At first blush, nostalgia for 1980s post-punk would seem as unwelcome as vintage punks lolling about a San Fernando Valley shopping mall. The dark, often brooding, music of bands like Bauhaus and Joy Division is not exactly the stuff of fond remembrance, especially when much of the punk attitude was disdain for all that came before.
Flash forward: A flash backward.
“Music was definitely more important in the ‘80s than it is now,” said Robbie Grey, singer-guitarist for Modern English. “ I suppose in the ‘80s people looked back on the ‘60s and ‘70s and thought the same thing. I wouldn’t have predicted that we’d still be touring, that’s for sure. But it’s been brilliant fun the last few years.”
Take “I Melt with You,” the hit that made stars of Modern English, a band whose very name suggested the shifting nature of the British post-punk scene. Even though the hook-filled song scored only in the upper end of the Hot 100 in 1983, more than three decades later, it is as emblematic of its era as Reagan, skinny ties and MTV.
“It’s a big thrill,” Grey said of the nightly response that always happens a chord or two into the song at every concert. “It’s still an amazing thing to behold. We played the Philippines a couple years back and people were going nuts. That never goes away.”
The band will get a chance to similarly melt Denver Friday, March 31, when it plays its new-and old-cross section at Larimer Lounge, 2721 Larimer St.
Founded in Colchester, England in 1979, Modern English did not begin with much promise to make the hit charts in Great Britain or otherwise. The band began as a punk act called the Lepers before transmuting into gloomy post-punk angst, or at least having a reputation for it.
Grey stresses that Modern English had always straddled a fence—more picket than barbed wire—between danceable pop and what some might term, “music to take valium by.”
“We were writing stuff like ‘I Melt with You’ from the beginning, along with a darker sound,” the bandleader said. “To get a hit like that was just fantastic. We never complained about that. We’re not stuck up our own bottoms. But fans of that song would be very surprised by the darker ’16 Days,’ its sound effects, and noise, and me screaming.”
Modern English survived the ‘80s with an even mix of accessibility and, lack thereof, mingling the odd pop-rock MTV hit like “Hands Across the Sea” with a starker classic of its kind, “Life in the Gladhouse.” The band would break up and reform several times, sometimes with original members, and sometimes with Grey leading the way with new musicians.
On the current tour, a close approximation of the original Modern English is promoting the band’s latest album, the decidedly true-to-form Take Me to the Trees, produced by Martin Young, formerly of the ‘90s electronic-pop band, Colorbox.
“We wanted to bring everything together again,” Grey said of the album. “We don’t have to worry about money so we can be experimental as well. ‘I Melt with You’ pays all the bills. I think the stuff we’re writing at the moment is even more kind of out of leftfield and interesting.”
After a few years of on-again-off-again ticket sales, Grey says Modern English has found its game in live shows too.
“It seems like the post-punk sound is really big again for some reason. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know,” he said. “For us, it’s very exciting to be touring again and playing for big crowds and having your music kind of acknowledged.”
Still, the audiences in the United States and the band’s native England remain as different in temperament as they ever were back in the day, with exuberant Americans still showing far more enthusiasm than their more refined British counterparts.
“You’re whoopin’ and a-hollerin’ and we’re listenin’ and a-thinkin’,” Grey said.
While the bandleader is content in this revival of ‘80s music, his longing for the decade only goes so far. Talk of President Trump and Britain’s recent Brexit vote to leave the European Union prompts the singer to evoke the politics of the band’s glory years.
“When we were first coming to America, Ronald Reagan was president. That was kind of strange, as an actor, but at least he had some political experience,” Grey said. “With Donald Trump, it’s a very strange time. He probably epitomizes how strange the whole planet is now.”
Modern English plays Larimer Lounge March 31. For more information, visit larimerlounge.com and modernenglish.me. Contact Peter Jones at pjoneslifemusic@aol.com.
