The Eighties was a decade in music which produced an astonishingly eclectic array of characters who all made inroads into the charts and who are still remembered some 40 years later.
Thomas Dolby, he of the hit single She Blinded Me With Science, was one of the more interesting ‘stars’ of that era. A pioneer of electronic music, Dolby was never your average pop star.
Aside from a musical career which has seen him play at Live Aid with David Bowie and pick up five Grammy nominations working with artists such as Joni Mitchell and Def Leppard, he has also been a consultant for tech start-up companies and seems to have a hand in every emerging entertainment platform, from laser disks and computer games to interactive TV.
A tech expert and digital film maker, since 2014 he has held the post Professor of Music for New Media at Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Institute in Baltimore.
This weekend he will be at Manchester Apollo as part of his first UK tour in more than a decade, a rare opportunity for fans to reconnect with a true pioneer.
“Goodness, I can’t think when it was the last time I was in Manchester,” he said. “It’s been a while.”
This summer Thomas has been part of the Totally Tubular Festival tour in the States appearing alongside other artists from the Eighties including Bow Wow Wow and Tom Bailey of the Thompson Twins.
“That was a very different kind of tour,” he said. “It was very much a Rewind type package (Rewind is a retro festival which has proved hugely popular in the UK). It was a lot of fun but the audience probably knew a couple of my songs, they weren’t my hardcore fanbase.
“With my own shows, it’s less about the better-known songs they may have heard on the radio, although I still play them, and more aimed towards the deeper cuts that astonishingly they still crave after all this time.”
Thomas is both engaging and self-deprecating throughout our chat.
“With a tour like this, you have to allow yourself and the audience a little bit of slack,” he said. “We’ve all grown and evolved since back in the day and rather than just going all out to try and replicate everything that was there, I prefer to recreate the songs as they suit me to play and sing them now.
“I’m not a 20-something singer any more so in some cases you have to change the keys and thing. The biggest change is to focus on the story and the substance of a song and less on pumping out the energy.
“A lot of my songs have a back story and an individual atmosphere and I try to focus on that a little bit.”
Given he has achieved so much in so many different areas - Thomas was behind the original Nokia ringtone for example - how does he see himself; musician? Entrepreneur? Composer? Businessman? Educator?
“I think it would begin with poly but I’m not sure what would come after that,” he laughed.
“But I do enjoy dabbling in these different things. When I try something new I don’t kid myself that it’s natural and native to me. I like to learn and discover.”
Pushing the boundaries and trying something new have always been part of his make-up. When he was topping the charts, the easy route would have been for him to continue with more of the same.
“I know a lot of bands who hit a winning formula and stuck with it and I’m sure the businessmen from the record company would have liked me to do the same. But I’m always looking for what’s new and also there’s a little bit of me going off in a different direction just to be a bit awkward.
“I certainly don’t look back with regret. If I could wind the clock back there’s not a lot in my life I would do differently.
“I think I have been able to make some good choices. I have done lots of different things; I’m very drawn to new things that I don’t understand. I find it exciting and stimulating to learn a new skill and explore something. I suppose it’s like being a traveller who wants to go to new places each time rather than go back to the same place.”
Given the importance technology has played in his career, you would presume that Thomas may have been the geeky science nerd at school.
“Actually,” he laughed, “I’m not a science geek. I was never really into science or maths at school. I was more into the arts.
“But there was something about the regalia that appeals to me; the idea of the lone boffin as a lifestyle choice, especially if it is a little bit underground and subversive.
“But I’m way too impatient to be a scientist, I just want results.”
It is now 13 years since Thomas released his last album, A Map of the Floating City, which received great critical acclaim and which he regards as one of his best works, but which generally flew under the radar. But is any new music likely to be forthcoming?
“I really don’t know to be honest,” he said. “I don’t know if the body of work I have done is my legacy or whether I have got another chapter in me in music.
“I think it would have to be something different. Maybe a film project that needed songs writing. Or, as people are often saying I have influenced many contemporary artists, maybe I could be like Leonard Cohen or Johnny Cash and produce an album of collaborations. Who knows?”
As well as touring, Thomas has recently published a novel Prevailing Wind set in pre-war New York and the activities of the New York Yacht Club.
“I really enjoyed the whole process of writing, but again that was something new for me.”
Thomas Dolby, Manchester Ritz, Saturday, August 17. Details from www.thomasdolby.com
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