After nearly 20 years, Modern English lead singer Robbie Grey has reunited with original bassist Mick Conroy, guitarist Gary McDowell and keyboardist Stephen Walker.
Unfortunately, original drummer Richard Brown wasn't available for the reunion, Grey said during a telephone interview from his home in England.
"He couldn't do it," Grey said. "But we've got a guy named Rick Chandler. We just did a tour on the U.S. East Coast and he drummed for us then and he was great."
The reunion started when Conroy e-mailed Grey.
"He e-mailed and asked, 'How do you feel about getting the old band back together?'
"To which I replied, 'That sounds interesting.' "
Grey was at his second home in Thailand at the time and found McDowell, who was living just a few minutes away, said Grey. Walker and Conroy were in England, where the band officially reunited.
"The first thing we did was laugh at each other for quite a long time," Grey said. "We hadn't seen each other in years. It was hilarious to see each other in the rehearsal room."
The band started playing its old songs.
"At first it was like, 'Can we do this?' 'Do we really want to do this?' " Grey said. "But once we started playing it was brilliant. It was never not going to happen once we started playing. It felt really nice and all being there together."
Still, there were parts of songs the band had forgotten, laughed Grey. "There are little bits and pieces of songs that we'd sit there and look a bit confused over."
One of the songs the band hasn't forgetten is the 1982 hit "I'll Melt With You."
"It's amazing (the song is) in so many films and so many TV adverts," Grey said. "Basically it's enabled me to pay the bills and not be in debt."
The band also played around with songs from the new CD "Soundtrack," which Grey recorded and released with a different lineup before the reunion.
"That album was written over three or four years, which is why it's got a really good sound to it," he said. "It's got a lot of depth in there, because we weren't under pressure to write something quickly."
Grey decided to record "Soundtrack" the same way he did in the '80s.
"We got the old crew back together," he explained. "I called Hugh Jones, the guy who produced 'I'll Melt With You,' to produce and even got Vaughan Oliver, who did all the artwork on the old albums to do the art for 'Soundtrack.' "
In keeping with the old-school mentality, Grey ignored most of the modern recording methods.
"It was analog microphones, analog keyboards, speakers and guitars," he said. "The only modern stuff on there was Pro Tools (program), which we used on the drums.
"We went for the vintage sound, really," Grey said. "We thought it would be a good approach to keep the earthiness of it — rather than make it all clean and digital."
"Soundtrack" is the first CD Grey recorded in more than seven years.
"I had enough of (music) and stopped playing," he said. "But the lure of it, the lure of creating things and writing lyrics got too strong, and I went back to it."
Grey said his bond with his original bandmates is tighter than it was before they disbanded.
"In the '80s we were just so busy," he said. " There was so much radio, TV and press. We were going 100 miles an hour. Now, we're a bit more relaxed. And it's fun, again."
If you go:
What: Modern English
Where: Urban Lounge, 241 S. 500 East
When: Sept. 15, 9 p.m.
How much: $20-$25
Phone: (801-467-8499, 800-888-8499
Web: www.smithstix.com
e-mail: features@desnews.com