Of the bands I loved in the 1980s, there are few bands that produced music that I still enjoy as much today as I did when I first heard them. Go West is on that short list of bands I still love to listen to whenever I get the chance.
So when I found out that one-half of the Go West duo, guitarist and vocalist Richard Drummie (shown in photo on right with guitar), was willing to do a brief email interview I was ecstatic. The band is having an incredibly busy 2011 with the recently released Frame by Frame DVD, which collects all of the band's many promotional music videos; the third installment in the three-part 3D CD release; and most importantly, the upcoming 3D Live Tour, which kicks off in December. My thanks to Drummie for the interview.
The Frame by Frame DVD collection includes the two of you sharing recollections of making the videos. Were you surprised by how the memories (you've done a lot of music and a lot of living since some of those videos) came flooding back and you started recalling long-forgotten nuances?
Yes, I was surprised. That’s what made it fun to do. We didn’t sit down together and watch the videos first and make notes of what would be interesting or funny, we just pushed go and off we went.
Not many people can say they collaborated with Godley and Creme on a video; can you talk about working with them and what kind of creative lessons you took away from such collaboration?
I was a really big 10cc fan--all the early stuff especially. I saw them live six times and my favourite video was "Every Breath You Take," so I was seriously happy to be working with them. They were very nice, funny and very seat of your pants. They seemed to have a framewor,k but a lot of decisions were made on the set. For instance, by a post production technique it was possible to replace the blue background with anything. Sharks swimming, clouds, stars in space – anything!! But they decided they liked the blue and left it as it was. They worked very much as we did in the studio, colouring in on the fly.
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