Through the barricades
Spandau Ballet star Tony Hadley chats to MARION McMULLEN about the 40th anniversary of his first release with the band and the tough road to their chart-topping success
THIS much is true... Tony Hadley’s childhood ambition was to be a top surgeon saving lives in an operating theatre.
He laughs: “Then I discovered music, so there are probably a lot of people breathing a sigh of relief out there – Tony the singing surgeon!”
The distinctive voice behind classic hits like Gold, True and Through The Barricades elaborates: “Originally I really wanted to be an orthopaedic surgeon. I can watch an aortic valve replacement and I find it fascinating. I’m a bit weird like that.
“Unfortunately I wasn’t good enough at the maths – you need that for the physics and the chemistry but, from the moment I first sang at Pontin’s holiday camp at Brean Sands, I just knew that music was what I was going to do.
“I met a girl there, we were only kids about 14, and we were on a beach together and she said ‘What are you going to do with your life?’ and I said ‘I’m going to be a singer, I’m going to be a famous singer, a professional singer’. And, I’ll never forget it, she looked at me and said ‘ Yes, you will, I know.’
Spandau Ballet began life at school in London. The band underwent several name changes – Roots, The Cut, The Makers and Gentry – before they settled on the name Spandau Ballet in 1978. It was a phrase Robert Elms, a friend of the group, had seen written on a wall in Berlin.
“We played every pub and club, all the punk clubs, The Roxy in Neal Street, Covent Garden, The Greyhound, Fulham Palace Road, we played everywhere,” remembers Tony. “The Hope & Anchor, that was a great place that was, in Harper Street. We paid our dues before we became Spandau Ballet. The postpunk New Romantic thing I suppose we became part of and, Bob’s your uncle, we signed a record deal. Happy days.”
Spandau Ballet would explode onto the music scene in 1980, becoming one of the UK’s most successful groups of the New Romantic era and selling some 25 million albums worldwide in the process. cess The group has had eight top 10 UK albums and 10 top 10 singles. In 2019 the BMI named True one of the most played songs in history, with four million airplays in the US alone – the equivalent of 22 years of continuous play.
Tony, who turned 61 in June, says as a group they were always confident they would find success.
“It’s an inner thing that I had and that we had as a band,” he says.
“We knew that we would make it one day. There were tears along the way, there always are, the disappointments. Anyone who gets into the music business and thinks it is all Champagne and canapés is an idiot. It’s b****y hard work.
“There are ups, there’s downs. there are rip-offs. It’s a tough business. A lot of young people unfortunately have this utopian view of the entertainment business, the wonderful world of TV, and think it is all lovely and fluffy and believe if they become a famous person they will fundamentally change, but it doesn’t work like that. You’re still the same person with the same hang-ups and everything else.”
Tony says he was inspired from an early age by Ol’ Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra, and was just 17 when he blagged his way backstage at the Royal Albert Hall in London and met the American legend.
“I’m an oik from the Angel Islington and I had more front than Sainsbury’s,” laughs Tony. “I was a pretty out there sort of bloke. I wasn’t afraid of anything.”
Years later, Tony chanced his luck again with the legendary crooner, phoning his LA office to ask if Frank would appear in a video for the song Game Of Love from Tony’s first solo album. He left a message and thought no more about it.
“I got a call back saying (he adopts an American accent) ‘Mr Sinatra is really sorry he can’t be in the video, but he’s on tour at the moment, but that’s so lovely of you to ask and anything else please feel free to phone us at any time’. That in itself, well, I was made up. Frank Sinatra’s office is calling me back. That was a good moment. That was enough for me.”
Tony had aimed to mark the 40th anniversary last year before lockdown, but he is now planning a huge 36-date nationwide tour next year with his TH Band, playing Spandau Ballet and solo material.
He’s come a long way from that Pontin’s holiday camp, but Tony still fondly remembers those heady early days, particularly the one that saw Spandau Ballet sign their first record deal.
“We had a few glasses of champagne and that was the day I also did the vocals on To Cut A Long Story Short. You did think ‘Is this going to be a two-year experience? But there’s still life in me.”
Anyone who gets into the music business and thinks it is all Champagne and canapés is an idiot
Tony Hadley