Spandau Ballet cut a long story short

Spandau Ballet put a bitter breakup behind them to hit the road again, writes Ed Power

IT’S A strange thing when a beloved band reunites after a nasty, apparently terminal falling-out. A case in point are Spandau Ballet, the early 1980s ‘New Romantic’ cheerleaders who disintegrated amid a bitter court battle in the late ’90s only to regroup, seemingly stronger than ever, in 2009.

How to explain this unlikely turnabout? The prospect of a lucrative comeback tour undoubtedly played its part. But, as the group will tell you, and a fascinating new rockumentary confirms, for these poster-children of Thatcher’s ’80s, it was never simply about cold, hard cash. While the media painted them as pretty boys, as they saw it, they were a culturally significant force: the missing link between pop and rock, style and substance, art and commerce.

“We were the musical spearhead of a dandy movement called the New Romantics,” lead singer Tony Hadley opined recently “It was pretty avant-garde and shocking. This wasn’t pretend dressing up, we were serious about our music and the fashion. We were surrounded by writers and designers who were serious about what they were doing too.”

Along with Duran Duran and Visage (fronted by the late Steve Strange), Spandau Ballet bridged the divide between the grim ’70s and glitzy, lucre-splashed ’80s Britain. With hits such as ‘Gold’ and ‘Through The Barricades’, they perfected an irresistible mash-up of catchy and sincere (their music has certainly aged far better than that of many of their peers), topped off with an easily-worn glamour. They looked good AND could play their instruments. In a way, that was far more subversive than anything the Sex Pistols offered.

“People said we were Thatcher’s children, but were weren’t,” says drummer John Keeble. “We grew up in the post-war era, with real deprivation. Our parents went through a lot. We were Harold Macmillan’s children, is who were were.”

Starting in 1979, when they were just out of school, success was immediate and breathtaking. Across a decade, the group notched up 23 hit singles and sold 25 million albums (they were lucky to come of creative age in an era when people paid for music). They weren’t coy about their superstar status either – turning up at the Band Aid recording sessions in a Rolls Royce and chartering private jets for their world tours.

It got wild, Hadley later recalled. There was booze and, of course, girls. Awkwardly, the singer was newly married. Being in a relationship has never stopped male musicians enjoying the perks of fame. Still, Hadley was, to name-check one of his biggest songs, determined to stay true. His solution, he would tell interviewers, was creative to say the least.

“There were always so many beautiful women throwing themselves at us,” he said last year. “One time, we had 40 models in our hotel suite — someone had called an agency and invited them along. We were mobbed everywhere we went and it was tough to resist all that temptation, so the best thing to do was get so pissed I couldn’t have done anything anyway.”

Critically, Spandau Ballet were initially dismissed as pouting primadonnas.

However, hindsight has been kind to their legacy. Their fusion of fashion and art may be seen as blazing a trail for modern genre-straddlers such as FKA Twigs (her music is nothing like Spandau Ballet’s — yet she knows it is important to look the part as much as sound it). And their silky aesthetic demonstrated that you can take your songwriting seriously even as you blasted to the top of the charts.

In the mid ‘80s, they fetched up in Ireland, living in Dun Laoghaire on a one-year tax holiday. Here they made the acquaintance of Bono as well as fellow ex-pats Def Leppard (members of Spandau Ballet actually contributed vocals on Leppard mega-hit ‘Pour Some Sugar On Me’).

But then, just as it seemed the band would become stalwarts of British rock, it all fell apart. Tensions between Hadley and guitarist Gary Kemp boiled over. Kemp embarked on an acting career without talking to the rest of his group about his plans (brother and bandmate Martin joined him, winning a spot on EastEnders). Ten years on, Spandau Ballet stared across at one another in a courtroom as two-thirds of the line-up sued Kemp over royalties.

The rump of the band were ultimately unsuccessful in their legal quest and, with astronomical lawyers’ fees to be paid, faced certain bankruptcy. Outside the court, they appeared almost on the brink of tears (to be fair, so did Kemp).

“The publishing dispute between Spandau Ballet members concerning royalties was a stressful time, financially,” recalls Hadley “When you lose such a big court case, as I did, you’ve got to pay out a lot. It cost me hundreds of thousands.”

However, the bad blood would eventually diminish. In a radio interview in mid 2000s, Hadley let slip that he might be open to a reunion (he really just said it to get the DJ off his back). The next morning the papers were full of Spandau Ballet speculation. Feeling they owed it to each other to at least give a comeback a shot, Hadley and Kemp met in a bar.

Initially, the atmosphere was tense. All of their recent communications had been via solicitors.

As the drinks flowed, though, some of the starch went out of the conversation. Hadley had a few home truths he needed to convey. Kemp, it turned out, felt exactly the same. Things got heated, then mellower. By the end of the evening Spandau Ballet were back.

“You couldn’t make it up,” said Keeble, who brokered the peace negotiations. “If you were to make a movie about a band — with all the drama and everything — you wouldn’t get something as mad as what we went through.”

You don’t have to take Spandau Ballet’s word for it. Their rise, fall and rise again is chronicled in the gripping Soul Boys of the Western World. Recently released on DVD, the documentary, directed by George Hencken, conveys the scale of their success and the bitterness of the falling out and, above all, why their music means so much to so many.

“We started at school, signed a record deal and tried to take over the world; imploded, made up again and ended up playing the Isle of Wight,” says Hadley. “We have got a story.”

• Spandau Ballet play 3Arena, Dublin on Tuesday

Them’s The Breaks –  Groups Who Fell Messily Apart Only To Get Back Together

THE STONE ROSES

When John Squire departed The Stone Roses in 1996, his bandmates did not appreciate it (drummer Reni had left the year previously). For more than a decade, the group refused to contemplate getting back together. However, that is exactly what they did in 2012 with a tour that included a concert at Dublin’s Phoenix Park. Their previous Irish gig had been at Pairc Uí Chaoimh, Cork, in the summer of 1995.

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND

Lou Reed was known not to suffer fools — or anyone else for that matter. So there was surprise verging on incredulity as the original line-up of came back together in 1993. It was not a harmonious victory lap, however, with the fault lines that had led to their original dissolution surfacing once again.

THE SEX PISTOLS

John Lydon approached the return of the Sex Pistols in 1996 as a situationist prank more than a sensible career move. He wanted, it appeared, to take the group down from their pedestal and show the world they were nothing more or less than an especially angry rock band.  THE EAGLES

By the late ’70s, Eagles shows were literally ending in punch-ups between the band members. However, time — and the promise of a vast payday — heals all, as demonstrated by their return with 1994’s Hell Freezes Over tour (named for the conditions under which the group would get back together, according to drummer Don Henley).