Blancmange: 'That's what I do - mixing up the everyday with the slightly surreal'

“I just want to get on with it; you don’t know how much time you’ve got, do you?” confides the 64-year-old in broad tones that have lost none of their Lancastrian origins.

Newly re-signed to London Records, Arthur recognises that “the world is a very different place” to when he and then bandmate Stephen Luscombe first had such hits as Living On The Ceiling and Don’t Tell Me on the major label back in the 1980s, although politically things have not changed that much. “But don’t get me on to that load of b*****ds,” he chuckles.

At this stage in life, he feels it’s his duty to be as productive as possible. “I’m lucky,” he says. “Many people either don’t have a job or don’t enjoy their work. I am one of the few that can say I really enjoy doing what I do – although contrary to what you might think about somebody who makes music, it’s hard work, actually, in terms of financially, I don’t mind saying. It’s hard work trying to make it all add up, but it’s what you do.”

Arthur intended to make Blancmange’s new album Private View as “multi-faceted” as he could. “We could sense in the songs that Benge and I chose to finish off that there was a quite a broad palette there of electronic noise, and emotively I think it was quite broad as well, taking into account the lyrical content,” he says.

“It was interesting coming off the back of Commercial Break which was specifically an album that reflected the time we were all unfortunately going through during lockdown. This is an album that was bound to be influenced by that, but it’s not about that; it’s about what might come next. For better or for worse the world is moving forward, and I don’t necessarily mean that’s always positive, but I’m trying to take a positive view that we have to go there.”

Where the political element might have been “thinly disguised” in some of his work, it’s “particularly prevalent” on the new record. Nonetheless, Arthur says, he “wants people to enjoy the groove” of Private View. “I’m not particularly there venting my spleen, it’s other observations,” he says. “Sometimes thinly disguised and sometimes mixed up in bits of surrealism.”

The song Everything Is Connected examines the everyday. “I’ve always done that lyrically, right from God’s Kitchen,” Arthur says. “That’s what I do – mixing up the everyday with the slightly bizarre. I enjoy wordplay, right down to the title of the album. It could be my private view, it could be your private view, it could be a private view. It could be that the private view remains private, you never know. But they’re just songs; there’s far more important things going on (in the world) than that.”

The song Here We Go Go dates back to the 1980s. “It was started in 1987 and I could never finish it,” Arthur says. “It clicked shortly after the tour last autumn. I finished it in December. I had a chat with my manager Steve Malins and he said, ‘That’s got to go on the pile’. Benge thought it was worth having a go at too.” It’s the longest he has ever taken to complete a song, he says. “There is a song called ‘Iddy Biddy Creepy Crawly’ that I started before that, but I don’t think it will ever get finished, I can’t be bothered. I’d rather write a new one, but (Here We Go Go) seemed worth doing.”

Private View is the eighth album that Arthur has made with Benge, the Cornwall-based producer and musician born Ben Edwards. “Benge is great,” Arthur says of their partnership. “He likes a pint, he likes a laugh, he knows everything there is to know about analogue synths and he’s a great friend. He’s just brilliant to work with, very open to ideas which I think you’ve got to be in the heat of the battle.”

The album also features David Rhodes, who Arthur and then bandmate Stephen Luscombe first met in autumn 1981, when he was playing guitar for Japan. “It was before we had a record deal and Stephen and I had been allowed a bit of time off work, and we went on tour supporting Japan. David came up and introduced himself when we played at the Coliseum at St Austell and he brought us some of Japan’s rider, so he was a friend for life, and he continued to do that every night throughout the tour,” Arthur says wryly. “He came and played on our first three albums in the 80s and we remained friends. I’ve done marathon running with David and we’ve had marathon drinking sessions as well. We’ve done some stuff together over the years and to have him play on this album was just brilliant. He’s a great guitarist and a lovely man.”

Although Luscombe retired from the band a decade ago due to ill-health, it’s evident that he and Arthur remain close. “I keep in touch with Stephen an awful lot with text, ridiculous emails and phone calls,” Arthur says. “I send Stephen the stuff we’ve done. I recently sent him the Quartz album by Fader (Arthur and Benge’s side project) because there’s a reference to him. The song Serpentine is a description of a day I spent with my lovely friend.”

Arthur seems to be enjoying rekindling his relationship with London Records. He remembers they had always been supportive of the group in the 80s, although he admits: “There were a couple of raised eyebrows when we said we wanted to do an ABBA song (The Day Before You Came). ABBA weren’t seen then like they are today back in 1983. ABBA would have got a very different reception in those days, they were out of favour, but not for me and Stephen. I adore ABBA, I still do.”

It leads him into a reverie. “I’m sitting here in the studio and I’ve actually got the cassette that influenced the choice to use The Day Before You Came, the very one that we listened to all those years ago,” he says. “It’s a reminder to me all the time of what an amazing band they were. I was brought up with ABBA. When it was our turn to do the house chores at the weekend, setting the fire, cleaning the grate out, polishing the brass ornaments, the music that was on was Johnny Cash Live at San Quentin and then it moved on to ABBA. So ABBA was the music that we cleaned the house to. When my mum and dad invested in a really good stereo, a Pioneer, we’d have the big speakers on and even though my mum had the hoover on, we could still hear it. Hoovering to ABBA,” he laughs.

Private View is out now. Blancmange play at The Wardrobe, Leeds on November 24 and The Leadmill, Sheffield on November 25. http://www.blancmange.co.uk/