Mark O'Leary Sheffield Scene

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"The Sheffield scene was a primordial influence in my early synth band. When I joined the synthpop band the first material we started to play was from The Human League, primarily from the Dare album. One of the keyboard players started playing a medley of Human League themes and riffs arbitrarily and we just joined in, so the very first set we had, were all Human League songs. The Human League's; rhythm patterns, motifs and synth textures, were highly influential and provided us with a foundation that helped us develop our material at the very beginning and for us to become a band. As the music evolved, we would extemporize, within parameters, and we all had note books and would note what riffs, patterns and sequences worked, after we started working on original music we had a tea break and I mentioned to the lads we should call the band Voltaire. The chaps liked the pseudo intellectual connotations, albeit, the reason was the music had evolved and was now inspired by Cabaret Voltaire who were receiving prodigious airplay on MTV and all the band were watching MTV, I love Crackdown, one of the best videos/songs of all time and Fascination, I Want You and many others, totally brilliant, they were very influential and provided us with our name and the next tier in our musical development was playing music that was evocative of Cabaret Voltaire and they also provided us with our musical direction." Mark O'Leary

Uploaded: 2026-03-02
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