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Catching up with Mike Score of A Flock of Seagulls
By GINA VIVINETTO, Times Pop Music Critic
© St. Petersburg Times, published August 4, 2000
Mike Score, lead singer of the early 1980s band A Flock of Seagulls, knows he'll always be remembered as the British guy with the funny hairdo singing I Ran in the classic MTV video.
Score, now 48, hopes his new balding, paunchy look won't disappoint fans.
"I was cute as a button back then, wasn't I?" Score says from a tour stop in Charleston. "Do you know what I've been doing for the past 20 years? I'll tell you what I've been doing, I've been getting old and fat."
Score laughs recalling those New Wave days, but he knows nostalgia for them is all the rage right now.
"It's fun," Score says. "It puts money in the bank, that's for sure. I'm a nostalgic person, too, so I understand. Of course, that's not where my head is now, but people love it."
Score warns fans coming to Ruth Eckerd Hall not to expect the heavily sprayed, wacky, winged I Ran hairdo.
"I don't do the hair anymore," Score says. "I suppose if I sold a couple of million albums and sold out big stadiums, I'd consider doing something stupid with my hair, but I'd have to get hair transplants first."
A Flock of Seagulls' hits Space Age Love Song and Telecommunication celebrated love in the "futurist" age of high technology.
"I was a little space cadet then," Score says.
But behind the synths and space age love was Score's heavily melodic songwriting.
"Well, obviously to me the songs sound dated," Score says, "because I remember writing them all those years ago. But I think they've held up well."
I Ran and Wishing (If I Had A Photograph of You) are staples of retro 1980s radio programming.
"I knew Wishing was a classic the moment I wrote it," Score says (though he says his favorite is Space Age Love Song).
Still, Score says he'll probably be remembered more for the hair than the tunes.
That's fine with him.
"It's better to be remembered for a stupid hairdo than to be forgotten."
At a glance: '80s Flashback Tour with Wang Chung, A Flock of Seagulls, Missing Persons, Gene Loves Jezebel at Ruth Eckerd Hall, 7 p.m. Sunday . Tickets are $19.80-$35.