“I can’t deny my past.”
Tony Hadley is the former lead singer of Spandau Ballet, an iconic and very memorable new wave band that was formed in 1979 with hits like ‘Gold‘ and ‘True‘. After parting ways with the group, Hadley has began venturing into genres of music that are more of interest to him, something we discussed in this interview.
We also had a very insightful chat, and a laugh, about the climate of the current music industry, what he thinks about it, and the importance of talking about older music.
Q: My first question for you is about your March 2024 shows, The Big Swing Tour. That would incorporate artists like Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, does the tour seem more important to you now due to the recent passing of Tony Bennett?
“I think it does. I mean, I met Tony Bennett when he performed in London at the Royal Albert Hall last year. I met him before as well and I was there with my mum, and my manager and his mum and we had a picture with Tony backstage afterwards. I kind of knew, then that I didn’t think he’d come back again. One of the most incredible, iconic voices, you know, I mean that era of Sinatra, Ella Fitz [Fitzgerald], Mel Tormé. Jack Jones is one of the last surviving singers from that period, he’s an amazing, incredible singer. I haw him last time he was in London and he’s a lovely chap. So yeah, I think it makes it all the more poignant when you’re singing these songs that no-one else is singing anymore. Michael Bublé does, obviously. But I haven’t done a swing tour for a long, long time, so for me, it’s exciting, it’s fresh.“
Q: Tony Bennett had said that Scotland was one of, if not, his favourite place to play. Do you share those same sentiments?
“Well you’re crazy! And I mean that in the nicest way possible. But whenever I’ve played in Scotland, even as a young lad, when I was a young lad, I used to wear the tartan shoes and everything. They used to just say I was from Scotland anyway. All the people up here, when they come out, they come out for a good time and I think you find that the further north you get from, sort of, London, you start getting Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Newcastle, Glasgow, and everyone just goes ‘right we’re out for a good night out’. Everyone comes out for a good time, and I’ve got to tell you, my two oldest boys, my father in law from my first marriage was a Lawson, the Lawson tartan, so there you go!“
Q: Tell us a bit more about the tour, are there any places you’re excited to return to or play for the first time on this tour?
“We’re just doing a UK tour just now, we’re hoping we can extend it. To be honest, I haven’t had a look at the venues. But, we’re taking it to as many places as we can, I mean, if you like a bit of swing. We’re also going to do, Paul Anka did a swing version of ‘True’, so there’s a little swing version of ‘True’ and ‘Gold’ as well. So, we’ve been doing a couple of the Spandau [Ballet] songs, and just having some fun with it! The whole thing about swing is it is fun, music is about fun, and we’re just going to have a laugh.“
Q: We’ve already covered Scotland, but are there other places you love playing in?
“You know what, I’ll just play anywhere! We go to Italy a lot, Spain, Australia, New Zealand. We play America, America is really cool. Germany is always really cool. You find, most of the time, the audiences, there are certain degrees of craziness, some go a bit more crazy than others. In Italy, they get very passionate, emotional. Generally speaking, most places and crowds around the world are really polite, they listen to the songs, clap enthusiastically, dance along, and that’s all you want from an audience, wherever they are.“
Q: What are some of your favourite things about playing shows like this [Rewind]?
“It’s a festival, you know, I can’t deny my past. If it wasn’t for my past, my association obviously with Spandau Ballet and the hits we had, then I wouldn’t be here now. To get on stage and play in a great big field with a beautiful stately home and everything, a park, trees, and a great audience, it’s great. It doesn’t matter if its an 80s festival or a contemporary festival. We’re just happy to play.“
Q: The website that I write for, Discovery Music Scotland, focuses on smaller artists. What are some of your thoughts about smaller artists, and the current music industry?
“When I was working for BBC Three Counties, we used to do BBC Music Introducing, so a lot of artists come through there. If I remember right, one of them was Sam Fender I believe, who we’ve been talking about for a long time. He’s now a really established artist. There are some, the great thing about BBC Music Introducing, it does get local bands, local artists, on local radio, gives them some exposure. Funnily enough, we were talking about this earlier on, the biggest problem for young artists is there are not enough venues to play. They’re all being shutdown, pubs are struggling, you know? When I was a kid, growing up, in London, there were pubs all over the place. Most of them would have music nights, so you would play. There were punk clubs, there were rock clubs, there was all sort of places were young bands could go and play, or you could do a support slot or something like that.“
“Unfortunately, there isn’t the opportunity for that for a lot of young bands, so it’s tough. When they do make it, it’s really difficult to make it out, and make a living from things like Spotify and streaming services, you make virtually nothing unless you’re Ed Sheeran or Adele, virtually nothing. So something has to be addressed along the way whether it be the musicians union, the Government or whatever. I mean the actors have just gone on strike in America, maybe musicians should go on strike too, because I don’t think we get treated fairly. But I’ve had a life in music, and I’ve still got a life. It’s especially difficult for young bands to get to the point where I got to, and to make a decent living, and have some sort of survival rate in the music industry. So things do need to change. Sorry that was a long-winded answer.“