Spandau Ballet have a new compilation out spanning their early years and to promote it, Gary and Martin Kemp have been lifting the lid on the band’s beginnings.
Gary – the older brother by two years – formed the band in 1976, after seeing the Sex Pistols at Islington’s Screen On The Green.
“I had been in a band with some older guys, but I left the day after seeing the Pistols,” he told Will Hodgkinson of The Times. “(I) formed a school band with John Keeble (drums) and Steve Norman (guitar and saxaphone). We needed a singer. There was this kid who was 6ft 4in, not that liked because he was a bit of a bragger… but he did have a leather jacket.”
That kid was Tony Hadley. Brother Martin came in after a suggestion by the boys’ mum. “My mum insisted on it,” says Gary. “And we were sick of the roadie (ie Martin) being chatted up by all the girls in the audience.”
“I would go to bed dreaming that one of them would have a terrible accident so I could drop the equipment and get up on stage,” adds Martin. “I don’t think Gary really wanted me following him around.”
The band were originally called The Gentry, but would be christened Spandau Ballet by Robert Elms after a graffito the writer and scene theorist had seen in Berlin. By then Billy’s, the club launched by Steve Strange and Rusty Egan was up and running, which was succeeded by The Blitz.
The Blitz became Spandau’s playground, a creative space to sharpen ideas and nurture ambition. “I remember being at the bar, thinking ‘this is our moment,’” says Gary.
“These kids weren’t interested in watching a band; they were the entertainment. Out of that came conversations on what we could do differently.”
A key influence on The Blitz was Bowie and, of course, in May 1980, the man himself turned up at the club looking to cast some Blitz Kids in his new video. “I was worried that Bowie would nick our ideas... which he did. He did Ashes To Ashes dressed as a Pierrot and got Steve Strange suckered into it. I felt it was our turn, not his.”
Clearly, it was a competitive scene. “It was a critical mass of ambitious people pushing themselves into self-belief. I remember doing a photoshoot in a squat in Warren Street,” says Gary.
“When Boy George shouted down the stairs, ‘I can sing much better than your f***ing singer!’ I shouted back, ‘Form a band then!’ He obviously did.”
