Shockwaves rang through Tin Pan Alley yesterday with the news that singer Tony Hadley was quitting 80s pop toppers Spandau Ballet.
In a cryptic tweet Hadley blamed his departure on “circumstances beyond my control”, taken by many to mean yet another pointlessly painful legal spat between Hadley who sang all of the band’s 80s twenty plus hits and the brothers Gary and Martin Kemp who having written them have trousered most of the group’s enormous global income.
However in an exclusive interview with Rochdale Herald’s weekly music supplement, Hadley confirmed that the split was less down to litigation and more down to the relentless encroachment of age and changing fashions.
“We have to face reality: we’re less new romantics than old cynics, more Monchengladbach mobility scooters than Spandau ballet and not so much “Gold” as “puce”,” mused Hadley stroking the ivory hand grip of his customised Zimmer frame.
Hadley confirmed that he had indeed had enough of the brothers Kemp but that his departure was more due to the feeling that the songs of the band’s 80s heyday were getting a little stale.
“I was beginning to feel like Bill Hicks when he said ‘let me plaster on a fake smile and run through this shit one more time,” he explained
“All that 80s white-socks-meet-white-faces-crap just isn’t relevant any more, and the rest of the group weren’t into my suggestion of covering Adele and Ed Sheeran numbers,” explaining that they might be shit but at least they get to headline major festivals.
“The way the Spands were going we’d be lucky to get a tour of working men’s clubs – At least I’ve got the Bernard Manning waistline for it, but the rest of them in their gold lamé jackets and bad hair pieces, will look a right bunch of old tossers,” he laughed.
