Interviews
After successfully touring Syd-era Floyd songs, it’s time to add some post-Syd songs.
Although some eyebrows arched in April last year when Nick Mason announced Gary Kemp as the guitarist for his post-Pink Floyd band A Saucerful Of Secrets, the 60-year-old from Spandau Ballet has proved to be an inspired choice for a group sworn to “capture the spirit” of Floyd’s Syd Barrett era. Kemp previews the band’s latest tour and also their multi-format concert release Live At The Roundhouse.
When did your love affair with progressive rock begin? It started at grammar school. The working-class kids liked Bowie and Rod Stewart, and the middleclass ones had things like Five Bridges [by The Nice] and Gentle Giant. I was a working-class, culturally aspirational boy, and the first time I played music in a band I was twelve years old and we jammed all day on [Floyd’s song from 1968] Set The Controls To The Heart Of The Sun. So playing it last year in New York with Nick [Mason] and Roger Waters was a very strange experience. As a young guitarist I fell in love with Steve Howe and Steve Hackett.
You seemed to have kept that close to your chest. I probably didn’t talk about it that much unless I was asked. Prog wasn’t everything for me. My brother Martin [Spandau bassist] and I loved everything from Roxy Music to punk to Chic. The first time I heard [Floyd’s] See Emily Play was on Bowie’s PinUps,
and there’s a line that can be drawn from Syd Barrett, Ziggy Stardust and Johnny Rotten and on to Joy Division.
Plenty of people were surprised when you joined Saucerful Of Secrets. Yeah, but it was the same feeling when people learned I would play Ronnie Kray [in 1990 film The Krays]. Sometimes you just have to take [the astonishment] on the chin, because I knew I was going to be good enough. I wouldn’t have been cast if the director didn’t like me.
Did you already know Nick Mason by then? I wouldn’t call him a close friend, but I knew him pretty well through Guy [Pratt, Floyd and SOS bassist]. Guy and I have been buddies since the 1980s. He introduced me to David Gilmour.
Nick appears quiet and reserved, but with a mischievous sense of humour. Have we got that right? You’ve summed him up perfectly. He’s not a brash showman, none of the Floyd are. But he’s very, very funny. We’ve a real camaraderie, it’s not just a bunch of session players. It’s certainly not a tribute band.
Critics have praised the attention to detail in the performances. Were there a lot of rehearsals? Everything that’s any good must be rehearsed, but
I really believe we have given these songs new wings.
Live At The Roundhouse documents the first year of touring. Will the band now mix up the material? Yeah. We’ll still play a lot of the same tracks, but from here on in also doing [post-Syd songs] Echoes and Burning Bridges has been talked about.
Might there be an album of all-new material? I don’t know. I wouldn’t write off the idea. Obviously this year is blocked off with touring, but in the future who knows?
Where does being a part of this band feature in your career? Right at the top. I’m proud of the songs I’ve written, but as far as live performances go this is the best thing I’ve done in my life.
But Spandau was your band? As time goes by you become more comfortable in your skin. With Spandau I was in my twenties; this feels like a band I can be in at my age.
The band’s latest tour begins in Dublin on April 29.