| Smash 5 |
| Robert Elms: I remember feeling for a moment, don't know what year it was, when Gold and True and all those were coming out that, "Oh they've sold out" this wasn't what we were doing, this isn't what we started out doing. But you can't keep doing the same thing. And Gary and Dagger and all that, always wanted to be a big, big band. Janet Street Porter: Well you can't really moan about Spandau Ballet wanting to become a commercial success. I mean why the hell do you go into pop music in the first place. You don't become a pop star to sell no records, you don't become a pop star not to be worshipped by millions of teenage girls. Good luck to them. Martin Kemp: Girls run at you, you know and they chase your car you drive to Wembley, they scream and leave lipstick marks on the windows. And that's what you want so when it's happening, it's kind of like living in the dream, yeah. I mean I wouldn't change it for the world. It was fantastic. Gary Kemp: It's much harder to actually write songs as that success goes on because you spend 24 hours a day on tour on in the studio with the band. There isn't the sort of real world, real life going on to draw upon. Martin Kemp: I don't think I realised at the time but the pressure on my brother to come up with song after song after song, hit after hit after hit, was enormous. Gary Kemp: It wasn't until Through The Barricades where I spent a period of time living in Ireland that I could draw upon a different set of influences. With Through The Barricades, that was obviously a song written specifically about Belfast and my experience living in that city. [Through The Barricades - video] Through The Barricades was Spandau's last hit. They never broke back into the British Top 10. Robert Elms: I think by the end of the '80s and by the end of Spandau they'd very clearly ran out of steam and I think all sorts of things were going on, there were lots of tensions within the band, and I'm sure Gary would admit that he kind of lost it as a song writer for a period there. It had all got very big and far from their roots. Steve Dagger: Pop music is a cycle and things become fashionable and things become right for a certain time, and I think by towards the end of the '80s the cycle had moved on. |
| Gary Kemp: For me as a song writer I was beginning to lose my enthusiasm to write for the band, to take whatever ideas I wanted to do and to squeeze them back into that format, that box. And I think also we'd been living and breathing with each other for so long now, there was a really a sense that I wanted to have a look at something else. [Video Clip - The Krays] Gary Kemp: Martin and I decided to play Ronnie and Reggie in The Krays. I think that frightened the other 3 into feeling that the movie might be successful and we might not want to go back and do another Spandau record. It's hard for five guys to stick together that long creatively without some friction. Spandau Ballet played their last live concert in March 1990 in Edinburgh. Gary Kemp: When a group splits up or isn't as successful anymore, there's a lot of bitterness and people are looking for reasons why that lifestyle has been taken away. Steve Strange: I think in a sense the split was so, was so, I mean they split into two very different camps and so much so that I'm right in saying that the three don't talk to the other two now, which I find very sad because they were such a strong group of people and such strong friends. Six years after the band split they were reunited in the High Court when Hadley, Keeble and Norman sued Gary Kemp for song writing royalties they felt they were owed. Gary Kemp: It was certainly a difficult thing to accept. To have three old dear friends who I’d experienced the greatest moments of my life with suddenly calling me a liar and a cheat. Richard James Burgess: Resentment builds up in the band because the person who writes the songs becomes much richer than the people who don't. Unfortunately that's just the way it is. Tony Swain: Suddenly this band that were the best of friends are actually split through income. Robert Elms: They say wherever there's a hit there's a writ and they had lots of hits and suddenly there were 3 writs, and I thought that it was very sad that they were led to this. It did to some degree tarnish what had been a fantastic story. |
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