Billy Currie

Actor

Born: April 1, 1950 (age 76) · Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England, UK

William Lee Currie (born 1 April 1950) is a British multi-instrumentalist and songwriter from Huddersfield, England. He is best known as the keyboard and strings player with new wave band Ultravox, who achieved their greatest commercial success in the 1980s.

Currie was born in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire and had an interest in music from an early age. As a child he sang a lot and at the age of ten he got a guitar. In 1961 he picked up the violin at school and also sang in a choir. A year later he was in the school orchestra, but had to change instrument to viola to get a place at the Huddersfield School of Music, which he joined in 1965. In 1969 he had qualified for a place at the Royal Academy of Music in London for further education, but decided not to go. In 1974, Currie left Ritual Theatre to join the glam rock band Tiger Lily on viola and keyboard. In 1976, after several name changes, the band ultimately became Ultravox and recorded three albums, Ultravox!, Ha!-Ha!-Ha! and Systems of Romance, before singer John Foxx left to pursue a solo career in March 1979.

During Ultravox's subsequent hiatus, Currie dedicated himself to different projects. He collaborated with Gary Numan who had admired the Systems of Romance album and asked Currie to record some songs that were included on his first solo album, The Pleasure Principle. Currie toured with Numan's band during 1979. From 1980 to 1986, Ultravox released seven top 10 albums, including a live album and a "greatest hits" compilation and featured in Live Aid in Wembley Stadium on 13 July 1985. During the last days of the band, there were tensions between Currie and Ure. With an underwhelming response to their 1986 album U-Vox, the band effectively disintegrated.

Currie is noted for his use of analogue synthesisers, such as the Elka Rhapsody, and in particular his trademark soloing sound, which typically consisted of soaring fluid lines on an ARP Odyssey, making use of oscillator sync, later re-created with the Oxford Synthesiser Company OSCar synth. Currie's original instrument whilst at music college was the viola, and he frequently added solo violin or viola to the arrangements of songs he played on, a relatively unusual choice in pop music. At the height of Ultravox's career, Billy Currie's keyboard rig included a Yamaha CP70 electric piano and SS30 string machine, CS80 synthesiser, a PPG Wave 2.2 digital synth, a Sequential Circuits Prophet T8 synth as well as his trademark ARP Odyssey. Other synths used by Ultravox included the Moog MiniMoog, Yamaha GS1 (the pad sound on "Lament") and Emulator II sampler.