| Gary Kemp Interview on Granada |
| GTV - Spandau Ballet, its hard to believe it’s 20 years since they had their first hit, which is making us all feel very old. But the good news is that Gary Kemp is here live. Yeah, it’s caused quite a stir let me tell you among the women in the office today. But before we have a chat with Gary about the good old days, let’s take a look at what made the brothers Kemp so unforgettable. (Spandau Ballet footage shown) – Look at that, so cool eh? GK – Yes (laughs) GTV – He’s not gonna disagree with that, is he? Do you hate every minute of that? GK – Best thing that could ever happen, isn’t it? You know, ever since I was 11, I wanted to be on Top Of The Pops and be in a band and then the band’s successful and then it goes on for 10 years. No it was a great opportunity just 5 working class guys from London and you know, I played guitar, we all played our instruments, we weren’t sort of put up as puppets. GTV – What was going through your mind say, when we saw that? GK – I mean that’s a clip over the whole 10 years, Initially, you have your ambitions and we were very much a cult band at the beginning, part of this whole new movement that was coming out of some clubs in London, New Romantics it ended up being called the Blitz Kids. GTV – But what about those outfits? GK – Well, yeah, but you know, we’d wear that to go out in you know that wasn’t just what our band wore, you know, and that you’d walk out onto the streets in London and you’d see some kids wearing that, some kids as punks, some teddy boys. It was quite mad. GTV – So, from a very working class background what did your mum and dad make of seeing you going out dressed in a kilt with the curtains round your neck, or whatever it was? GK – My father was a teddy boy, you know he wore red drapes when he was in the 50s. So I think he knew what we were doing, yeah. GTV – And from your kind of background getting involved in acting at an early age at Anna Scher, that was a very unusual thing to do wasn’t it? GK – It was by chance that it just so happened that Anna Scher appeared running this little club, after school. We weren’t, sort of had pushy parents who sent us to drama school. And we ended up being kind of cast as genuine Cockneys, and my generation was like Cathy Burke and Phil Daniels, Pauline Quirke and Linda Robson all came out of Anna’s that year.. GTV – This must have been fantastic, you switch the television on and see your mates all the time. GK – Yeah, it was just a lucky thing that happened but at the same time I was making music and I always wanted to be, preferred to be in a pop band and then of course I got my brother in. GTV – Good choice! Did you get on, you two? GK – We really get on you know, when we were away on tour for 10 years it’s like having a little bit of your home with you the whole time, I mean we would fight. GTV – What would you fight about? GK - Well it just lets steam coz it is kind of traumatic being trapped in this world, and travelling about, I mean it looks fantastic, but you know… GTV – And when you see the Gallagher brothers, I mean, does your heart go out to them coz that’s again two brothers that you know, a bit of tension sometimes?, GK – No, I can never stop thinking how lucky we were and really, I love my brother and we were just so lucky to be where we were. So we didn’t go round moaning too much GTV – With it being Olympic year though obviously it’s a good time for a Spandau revival, obviously Gold being the classic athletics number. GK – I’m not gonna get the band back together, I don’t think there’s much chance of the Band getting back together, I think we were synonymous with the moment. You know and being in a band it’s being in a gang and I don’t want to be in a gang now, but I loved it then. And I think 1990 came along and we knew it was sort of maybe time for us to set aside and I just wanna leave it alone really and look back on that little moment we did book-ended by the decade. GTV – So is there more acting now? GK – Just finished a film for Filmfour called ‘Dog Eat Dog’ I still write music, I like making music, but I bounce between the two. GTV – And the ‘Best Of Spandau Ballet’ is out now is it? GK - It came out on Monday, so you can get it, yeah. GTV – We’ll be there queuing up, we’ll send you a copy and you can send it back to us autographed, please – Gary, thank you very much. GK – Thanks a lot. |
| Transcript of an interview on Granada Reports in 2000 |
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