June 23, 2025 • 8 mins
Dewayne interviews Mike Score from A Flock of Seagulls. They're part of the Lost 80's Tour at the Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory on August 17th.
Michael Score founded the new wave band A Flock of Seagulls with his brother Ali Score (drums), his friend Frank Maudsley (bass), and Paul Reynolds (guitar). Mike played keyboard and guitar, and was a vocalist. A Flock of Seagulls started playing in bars and practiced on top of the hall where Mike worked, until they got a contract with a record label. Soon after that, their debut self-titled album, A Flock of Seagulls, was released in 1982, and achieved international success. In 1983, they released the album Listen, which was quite successful. In the same year, the band started doing shows together with the Police and the Fixx. In 1984, they released The Story of a Young Heart, which was moderately successful. In 1986, the album Dream Come True was met with mixed reviews, and which the band broke up. When Score decided to reform the band again in 1988, the other members refused to join him. He performed and toured A Flock of Seagulls with different members. In 1995, he released the album The Light at the End of the World, which did not perform very well commercially.
Michael Score founded the new wave band A Flock of Seagulls with his brother Ali Score (drums), his friend Frank Maudsley (bass), and Paul Reynolds (guitar). Mike played keyboard and guitar, and was a vocalist. A Flock of Seagulls started playing in bars and practiced on top of the hall where Mike worked, until they got a contract with a record label. Soon after that, their debut self-titled album, A Flock of Seagulls, was released in 1982, and achieved international success. In 1983, they released the album Listen, which was quite successful. In the same year, the band started doing shows together with the Police and the Fixx. In 1984, they released The Story of a Young Heart, which was moderately successful. In 1986, the album Dream Come True was met with mixed reviews, and which the band broke up. When Score decided to reform the band again in 1988, the other members refused to join him. He performed and toured A Flock of Seagulls with different members. In 1995, he released the album The Light at the End of the World, which did not perform very well commercially.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, I'm going to tell you I'm excited to talk
to our next guest that we have here on the
phone with us. This morning. We're going to visit with
Mike from a Flock of Seagulls, one of my favorite
eighties bands. Mike, how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm pretty good, Dwayne, how are you doing?
Speaker 1 (00:13):
I'm doing well, sir. Looking forward to the Lost Eighties
Live Tour, you guys course coming to the Metroplex, you'ld
be a toy Yoda Music Factory and Irving coming up
on August seventeenth. Let's talk about where the band is
at these days. How you guys been. It's good catching
up with you again.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Well, we're great. We're always out doing shows and tours
and stuff like that. So Lust Eighties is quite a
big one. It's going to be a really cool show
this time, you know, with big country and stuff like
that on it. And I think we'll have a lot
of fun.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
I was in high school Mike in the eighties, and
I can remember space Age Love song just pops right
into my brain. I remember that song so well. I
cannot tell you what kind of memories of high school
I cruise in the drag that song brings up the Brothers,
it does.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
It was a good one. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Well, and then of course your signature hit Our Rants
So Far Away, which is both of those songs are outstanding.
You just had that unique sound and that unique look
back at that time.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, uh, you know what, we had to be like
that yet, you know, as far as sound and stuff goes,
my mama was used to say to me, don't coffee
anyone else might, you know, be your own self. And
you know, if you're going to be in a band,
be creative, be yourself. So it's it's quite easy to
be yourself musically, but once you start getting into style,
(01:34):
you have to have somebody to look up to. You know.
We had David Bowie and a couple of other punk
things going on, Billy Idol, stuff like that, so you know,
we wanted to be as immediately noticeable as those people were,
so we had to have some style.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
There were so many giant personalities in the eighties that
I can imagine that would have been a little more
difficult to stand out.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah, partly because of the Hey, you know, we were hairdressers,
so we had maybe a couple of inches ahead of
everybody else. You know, we were doing style before most
people saw them, and we were inventing style and I think,
you know, the haircut really is what a lot of
people went, Wow, have you seen that guy in hair?
You know. Once that happened, it was a case of, well,
(02:19):
I'm just going to keep doing it even more and
more wild until you can't go any further, you know.
And at the same time, the band was building up,
so it went hand in hand. I think the sound
of the band and the look of the band, you know,
created an individual thing, and that's what we were after.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
And you had to have that look because we're all
old enough to remember the MTV era and you had
to be able to have that video pop up on
MTV exactly, you know.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
And MTV was in places where we would never think
that we'd ever play, you know. But when we did
get out to those places, it was the hair that
people came and they said, wow, we saw you on
TV on MTV and you look amazing, so we wanted
to come and see if you're actually like that, and
when they found out we were, that was building the
(03:08):
fan base.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
It was such a good time in the eighties. I
mean it really was. The music really felt good, it
just really captured the essence of that entire generation. I
can remember all of that just like it happened yesterday.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Me too, except for some of the nights exactly. Now.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
We had all the huge success in the eighties. So
what have you been up to the past few decades.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Well, you know, the eighties and the original band split up,
and then I moved to America from England and I
started to put a new band together and we just
you know, we just played around clubs and bars and
stuff like that. There was like a new generation of
music and kids and stuff. To me, it was like, well,
this is still great. I'm still making a living and
(03:53):
I'm still doing what I want to do, you know,
which was play my own music and I'll play it
to ten people or ten thousand. So I was still
really happy. And then over you know, maybe the last
ten years, it's really grown again. The whole eighties sound
and the bands of comeback, and although it's not you know,
(04:15):
top of the pops anymore, it's still we still have
great crowds and we still you know, bring people back
their memories and stuff like that. So it's it's for me,
it's a great time again.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
You know, and that music, including your songs, are recognizable
to an entire new group, a younger generation of folks.
We're figuring that out here on the radio station. I'm
sure when you do a show, you can look out
in the audience and see people who were not even
around when Space Ah Love Song came out.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, and a lot of people, you know, they a
lot of kids. I mean kids. You know. When I
say kids, I'm talking like say fifteen to twenty five.
You know, they they're just discovering us, you know. So
they come up to shows like we're a brand new band,
even though they know there's you know, four or five
six albums out there, and to them, it's it's now.
(05:12):
You know what I'm saying, right exactly, it's their music now.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Thing's changed and just the quality of the music and
the songs actually sound very much in place on the
radio forty years later. They really do.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Strange, isn't it? Yes, it really is.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
I mean if you compare that to something that was
released ten years before, in say the mid seventies, there's
a complete and total difference. And how that transcends from
that generation to this one.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
You know, every generation has to have its own sound
and its own style. So it doesn't mean that the
one before it went away. It's just not the immediate
thing for kids right now. But like I say, we
find a lot of kids they're just discovering us. You know,
we may be forty years ago, but of them it's today.
(06:01):
They just discovered it. I had a friend of mine
in Liverpool and he said, I've never heard of the
Beatles before, you know, And I'm like, you're crazy. That
was fifty years ago, and he said, but I'm just
starting to discover them and they're brilliant.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yeah. So I mean, wherever you be, and that's the
whole idea of it transcending the generations. We still play
Beatles music on this station as well as well as
the eighty I mean, how do you get past that era?
I mean it does just like your music, it goes
from generation to generation. So you've got the tour Mike
going on right now. This is the twenty third year
(06:37):
of the Lost Eighties Live Tour. I mean, there's such
a big lineup with this and we'll talk about that
in just a minute. So what's next? Are you're going
to continue the tour? You guys working on some new music.
You're just going to keep doing what you're doing. Stay
in this lane.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
I'm always working on new songs, you know. In fact,
sometimes touring gets in the way and I'm like, God,
i really have to do something this weekend because I'm
in the middle of writing this song. And you get
into a phase of writing and sometimes touring gets in
the way. But when you're not writing, touring is brilliant
because you're you know, you're giving your music to people
(07:10):
to listen to, and you're having fun on the road.
You know, even though it's tiring. The road is very tiring,
but the gigs themselves are not tiring. They lift you up.
So it's more of the same as I've ever done
and as long as it's acceptable and successful, I'll continue
(07:31):
to do it. Well.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
You get a lot out of that. And it's that connection,
I mean, it's that real connection, that genuine connection with
your fans who were around then and the ones that
are just discovering you now we're looking forward to is
now You're on quite a bill. We've got General Public,
Big Country, the Vapors. I mean, this is just an
eighties to who Icicle works and.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Peter goes, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
I mean, the list goes on and on. This is
going to be such a fun, fun show. And again,
those tickets are available, get those at livenation dot com.
And that show's coming up in Irving at Toyota Music
Factory in August seventeenth. I cannot wait to see you
in concert.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
It's going to be great. The last eighties is always
a good time for the band, and I hope, you know,
the fans seem to love it, so it's kind of
like it's successful. It's growing bigger and bigger, and come
on out and see it, you know.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Mike with a flockacy goals. Man, We appreciate your time.
I know you've got a busy day plan, but it
means so much to me. Anytime I can go back
and connect our music to our audience and getting to
visit with you is really a highlight of doing that,
my friend, Thank you.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
It's great.
Well, I'm going to tell you I'm excited to talk
to our next guest that we have here on the
phone with us. This morning. We're going to visit with
Mike from a Flock of Seagulls, one of my favorite
eighties bands. Mike, how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm pretty good, Dwayne, how are you doing?
Speaker 1 (00:13):
I'm doing well, sir. Looking forward to the Lost Eighties
Live Tour, you guys course coming to the Metroplex, you'ld
be a toy Yoda Music Factory and Irving coming up
on August seventeenth. Let's talk about where the band is
at these days. How you guys been. It's good catching
up with you again.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Well, we're great. We're always out doing shows and tours
and stuff like that. So Lust Eighties is quite a
big one. It's going to be a really cool show
this time, you know, with big country and stuff like
that on it. And I think we'll have a lot
of fun.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
I was in high school Mike in the eighties, and
I can remember space Age Love song just pops right
into my brain. I remember that song so well. I
cannot tell you what kind of memories of high school
I cruise in the drag that song brings up the Brothers,
it does.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
It was a good one. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Well, and then of course your signature hit Our Rants
So Far Away, which is both of those songs are outstanding.
You just had that unique sound and that unique look
back at that time.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, uh, you know what, we had to be like
that yet, you know, as far as sound and stuff goes,
my mama was used to say to me, don't coffee
anyone else might, you know, be your own self. And
you know, if you're going to be in a band,
be creative, be yourself. So it's it's quite easy to
be yourself musically, but once you start getting into style,
(01:34):
you have to have somebody to look up to. You know.
We had David Bowie and a couple of other punk
things going on, Billy Idol, stuff like that, so you know,
we wanted to be as immediately noticeable as those people were,
so we had to have some style.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
There were so many giant personalities in the eighties that
I can imagine that would have been a little more
difficult to stand out.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah, partly because of the Hey, you know, we were hairdressers,
so we had maybe a couple of inches ahead of
everybody else. You know, we were doing style before most
people saw them, and we were inventing style and I think,
you know, the haircut really is what a lot of
people went, Wow, have you seen that guy in hair?
You know. Once that happened, it was a case of, well,
(02:19):
I'm just going to keep doing it even more and
more wild until you can't go any further, you know.
And at the same time, the band was building up,
so it went hand in hand. I think the sound
of the band and the look of the band, you know,
created an individual thing, and that's what we were after.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
And you had to have that look because we're all
old enough to remember the MTV era and you had
to be able to have that video pop up on
MTV exactly, you know.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
And MTV was in places where we would never think
that we'd ever play, you know. But when we did
get out to those places, it was the hair that
people came and they said, wow, we saw you on
TV on MTV and you look amazing, so we wanted
to come and see if you're actually like that, and
when they found out we were, that was building the
(03:08):
fan base.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
It was such a good time in the eighties. I
mean it really was. The music really felt good, it
just really captured the essence of that entire generation. I
can remember all of that just like it happened yesterday.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Me too, except for some of the nights exactly. Now.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
We had all the huge success in the eighties. So
what have you been up to the past few decades.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Well, you know, the eighties and the original band split up,
and then I moved to America from England and I
started to put a new band together and we just
you know, we just played around clubs and bars and
stuff like that. There was like a new generation of
music and kids and stuff. To me, it was like, well,
this is still great. I'm still making a living and
(03:53):
I'm still doing what I want to do, you know,
which was play my own music and I'll play it
to ten people or ten thousand. So I was still
really happy. And then over you know, maybe the last
ten years, it's really grown again. The whole eighties sound
and the bands of comeback, and although it's not you know,
(04:15):
top of the pops anymore, it's still we still have
great crowds and we still you know, bring people back
their memories and stuff like that. So it's it's for me,
it's a great time again.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
You know, and that music, including your songs, are recognizable
to an entire new group, a younger generation of folks.
We're figuring that out here on the radio station. I'm
sure when you do a show, you can look out
in the audience and see people who were not even
around when Space Ah Love Song came out.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, and a lot of people, you know, they a
lot of kids. I mean kids. You know. When I
say kids, I'm talking like say fifteen to twenty five.
You know, they they're just discovering us, you know. So
they come up to shows like we're a brand new band,
even though they know there's you know, four or five
six albums out there, and to them, it's it's now.
(05:12):
You know what I'm saying, right exactly, it's their music now.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Thing's changed and just the quality of the music and
the songs actually sound very much in place on the
radio forty years later. They really do.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Strange, isn't it? Yes, it really is.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
I mean if you compare that to something that was
released ten years before, in say the mid seventies, there's
a complete and total difference. And how that transcends from
that generation to this one.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
You know, every generation has to have its own sound
and its own style. So it doesn't mean that the
one before it went away. It's just not the immediate
thing for kids right now. But like I say, we
find a lot of kids they're just discovering us. You know,
we may be forty years ago, but of them it's today.
(06:01):
They just discovered it. I had a friend of mine
in Liverpool and he said, I've never heard of the
Beatles before, you know, And I'm like, you're crazy. That
was fifty years ago, and he said, but I'm just
starting to discover them and they're brilliant.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yeah. So I mean, wherever you be, and that's the
whole idea of it transcending the generations. We still play
Beatles music on this station as well as well as
the eighty I mean, how do you get past that era?
I mean it does just like your music, it goes
from generation to generation. So you've got the tour Mike
going on right now. This is the twenty third year
(06:37):
of the Lost Eighties Live Tour. I mean, there's such
a big lineup with this and we'll talk about that
in just a minute. So what's next? Are you're going
to continue the tour? You guys working on some new music.
You're just going to keep doing what you're doing. Stay
in this lane.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
I'm always working on new songs, you know. In fact,
sometimes touring gets in the way and I'm like, God,
i really have to do something this weekend because I'm
in the middle of writing this song. And you get
into a phase of writing and sometimes touring gets in
the way. But when you're not writing, touring is brilliant
because you're you know, you're giving your music to people
(07:10):
to listen to, and you're having fun on the road.
You know, even though it's tiring. The road is very tiring,
but the gigs themselves are not tiring. They lift you up.
So it's more of the same as I've ever done
and as long as it's acceptable and successful, I'll continue
(07:31):
to do it. Well.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
You get a lot out of that. And it's that connection,
I mean, it's that real connection, that genuine connection with
your fans who were around then and the ones that
are just discovering you now we're looking forward to is
now You're on quite a bill. We've got General Public,
Big Country, the Vapors. I mean, this is just an
eighties to who Icicle works and.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Peter goes, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
I mean, the list goes on and on. This is
going to be such a fun, fun show. And again,
those tickets are available, get those at livenation dot com.
And that show's coming up in Irving at Toyota Music
Factory in August seventeenth. I cannot wait to see you
in concert.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
It's going to be great. The last eighties is always
a good time for the band, and I hope, you know,
the fans seem to love it, so it's kind of
like it's successful. It's growing bigger and bigger, and come
on out and see it, you know.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Mike with a flockacy goals. Man, We appreciate your time.
I know you've got a busy day plan, but it
means so much to me. Anytime I can go back
and connect our music to our audience and getting to
visit with you is really a highlight of doing that,
my friend, Thank you.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
It's great.
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