little bit more subtle and we do have a message in some of our music. It is not direct though.

“We also re-recorded our first album Songs of Praise. We first recorded it in 1981 in Stowupland in one day.”

With their distinctive look and dramatic stage act, The Adicts continue to stand out from other bands.

Kid said: “We did the look we use because we were bored of the blackness of punk which had become very regimented by the 1980s, you have to have a Mohican and a black jacket.

“If we had more money we would do more theatrical shows. We have confetti candles and beach balls and stuff, we have always liked the glamour side of entertaining, we put effort into our show.”

The Adicts will perform at the Ipswich Regent Circle bar on August 13. Doors 7.30pm.  Support will be from local bands Suspect Device and Dangers Close. Tickets £15 from Out Of Time records in Fore Street.

Q & A

What’s the highlight of your career been so far?

“We’re still doing it. The next gig maybe.”

Do you have any unfulfilled ambitions?

“I’d like our music to be more recognised, the band name has been a hindrance though because of the drug overtones. We have got better over the years, I’m not sure why though. I’d like one of my songs to be made into a hit.”

What car do you drive?

“I don’t have a car, I walk. I don’t have a mobile phone either.”

What are your hobbies?

“My dogs Deedee and Tallulah the labrador.

Do you have a diva demand in the dressing room?

“We’re a Jack Daniels band and Pete likes energy drinks but we’re not divas. We’re thankful for anything.”

The Line Up

Keith “Monkey” Warren

Mel “Spider” Ellis

Pete Dee Davison

Michael “Kid Dee” Davison

John “Scruff” Ellis

Dan Graziai

Did you know?

In May the band played to 10,000 people in Novi Sad, Serbia.