Nuts about our crazy music days
Pals Holland and Almond may have mellowed but they still like to laugh
JOOLS Holland and Marc Almond are almost crying with laughter as they take a trip down memory lane.
They are reminiscing about the time Holland nearly lost his job after showing Almond in the nude on daytime music TV programme The Tube in the 1980s.
“Marc came on The Tube, and there was an incident where I barged into his dressing room with a camera, which was truly spontaneous, it wasn’t planned like it is these days,” Holland recalls.
“And of course poor Marc was completely unclothed, which caused outrage, there were all sorts of letters of complaints coming in and I was nearly sacked, all because of Marc. Somehow it was all my fault he didn’t have his clothes on!”
“It was, after all, a teatime show, it wasn’t post-watershed,” Almond notes.
“It was Andy Pandy, and then there’s Marc, naked!” Holland laughs.
Heaven forbid at such a stunt happening to Holland now on his BBC2 stalwarts Later... with Jools Holland and his annual New Year’s Eve Hootenanny: it must be a kind of a relief to look back at a time of brazen carelessness and juvenile hilarity.
Composer, former Squeeze rocker and TV presenter extraordinaire, Holland and Soft Cell frontman and award-winning solo artist Almond both now in their early 60s and with decades in the music industry under their belts - are happy discussing their wilder days in the hedonistic 1980s.
This was an era of real rock and roll antics, before social media took over and before artists hoping to make more than a few quid had to adhere to stricter rules and schedules and contracts.
But they are also content to embrace this time in their lives, with its more serious focus on the music and which has resulted in their first collaborative album after years of performing together.
“We started to become friends once Marc came on tour with us, because you see much more of one another and go through the trials and tribulations, the giddy highs and the lows,” explains Holland.
“When we first met, I was certainly aware of Soft Cell and thought they were great back in the early 80s. We were probably in New York at the same time when Squeeze was there and Soft Cell were there at one point.
“But we were probably so busy getting off our nut we weren’t really aware of it!”
Holland, fresh from last weekend’s Glasgow gigs, adds: “It’s a young man’s game, being wild, but if you’ve been fortunate enough to have a history of that sort of thing, and love having boyish fun, it’ll come out once in a while, although it’s much less often.
“We’re more often having some tea and cake than we are anything else.”
Almond agrees that “once in a while it comes out”.
“But now, especially when you’re touring and working so much as Jools and I am, there comes a time when you have to be much more disciplined about yourself, otherwise you’re just
not going to make it, you’re not going to last,” he reasons.
Of his earlier days in synthpop duo Soft Cell with musician David Ball, Almond admits: “I’m amazed I actually got through it - everything was always shambolic, and when things are shambolic it’s always terribly stressful and exhausting.
“You’d be exhausted by being shambolic. And by being unprofessional.”
He continues, of his relationship with Holland: “We’ve been working in music for about 40-odd years now.
“It’s actually a great thing to say because we both survived in music and we both realised that you can’t do that anymore, you have to have a different way of approaching things.”
Survive they both did, Almond through his Soft Cell days and then his remarkable solo career, which has resulted in more than 20 studio albums and more than 30 million records sold.
Holland’s career has been equally triumphant, with his seemingly endless conveyor belt of records and collaborations and tours and, of course, his long-running music TV shows.
They have now combined their talents on new album A Lovely Life To Live, which they admit was a long time coming after their many years on the road together.
The album is a mix of covers, including a big band version of Soft Cell’s Tainted Love and a haunting rendition of Edith Piaf’s Hymne a L’Amour, along with a handful of original songs written by the duo, all backed by Holland’s Rhythm and Blues Orchestra.
“Marc would come out and do the odd show with us at the turn of the century, which always went really well,” Holland explains.
“He’s got that thing, that ability to release the power of his voice, and also personality, which is quite a unique type of quality in a performer. We loved working with him.”
A Lovely Life To Live is out now, and the tour continues until late December.