Sheffield's Heaven 17 (above), pictured in 2009 before their gig at the Magna Centre in neighbouring Rotherham. heaven17.com
A decade before Heaven 17's glacial synthpop narrowly missed out on a number 1 hit with Temptation, Martyn Ware was messing around in Meatwhistle, an arts-based youth club paid for by the Labour council which ruled Sheffield in the 1970s.
"I've got a lot to thank them for," he reflects. "It provided a safe environment for us to experiment with music and arts, free from the fear of embarrassment. We always treated it as a joke with a serious intent – it was a fantastic breeding ground for talent, and without it I know my career would never have happened."
Ware met fellow keyboardist Ian Craig Marsh and singer Glenn Gregory at the club, and their early years saw the band slalom around the city, from former engineering shops on Devonshire Lane, where many of their formative recordings were made, to various empty premises with peppercorn rent rates.
"I remember my dad worked in the steel industry, but he liked writing poetry," he says.
"It was a place for working men's art, if you like. I think there's a real element of that in Sheffield, and we should be proud of it. The city should be proud of it and it should be publicised far and wide, because Sheffield’s far too self-effacing about it."
The chart-topping band in the 1980s. heaven17.com
He left when he was 21 and has lived in the South for more than 30 years, but he says he feels "more connected to Sheffield than people who live there."
"It's changed a lot, but it's getting really good now," he reckons. "There's a lot of new architecture, but it's kept a lot of character. I'm very fond of the City Hall. We played there for the first time recently, and it has a lot of happy memories for me."
Rare and Racy, the shop which Ware says "helped me form my musical taste", is still there under the same owner – a fact, he confesses, which thrills him as much as his recollections of Second Hand Records, where he learnt "the breadth of my musical knowledge."
He also professes adoration for the spate of local parks, despite being "an urban kind of guy, which I think is reflected in the music we create."
"The sounds of the steelworks were something that went into our psyche in a very deep way," he philosophises. "The current music context there is as good as ever.”
The band played Sheffield's City Hall for the first time in April 2010
He cites dance mecca Gatecrasher's pivotal role, and picks on the South Yorkshire attitude as both a quality and flaw for local bands.
"There's a prevalent way Sheffield bands act – shoot first, ask questions later. I love that," he explains.
"It's not just about the Arctic Monkeys – there are so many bands out there who are really trying to make things happen.
"I don't necessarily support them just because they come from Sheffield, but I would say that a high proportion of stuff I get sent from there has a definite edge.
"Sheffield young people don’t need much in the way of encouragement – they're burgeoning young tykes who are extremely happy to do things on a shoestring, and they sometimes lack the knowledge or ability to massage the funding system in the way that people in the South-East do.
"That works to their detriment occasionally, because they don't always get the support and funding that they deserve, but I would suggest that they really could do with it."
If the City of Steel becomes the City of Culture tonight, Ware might just be the happiest synth star around.
"Anything we can do to put Sheffield on the map on a national and international level would be thoroughly deserved, in my view," he finishes.
"I know I'm biased, but I really believe that."
Follow Culture24 tonight for the announcement of the winner of the UK City of Culture 2013.
