Spandau Ballet reformation? (1 Viewer)

[Yee-Ming]

I read in the local papers that Gary & Martin Kemp, Kohn Keeble and Steve Norman are talking about reforming (sorry, pun intended ) Noticeably absent was Tony Hadley's name.

I wonder if it's because in that disastrous lawsuit a few years ago, perhaps Hadley was the ringleader and Norman and Keeble just went along with it. Alternatively, how exactly is Hadley's "revived" career going in the US after he won that reality show about ex-celebs?

So, does anyone know more about this?

Whilst I am a die-hard Spandau fan and would certainly like to see a reformation, without Hadley's distinctive vocals it just wouldn't be Spandau Ballet. After all, it's not as if Spandau had a wizard guitar player on lead, like Van Halen who've changed vocalist several times to no major detrimental effect and who's "signature" is therefore less tied to the singer's voice. Cf Chicago, who found a replacement with a very similar voice. And Duran Duran, in all its incarnations throughout the 90s, always retained Simon Le Bon.

 

[Danny Tse]

No news on the official Spandau Ballet website.

 

[Danny Tse]

In a September 16, 2005 entry on his "diary" at his official website, Gary Kemp expressed that he has given up hope that Spandau Ballet will ever reform.

 

[Yee-Ming]

That's a shame.

I wonder what else they have in the pipeline? The Greatest Hits DVD he talked about would certainly be nice, I still have the VHS from years ago and it'd be nice to get it on a shiny DVD instead.

 

[Danny Tse]

Sounds like Tony Hadley is the only one holding out for the reunion. But since Pink Floyd reformed to perform at Live8, maybe there's still hope for a Spandau Ballet reunion. It's not like Tony Hadley's career is red hot. Given that the group continues to put out new products, I think there's still a demand for them. Look at what happened to Duran Duran when all the original members decided to perform together....

I believe Martin Kemp is doing very well as an actor in the UK.

 

[Danny Tse]

Damn! Double post. Sorry.

 

[Yee-Ming]

I wish. But the difference is that with Duran Duran, there wasn't any real bad-blood between them, IIRC Roger simply got tired of it all and retired to the countryside, not too sure why Andy dropped out but perhaps for similar reasons, and years later the cynic in me says that their bank balances were running a little low and reuniting was a sure way to make some dosh. With Spandau and that lawsuit, I'm not sure that they could "kiss and make up".

Funny how the money aspect of songwriting royalties can be such a factor: as you probably know, Gary was the sole songwriter for Spandau (with one or two exceptions only on their final album), which meant he made a LOT more money that the rest. With Duran, I just had a quick look at the credits on their Greatest album, and during the original five era, all five got songwriting credit equally for all their hits, which would mean they split the songwriting royalties (of course, by Notorious, it was just the 3 remaining members, and so on).

I remember a Queen article, where they noted in the early days, each member would contribute two songs for an eight-song album, to ensure equal songwriting royalties, but even this had its problems, with for instance the Bohemian Rhapsody (written by Freddie) single selling millions, but because it carried a B-side song by one of the others, royalties from that single were split 50-50 when it was obviously a best-seller for the A-side song. Years later (by the time of The Miracle album), they were old/mature enough to decide that ALL songs would now simply be shared by them jointly (credited simply as "Queen"), and they noted that it also made them more collaborative and less "proprietary" when they brought song ideas to the rest of the band.

To be fair to Gary, if the rest didn't have any songwriting talent, it's only fair he got paid for his creations, but you can imagine how much resentment it could have caused the rest.

 

[Danny Tse]

From what I read on the internet, the lone holdout on the reunion is lead vocalist Tony Hadley. Let's face it, each member of the band stands to make a lot more if Spandau Ballet reforms than each of them going at it alone. Didn't Tony Hadley declared bankruptcy several years back? It was probably Tony behind the whole idea of going after Gary Kemp for songwriting royalties and as you know, Tony lost. At this point, when all the other members of the band are ready to reform, I think it's Tony's pride/ego standing in the way.

"True" remains one of the most played song on US radio....more than 4 million times. Not to mention it has been sampled and covered endlessly since its release. It doesn't suprise me Tony is after the songwriting royalties.

 

[Yee-Ming]

Ouch: the problem being of course the vocalist is often the most distinctive element, and this is especially true (pun intended!) of Spandau. You could replace any of the other three (bar Gary, the songwriter) with some other musician and not really notice the difference, but Tony has rather unique vocals.

Shame, really. Perhaps a few more years of not going anywhere with his solo career might make him reconsider? But by then, the retro, 80s revival fad will probably have passed and they would've missed the boat.