Spandau Ballet: Once More

One of the most 80s of British bands, Spandau Ballet are to release a brand new single and album, both titles Once More, in November.

This comes after a long gap during which half the band took songwriter Martin Kemp to court, and they undertook various solo projects, Gary acting in Eastenders being the main one. Tony also wrote an autobiography, To Cut a Long Story Short.

In the states, SB only had 3 Top 40 singles .... "True", "Gold", and "Only When You Leave". Shame really, but the the UK does tend to get the best music. I'm not familiar with anything else by them as I've never listened to a whole album. I just hope they're as good as they once were. What little I know of them, I really like. "Gold" is up there in my Top 50 songs pf all time.

Apart from those 3, the other main ones to check out are To Cut a Long Story Short, Musclebound, Chant #1 and possibly Lifeline, and maybe 1 or 2 others.

Turns out the album will actually just be a compilation with the one new track, to coincide with the tour, which I think kicked off the other night.

misery guts wrote: Tony also wrote an autobiography, To Cut a Long Story Short.

And from the department of updates - I have just finished reading this book!

TH paints a story of an ordinary lad from a normal suburb who finds that music is his destiny, and after a few bandchanges, finds himself lead singer in Spandau Ballet.

After some success with their 1st album, things go wrong on their 2nd. But they bounce back with their high watermark, the 'True' album, and subsequently 'Through The Barricades'.

But as the 80's draw to a close, band relations sour, and Martin Gary Kemp takes all the songwriting credits (and money). TH is not happy, and even less so to realise the high-spending band have little left to show for their success. When he and 2 others sue for their share of the money, they lose. And when they try to tour as "ex-Spandau Ballet" to make some money to pay court costs, they get sued again.

Ultimately, TH comes through it all a wiser man, and on the back of winning 'reality' show, 'Reborn in the USA' in 2003, he finds himself back on the up again, at which point he is bemused to be offered a deal to tour with SBallet again. Having made strides as a solo performer, he is reluctant to put that on hold. And so the book ends.

Of course, the band did reunite (eventually), but it's salutary to note that SBallet belong in the box with The Jam and The Smiths, as acts who realised their togetherness was not as strong as money.

In fact, it wasn't Martin who wrote the songs, it was Gary. He also wrote a book which I've just finished reading: 'I Know This Much : From Soho to Spandau'. Published in 2009, it opens with the court case, and then details Gary's story, how his early songwriting received approval from a local Bishop who gave him a tape recorder, and how the New Romantic scene took Gary and the band into the charts, before a change of horizons led to their #1 smash 'True'. After Live Aid and the 'Through the Barricades' work, things started to deteriorate, and making a film about the Krays pretty much brought the curtain down.

Kemp writes fluidly and with the wisdom of maturity and experience. His songwriting struggles are well explained, as are his culture adventures with the Blitz crowd, and his romantic ups & downs. Happily, he is able to wrap the story up with the reformation of the band, set against the deaths of his parents.

I enjoyed this book more than I might have expected to. Gary is clearly in a lot happier place these days, his earlier pressures having been largely resolved. If I could pick at anything, he does have a tendency to give in to interminable lists of names, and he also suffers from the worship of brand names. But the musical parts of the story are all interesting, and that's just as well.

Reformation
From their 2009 tour, at the O2 Arena, a 2 hour burst featuring all their major hits (not 'Musclebound') and several others. Tony mentioned a few times how pleased he was to be back together, and how it shouldn't have taken so long. What Gary thought about that was left to the imagination. They had some help on backing vocals from Dawn Joseph, who deserved credit.

As this reunion was now 5 years ago, I imagine they didn't make any more plans for new material.

Watched an interview with Gary Kemp the other night, and he seems much as usual. He reckons there might be a new album out in 2015, and the buzz of reformation was for their live shows, where they were much greater than what their records were like.

He also talked of a film biopic of the band, 'Soul Boys of the Western World', which is presumably on release later this year.

misery guts wrote:He also talked of a film biopic of the band, 'Soul Boys of the Western World', which is presumably on release later this year.

The premiere was last night. The lads reformed for a show to promote it, too

True Gold
A tribute show of sorts, as the band performed 6 of their hits, and chatted about the highs and lows of their story. The film is going great guns, apparently. It seems that Gary wrote "True" about his then-squeeze, Clare "Altered Images" Grogan. "Gold" seems to have moved up alongside "True" as their biggest hit.

True, by Martin Kemp (2000)
So that's 3 band members with books. Martin's story runs from his disappointments from work, joining his brother's band, ups and down with the band, the success of the Krays film, more ups and down in pursuing an acting career, trouble with 2 brain tumours in the mid-to-late 90s, and then joining the cast of soap opera EastEnders. It's ironic that the book ends as he arrives there, since he had a successful few years in it. He was married to Shirlie (of Wham's backing singers and in their own right fame Pepsi & Shirlie), who proved a great rock during his serious illness. There is some amusement towards the end, after several anecdotes where people confused him with Duran Duran, he made friends with John Taylor, the similarly hedonistic Duran bassist.

I did find a copy of their "True" album last year, which was fun.

In lieu of new material or dates, Martin Kemp will be one of the regular judges on new BBC talent show "Let it Shine", looking for talent to star in a new Take That! musical. I doubt a Spandau Ballet musical is coming any time soon.

Bizarrely (or not, given their history), it was announced the other day that singer Tony Hadley had left the band again:

Hadley cuts ties

Singer Tony Hadley says he has left 1980s pop group Spandau Ballet, and "will not be performing" with them in the future.
In an oddly-worded statement, the star said: "I am required to state that I am no longer a member of the band".

Even more strangely, the rest of the band claim he wanted out of the band from last September, so presumably some disagreement about the direction of projects seems to be the case.

The rest of the band are now looking for a proper replacement for Hadley:

Spandau Ballet say Tony Hadley is not welcome back to the band

They're promoting a new 45-minute film, Through the Barricades, about making the 1986 album of that name.

Tony's got a new single Tonight Belongs To Us out, so he sounds happy enough in this new post-Spandau phase.

Spandau Ballet, meanwhile, have apparently found their new frontman:

Ross William Wild

Singer and actor Wild will officially join the group when he performs hits like Gold and True at their gig at London's Subterania club on 6 June.
He met the group's bassist Martin Kemp when they both appeared in the Million Dollar Quartet stage show. Wild played Elvis Presley in the 2016 UK tour.

Hadley's solo album is out this week.

Wild this week talked about his brief time in the band, and its demise:

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/spandau-ballet-ross-william-wild-082926926.html

Rather a shocking turn of events   At least he seems to be in a stronger place now.

Meanwhile, Gary & Martin Kemp have worked on a new comedy-documentary called "All True", which I look forward to seeing soon.

Piers Morgan's Life Stories: Martin Kemp
This 2013 interview covered the young Martin's early acting, how he was drafted in to his brother's nascent band, how they hit the big time, but split in 1990 partly so the brothers could make The Krays film. Then there were the court cases, the reunions and so on. The 2009 reunion came in the wake of the Kemp's parents dying within a short time of each other. Martin has also done some directing, and his acting career has been more successful than his brother. Speaking of which...

The Kemps - All True
Rhys Thomas' new pseudo-documentary covered the brothers Kemp, in various mocking ways. Some facts were amended for laughs (in the above doc, Martin talks of how he has 3 kidneys, whereas Gary only has 1 - in this version, Martin had 5 kidneys, and donated one to Gary at the end). Some of the jokes worked better than others (eg getting other celebrities in to record versions of Spandau hits, but they only want to do True - led to a tired one-dimensional joke about Sia not being able to see through her wig etc). The real problem is that Gary is really not a pleasant person, so the comedy has to work around that.

Tony Hadley announced a tour for 2022, marking 40 years in the business, although I'd have said it was longer than that.

Gary Kemp meanwhile has a new solo album out this week, called "In Solo" and has somewhat confirmed that Spandau Ballet are finally finished.

misery guts wrote:Gary Kemp meanwhile has a new solo album out this week, called "In Solo" and has somewhat confirmed that Spandau Ballet are finally finished.

The Great Songwriters: Gary Kemp
Perhaps belated, but Gary talks again about his early songwriting, wanting more to write his own songs on guitar than to have to learn other people's. He links the origins of True to Al Green, but also a John Lennon/Beatles song called Dig A Pony, plus the infamous novel Lolita. He then discusses Through The Barricades, before moving on to his solo projects, and working with Nick Mason, before performing both Ahead of the Game and Waiting For The Band (both quite good, to be fair).

My Life at Christmas, with Adrian Chiles - Martin & Shirlie Kemp
A seasonal series ostensibly with a religious bent, but also covering life and times. Martin and Shirlie live in Hertfordshire and are heavily pro-Christmas. She had a happier upbringing than he did. She of course was a backing singer for George Michael and in the Last Christmas video. George used to send a hamper to his friends every year, which they miss. Having children put a stop to her music career, and when music fizzled out, Martin turned to acting, and had his brush with death. They come across more likeably than his brother, for one thing...

misery guts wrote:The Kemps - All True
Rhys Thomas' new pseudo-documentary covered the brothers Kemp, in various mocking ways. Some facts were amended for laughs (in the above doc, Martin talks of how he has 3 kidneys, whereas Gary only has 1 - in this version, Martin had 5 kidneys, and donated one to Gary at the end). Some of the jokes worked better than others (eg getting other celebrities in to record versions of Spandau hits, but they only want to do True - led to a tired one-dimensional joke about Sia not being able to see through her wig etc). The real problem is that Gary is really not a pleasant person, so the comedy has to work around that.

The Kemps - All Gold
A sequel to the above, and about as funny. Gary wants to launch a ballet in honour of the band, Martin gets thrown out by Shirlie and moves in with his brother, they have to steal their master-tapes (with help from Chris Eccleston) and re-record them, then plan a big New Years concert with Francis Rossi, which doesn't work out. Gary's charmlessness is one of many hurdles the project cannot overcome.