Forty and so many years ago the chains of the so -called new romantics, but the spotlights and sighs (mostly female) had as its main recipient their singer, a high and suited dandi, of a engolated voice and seductive appearance that responded to the name of Tony Hadley. However, the great creative genius behind the mythical Spandau Ballet was also the London Gary Kemp, that Rubiales who played the guitar to the right of the stage and the author of almost all of the repertoire that popularized the quintet: Gold, True, Communication, To Cut a Long Story Short, Paint Me Down and a long champion of unforgettable titles among those who were kids in the eighties and today are reduced to the disdainful condition of boomers. Kemp has just turned 65, but, far from retiring, he has surprised with a beautiful solo album, the third of his discography in his own name. It is titled This Destination And he deepens the mysteries of life and the chiaroscuros of maturity, but his signatory, in telephone conversation, is clear: “My best compositions I am writing them now, regardless of that they only triumph songs conceived when you are a twenty -year -old.”
Gary James Kemp is still surprised, not without some resignation, that far from the United Kingdom is only recognized in those years of youth effervescence. In his country he is a relatively popular film and theater actor (with 13 years he already starred in an important feature film for those latitudes, Hide and Seek), integrates the tribute band to Pink Floyd called Saucerful of Secrets (next to the original battery of the honoree, Nick Mason) and presents and directs a successful podcast of in -depth interviews to great musicians, Rock on Tours. “More than one occasion have told me that I should concentrate on one thing, commit more to my writing and my music,” he acknowledges, “but I have always enjoyed experiencing with different art forms. In fact, the theater I have represented during the last decade in the West End London is among the greatest reasons for satisfaction of my whole life.”
Today, however, to talk about music, in view of the obvious commitment of claim that beats in This Destination. Kemp is not a canonical singer or overwhelming voice, but sounds close, tanned by maturity and, above all, plausible. “As you aged there are more weight reasons to write honest and truthful songs, because with age accumulate stories of pain and failure,” he emphasizes. “In the years of Spandau we still did not have great experiences to write about real issues. Now, instead, I tend to reflect a lot about mortality, how to accept the evidence that there is much less way ahead than the one you leave behind your back.”
In that sense, maybe I Know Where I’m Going (I know where I go) be the most stark and emotional page of all its catalog. “I imagined at the edge of a cliff, looking towards an island and taking a ship that would take me to it to, once there, climb to its lighthouse and send small signs home. Everything was born as a fantastic story, an song of airs folk that sought to convey peace and calm. Only later I understood that perhaps it was also an allegory about death … ”
I Know… It is a parsimonious and ethereal song that will never be viralized, but Gary Kemp is convinced that This Destinationthe cut that gives title to this new album, would have been a single successful if they are part of True (1983) o Parade (1984), the most triumphal elepés of their former group. However, he says not to miss those oropeles. “We loved people because we were young, handsome, we played well and were on the crest of the wave, but now I don’t have to write thinking about Tony Hadley’s voice or in Steve Norman’s sax, but only in expressing my sensations and ideas myself,” he emphasizes.
A guaranteed future
As still young or teenagers’ father, he insists on being optimistic about the sound future that awaits the new generations. “The other day, when I got home, my 15 -year -old son was clicking the vinyl of Can’t Buy A Thrillby Steely Dan, and What’s Going Onby Marvin Gaye. And both he and his brothers have discovered the rap of the west coast, from Tyler The Creator to Kendrick Lamar, artists who have been doing very intelligent things for many years. ”For all this, he stops to emphasize:“ No, the generation of our children is not only listening to Taylor Swift or Dua Lipa. In fact, listening to historical bands such as Spandau Ballet grow every month in Spotify. ”
It is not surprising, to all this, that Steely’s albums give figure in the family disco, because the sophisticated and very elegant tandem that Donald Fagen and Walter Becker embodied between the most obvious influences of the new work (“No, you are not the first to realize! Gary feels creative son of the seventies, a circumstance that has been strengthened with the experience of playing songs from the first Pink Floyd in the ranks of Nick Mason’s to Saucerful of Secrets. “Syd Barrett was just an indirect inspiration, because I met See Emily Play Through the version of David Bowie and everything Bowie has influenced me. To this you must add to 10cc, Wings, Queen, Genesis and, of course, the black music of Isley Brothers and Chic. Thus I record all my referents. ”
Entering confidences, we require our infallible formula to interview the greats of pop music, as he himself does in the company of Guy Pratt (bassist of David Gilmour) for the successive deliveries of Rock On Tours. “We investigate a lot about our guests, but we never elaborate a questionnaire or a script,” he reveals. “The key is that everything takes place not as an interview, but as an accomplice talk. Hence small situations arise, such as when David Crosby confessed to us his fear that Covid would renounce him forever from the stage or when Mick Fleetwwod skipped the tears of thinking that the five members of Fleetwood Mac would not act together again.”
“That must have been a momentazo.”
—For Momentazo, listen to thousands of souls chanting Goldby Spandau Ballet, at the Arsenal stadium, my lifelong team. If you are looking in my Instagram profile, you will find a video with my son singing Gold in voice in the neck after a victory of our team. That one has been my vital moment of greatest pride …