Tony Hadley: “I Didn’t Think True Was a Single”

0:02This is a global production. One of the things I love most about Full Disclosure is the way that we've done so many now that we've kind of cultivated unexpected little subcategories of which possibly my all time favourite is pop stars whose pictures I used to have on my wall. Kevin Rowland out of Dexter's Midnight Runners, amazing new album out by the way, Billy Idol, Tim Booth out of James. and this week I sit down with Tony Hadley out of Spandau Ballet. If you could have found 13-year-old me in Chattersley Corbett Village Hall desperately trying to pluck up the courage to ask someone to dance with me for one of the slow dances and if you told him that one day I'd be sitting down with the lead singer and getting on famously and learning that he enjoys the radio show I think I would have laughed in your face.

0:51Do let me know what you think in the comments and maybe even make some other suggestions for superstars from that era who could possibly fit into this cherished subcategory.

1:09Tony Hadley, welcome. You're a big LBC listener. I'm a massive fan of the whole show. I was talking, you know, I do music all the time, always on the road, always touring, and I'm always checking out mixes. You've been in the studio and stuff like that. So sometimes just listening to people talking about life, talking about politics environment and everything else is it's just lovely it's just wonderful it's a lovely environment to be in just me in the car lbc fantastic you can always tell the people that i like genuine not not just sort of being nice because they've got moments that they remember and but you know elements of the phone and or you can like you just did you can list the roster of presenters and stuff like that so you're the real deal clearly um a nice childhood really in many Yeah, an idyllic childhood.

1:53Well, I mean, it depends what you mean by idyllic. I mean, living in Islington in or the Angel Islington in the 1960s. It's a bit rough. I mean, it's become very gentrified now as a lot of places in London have. But it was for me, it was the only childhood I knew. I mean, my mum and dad, my mum looked after me and my brother and sister, Stephen Lee. My dad worked for the Daily Mail and he was an electrical engineer. and we lived in a house, Great Percy Street, Percy Circus. My aunt lived across the road. But in those days, and this is what some people from certain generations can't understand, there were three families living in one house.

2:34I think we were the only family that actually had an inside toilet. But you had to go through Mrs. Hornsby's rooms and the kid biz rooms on the ground floor to get to the loo. and so that was like I remember my mate Roy Harold 33 Great Percy Street, I don't know how I remember that but I do, I mean they had three whole families with children and an outside toilet and so people used to go to the Merlin Street bars and they would have like 25 baths and you, number 13 put some more water in please for an actual wash and all the women on a Tuesday would gather up the prams all the laundry on the prams my nan would go my aunties would go my mum everybody knew everybody and they would all go to the washing the municipal washing baths it's just too i mean i think when when the band you were in became spandau ballet the people in it were from similar similar backgrounds and similar houses as well similar buildings so that kind of had that in common but it's almost the end of that era isn't it because as you say for someone born 10 years later than you in 1970 the idea of having three families living in one building would be completely alien.

3:43Well, going back to my mate Roy, he then moved to the Pachydom Estate, which is in Islington Green. And I remember, I thought, wow! They had an inside toilet, a beautiful green in the middle, marbled at flooring and everything else. This is wonderful. My nan and granddad lived in Michael Cliff Flats, and they lived on the 21st or 22nd, 3rd floor. I remember going up in the lift I've never been in a lift this high and again there was marbled flooring, fitted kitchen views over London absolutely amazing it was incredible but within a year or two it was people weeding the lifts, there's graffiti everywhere and stuff and on reflection I kind of think to myself now why don't you spend a little bit of money put a nice concierge in there get a couple of ex-coppers or ex-forces guys in there give them a uniform and and also encourage little shops to to to sort of you know loiter underneath the buildings a little i don't know well a community it was an experiment wasn't it and i think they just thought that they would transfer the working class environment that was horizontal and then they made it vertical and they thought everything went and for some reason it just didn't in a lot of places it's a weird one because you know if you look at if i look at my parents and grandparents and people in our street everybody was incredibly proud it's i mean i hate the class system but you know working class whatever everybody was really proud you know your kids went to school with a hairbrush the shoes shone and and a nice clean uniform and um my primary school was clark and well parochial and it was amazing the teachers cared it was just an incredible environment so it's the only childhood i knew and i thank my mom and dad for that was it comfortable but I mean dad had a decent job that was kind of we were kind of lucky because working in the print down Fleet Street he had a very very good job I remember as a kid going down to be about 9 or 10 get on my bike and you could in those days kids just got on their bikes I used to go down and see him in Fleet Street and see all his mates and in the big machine rooms with the rolls of newspapers going around it was an incredible environment and And, yeah, it was good.

6:03We used to go to Pontyn's holiday camp. Hopefully, well, we tried to get twice a year. Would you not have been expected to follow your dad into the print? Because it was, I mean, I think it's exaggerated slightly, sort of around the Thatcher era, but the print was the one union that really was a close shot, wasn't it? People signing in as Donald Duck and claiming a shift. I know nothing about that. No, I'm sure you don't. But it was also pretty commonplace for people to sort their sons out and to come through. Well, everybody, pretty much most of my family were all in the print. And when I walked out of A-levels after six months, I mean, my best mate, Pete Hillier, he's now a top tour manager, travels all around the world, is looking after Robert Plant at the moment.

6:46And me and him are still best, best mates. I remember one day I was in the six-form common room and I said, I said, Pete, I've had enough. He went, yeah, so we walked out of school together and that was it. And we didn't go back to school for a couple of weeks until our parents got a letter from the headmaster. They were, oh, Simon's not been attending school. And we still went up to school every day, but we went in the pub and chatted up with girls. We just didn't go into school. We just didn't go into school. And actually, my granddad was quite influential in the print. And so I just said, look, I want a job.

7:16I'm in a band. So we'd formed what was the precursor to Spanow by. And that's what I'm going to do. But in the meantime, I want to earn some money. So granddad, can you get me a job? so he got my job in dorset house opposite ipc buildings and uh and i was the t-boy i was a t-boy i was then packed up boxes and did this that and everything then i went up to the first floor i became a sales guy for electronics weekly and electrical review selling ads yes selling yeah i was good yeah it's the patter isn't it so it's the patter so you just you've i remember i I remember taking a one guy and someone had taken his ad and placed it wrongly.

8:01He just took it for the money. And I'll never forget it. And I happened to pick up the phone and he started swearing me and ranting and raving. And I said, whoa, I said, don't number one, don't ever swear at me again. What's your problem? Tell me your problem. I'm about 18 at the time. I talked to this guy who's running a company. I said, what's your problem? I've had no response to this. No response. I said, look, he put it in the wrong paper. Tell me what you want, who you want to sell to. I'll give you a couple of free ads. After that, we got a relationship. Yeah, we got a relationship. And so that was it.

8:35And he was great after that. And I think that's the thing about life. Just treat people as you want to be treated and don't lie. But there was good money in that, though, as well. But you've already had the ambition to. Well, it was good money in it. I've got to tell you just so we had Electronics Weekly, Electrical Review all those kind of magazines and the offices were quite big Computer Weekly was this tiny little office, no one had discovered computers at that time but no it was great and then I used to do Saturday nights down Fleet Street and that was an experience on the print? Yeah for the Sunday papers I don't know where the card came from and then I would go and meet my grandad and all his mates in the Red Lion on Ludgate Circus for a beer but you would literally go into the machine rooms and stuff and there's all the choirs of paper coming down and there'd be four guys to a one man job it really was like that and they'd go go on son, go and get your money, go on son and I'd just go down the pub and meet my grandos brilliant, I hate this because my dad was a newspaper journalist and I grew up not visiting Fleet Street because he was a regional reporter, he was the Telegraph's man in Birmingham but it had this magical allure that you described when they started portraying it as being this kind of hotbed of union based grift really I thought that can't be true but it just was it was there's a lot more I can tell you I'm not going but it was you know that's what it was like I mean London was so so there was loads of money around it's not as if the newspapers were losing money it's just that the print were helping themselves to their what they perceive to be their fashion exactly i mean on a saturday night you do a saturday night the even if you did have to work which was pretty didn't happen very often you do three and a half four hours work go and get your money brown envelope 76 pound that was 1977 now there are people that don't earn the three and a half four hours work 76 quid now so that it was it was you and lots of all my family were there and then they'd let you drive the sort of seven ton van and do you have a license no it doesn't matter go on just get in there son and drive it and you go down to drayton park and stuff like that it was it was different times different times what did you mean when you say you hate the class system i've never been a lover of that kind of working i'm working class i'm proud of it well yeah working car you're all we're all proud of each other we're all proud of i'm proud of my mom and dad and everything and we all work but i don't And we all work.

11:10I mean, from the King of England to the guy sweeping the street to you to me and whatever, we do different jobs with different pay scales. But I just don't like that. I don't like being labelled. Yeah. And I was always very, very ambitious. I mean, even when, you know, went to very ordinary Clarkhamville Parochial Primary School, originally wanted to be a surgeon. And my parents were that post-war generation that always said that you can achieve anything you want. and a couple of my cousins were doctors and scientists, a lot of them went into IT. Pretty much everyone from the family, all the cousins and everybody, have done really, really well.

11:49So that kind of second post-war generation have done really, really well. I get that. So when we use the phrase, or when we hear the phrase working class, it's as if you're consigning people to a certain future. Rather than recognising opportunity and aspiration. Well, I think you're right. And that was the great thing about... And you picked up on that early, you were thinking. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I was one of these kids in class, you know, I'd be nine and ten. I'd be looking out the window, you know, clever boy, stop dreaming, you know, because I was always dreaming of something else. And I mean, even at the age of nine, we had a couple of nuns at our school because it was quite High Church of England.

12:28And we would have hymns every day and we'd pray. And then I got to the point, I thought, I'm not really buying into this. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. This is absolute gospel truth. So I got sent, because the nuns would be, put your hands together, put your hands together. And I went, no, not getting it, not getting it, not feeling it. So then got taken to the headmaster with the nuns. And I said, well, I'm really sorry, sir, but I just, you know, and I sang in the choirs at school and church and everything else. And we played football and, you know, the boys brigade and stuff like that, which was a church thing as well.

13:00But I never kind of got that religious aspect. I'm a great fan of religion in terms of the comfort it can give some people and it genuinely does but you couldn't turn off your curiosity no I couldn't and I remember I had a great Irish priest who I would sorry I can't remember his name there but long long time ago and we would sit and talk and he was a lovely father and we would just sit and talk about theology and stuff like that from a very young age and I just I thought he was an amazing guy. And I know loads of vicars where I live and stuff. And they're incredible people. They spend a lot of time thinking about it.

13:40The good ones do, don't they? And you were a kid who also liked it. So I sensed that you would perform well at the things you were interested in and not well at the things that you were not interested in. Yeah, you kind of got that. And I just, you know, as I said, I wanted to be a surgeon. And as a young kid, I was playing sports and doing all the things that normal. Well, there's a childhood microscope, isn't there? And you had a little phase of dissecting things and stuff like that. exactly what it was i had the microscope i went to that came from um oh when i was 10 i mean i've always been interested in science and biology anyway but i was 10 i had osteomyelitis in my knee so i had so i was in hospital for two months on penicillin for two years i mean which is what did for the footballing i think no it wasn't i don't think it was the football no this this was um this was when i was 10 so although i was playing football right that's not what caused it No, I meant, is that when you stopped playing football?

14:32Oh, yeah, pretty much. I mean, I couldn't play sports for two years. I did try again, but I was never very good. So you were so inspired by what they'd done for you that you thought, I want to do that one. Yeah, I wanted to be a surgeon. So I thought, and the treatment I got, I mean, I was lucky that there was a consultant in A &E at three o 'clock in the morning when I was screaming with the pain and he knew exactly what it was. And it was like, bend over, son, and just pumped full of antibiotics. and then I had it again recently in my femur yeah I've had three and a half years and how many operations on this leg now seven including the childhood one but no this is okay now I've got a replacement and it's all good it could have been a very different Tony Hadley then Mr.

15:15Hadley the consultant surgeon the orthopedic surgeon I mean my problem was I remember walking I'd never very good at maths maths was always a problem for me but I remember walking into the chemistry lesson I'd chosen that as an O level subject and I looked at the board and I went sorry sir wrong lesson what was home like in that context were mum and dad encouraging of education did they see it as a passport to your future or were they was there pressure there wasn't pressure in the sense of some parents who are sort of it's the be and end all I mean their whole thing was look you can be and do whatever you want.

15:58You can achieve whatever you want. You're going to a great primary school. There's a great grammar school, Dame Ellis Owens, down the road. So if you want, take your 11 plus. And in those days, no one was coached. You didn't get any coaching. And there was, I think it was me, Johnny Clark, Valerie Lawson. We were the only three from our school that went to grammar school. So the teachers had identified the lads that would be able to do it, or the people that would be able to do it. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, pretty much. David Himes was a massive inspiration as a teacher for me. And he was just incredible.

16:31So, yeah, I went to Dame Alice Owens and I wasn't exactly conformist. But you also would not be the smartest kid in the class anymore, would you? No. When you got there, because everybody else was passing. Everybody else was very smart. I'd say that I was probably about top five when I first went there. I nearly got expelled in the second year. What for? so stupid so above the dining i don't think i've ever said this publicly before so but it's james o 'brien i'll open up so so basically we had these two great big massive hoses one end of the car either end of the corridor above the dining room and myself and freddie capon bless him he's not with us anymore but and we sort of looked at it and i always wondered what happens if you really turn it on full so so you're a scientist so yeah i'm a scientist he stood one end i stood the other end and we put it on full i mean you know we're talking fire proper fire hoses and of course consequently flooded the whole first floor took all the wallpaper off the uh the dining room hall we were hauled in uh oh um yeah it was it was pretty rough I actually also got caned at primary school as well.

17:45They used to cane you then, yeah. Did you? I was at private school. I got caned until 15 years after that. We were still caning people. It was unbelievable, really, wasn't it? At my prep school. What were mum and dad like on discipline when that happened? Were you in proper trouble? Oh, they were hauled up the school. Because I'd been pretty good up till then. Right. They were sort of, you know, I think they could see potential. And, yeah, so then I was kind of okay. so I got a disciplinary warning and So your record saved you? Yeah. Who says Halloween only lasts one day? With Wayfair one night of Halloween becomes a whole season at home.

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18:52Did the voice get recognised quite early then in church? Or were you just another boy in the choir? Well, at primary school, as I said, we used to sing with the hymns and everything else. And people won't believe this, but they were literally massive, great big scrolls that used to pull up by string. And then to do the next hymn, you used to, roll it down and then flip this massive scroll over i don't know if that kind of describes i've never seen that wow yeah so that was clarkenwell so you didn't have your own books no you didn't just this huge scroll that was it must have been about six foot high by about three foot wide that used to up the lower and and higher and um so that was kind of kind of interesting so and we would sing in uhst james's church and and stuff like that and then i was in the boys Brigade, so we'd, Vernon Church, we would sing, but it was when I went to Dame Alessarians, we had a teacher there, I can't remember Mr Lewis there it is, wow, there it is that's it, how did that come, anyway Mr Lewis, so I remember we were going to do a performance of Jesus Christ Superstar and he went along to each boy, listening to them you boy, you're okay you, no not you, you boy and so he picked several of us out and then we did no Joseph it was an amazing 10 of colour dream coat that was the one and so I got chosen for the special choir then we sang in the guild hall then we used to go to Pontian's holiday camps I started going into competitions so that would be singing on your own so this is like talent competitions yeah talent competitions you didn't fancy the knobbly knees so you did the I wasn't very good at that you did the singing and did you like being looked at did you like being on the stage when did you first get that thrill that buzz I'll be really honest with you I used to go to every audition they had at school and I never had the courage to get up and do an audition really?

20:45so that's why you were in the choir rather than playing Joseph or something like that it's very very strange I just got too nervous I think I was going through that that teenage, that kind of 13 year old phase where you get very conscious and girls especially, I mean my little 14 year old Genevieve, I see all the girls they are very self-conscious but boys get it as well yeah they do and i i although i was a bit jack the lad i was also i just didn't have the courage to get on stage and then i it it was an ultimatum we were at um bream sands i think it was on holiday and i said if i don't get up and sing i will never sing again so i did the old jekyll and hyde thing yeah and um and i got up and sung first song i ever sang sang was with a little help from my friends that uh no it wasn't it was the Beatles Lady Madonna oh wow yeah Lady Madonna and when it got to the bit in the middle after that bit I couldn't remember it and I was singing a cappella as well so I just banged your neck singing a cappella and I just stood there there was about 400 people and I went hey ladies and gentlemen bit of a fluke there but anyway I'll see you next week because we're going to be a competition and I tried to walk off stage as slowly as I possibly could and then people said well yeah but son the bit you did was really good and then someone asked me for an autograph so I thought orthopedic surgeon is out the wall I found my vocation and I got the girl Beverly from Camberley that I fancied all week so we were only kids and we just so something clicked genuinely not just on the stage moment but everything that came with it as well and then the following week I then sang with a little help from my friend Joe Cocker.

22:32That's not an easy song to sing, is it? Not really, no, because you've got a lot of growling in it. I mean, I had the good fortune to know Joe Cocker. He was a lovely man. But this time, I had all the words. Right. I wasn't stupid. You should have had one of those six-foot things in the back of the hole, shouldn't you? That's it. That's what spoiled you. You got used to having it all. And my eyesight's good, but I needed that, yeah. Handwritten auto cue. And did it create a bit of a buzz? I mean, you won these competitions, and people around you would be like, hang on a minute. win a weekend so the family would get an extra weekend at puns on it yeah it was all right it's great and um i didn't win everyone but i won most of them and people just everyone kept saying wow you know you you got you go you're okay you know you're really all right i'm thinking i think i am uh yeah do you think there's a a link then between the kind of growing loss of interest in school work having discovered this thing that would bring you things and make you feel special in different ways.

23:29I also had a torrid time at school as well. I mean, I loved the school, and I loved... I mean, it's for the ethos of the school, because it was very much free thinking, debating, be an individual, which I loved. But I had a particular teacher there that made my life a misery. I mean, a total misery. And consequently, I mean, I probably didn't attend a full maths lesson for two years. I'd get kicked out every time, yeah. for one reason or another. He just didn't like me. It's a weird thing when you're a kid, when an adult doesn't like you. It doesn't make sense, really, in the great scheme of things.

24:06But when you look back and you think, when you're an adult, he thinks perfectly capable of not liking a kid. Well, I mean, I was doing pretty good at school. Yeah. And this guy just took a dislike. And you could tell he was completely eccentric. And I'm not mentioning any names. No, of course. He wore sort of an old de-mob suit kind of thing, you know, that they used to give you when he left the army and his tie was always sort of slightly gravy stained you know back teeth smoke a pipe bald head you boy you boy you you you boy and it was all like that and it was and he was a right racist as well really oh yeah i mean in those days he'd say some awful things um and he just was awful for some reason he really took a dislike from me so then i used to literally go and see mrs williams who was the caretaker's wife just sit with her and he goes you've been kicked out again boy have you would like a cup of tea and a biscuit oh thanks mrs williams it's a difference doesn't it someone who recognizes you yeah and sees you i think it affects us more than we realize when we're that age and a teacher takes it but it made me determined to do something yeah it made me prove something to prove something because i was i thought one day i'm going to prove to you and everybody else that i can do it and um And that set me on a path of a bit of unruliness, I should say.

25:27And you were in a potentially quite bad place to become unruly. The angel. As we alluded to earlier, the angel. Yeah, yeah. There's proper gangs as the sort of... It was... So you were on the fringes of it. Yeah, I was on the fringe of it. I mean, when my mate moved to Pakenham Estate, that got particularly rough. Like I say, it started off beautiful. and there were people you know I remember a couple of brothers that got done for parking meters they did six months a couple of other people I knew ended up doing ball store and stuff like that and although we used to muck about the streets and stuff like that all of a sudden it started to get let's nick a car let's steal there's gears isn't there and I thought no I can't do this I can't do this to my mum and dad because they'd invested a lot of time and effort and they were really encouraging in everything they did in my education and discipline and stuff.

26:24It was that conscious, was it? You were doing this almost like a calculation in your brain. I couldn't do it. So I stepped out of that whole environment and I'm glad I did because quite a few of them ended up doing a bit of time here and there. You've described it really well because it's something that people fall into, isn't it? It's not like... It's a wrong turn with peers behind pushing you into it. So quite strong-willed of you to resist that. Yeah, I was one of these... I could be a bit weird sometimes. What do you mean? Just... I would wear hush puppies when no one wore hush puppies and stuff like that.

27:04And I'd sort of suffer a bit of kind of rancour and just for the hell of it. So not a herd animal then? No. Really? I don't think I was ever a herd animal. I've always been very much... It's me. it's i'm not i'm not someone who goes and dictates to people all my bands everybody on my crew were all treated equally everybody we were a team we worked together but um but i certainly wasn't going to follow the herd and i what i didn't want to do is when when the fight started to get more serious and you know you'd have a few punch-ups it was fine but but when it started to get a bit heavier as i said with the stealing of the cars and things i got out of it completely and does that change your social life as well does that mean you're not going around with new people and everything yeah i'd go to stretta mice rink and i learned to skate it's one extreme to the other honestly i'd get on the bus and go down to south london which was not my favorite place at the time and uh and because they could always tell you from north london because of the way you looked and everything else and i learned to skate which is bizarre where did that begin because there were horses at one point as well weren't there yeah horse riding as well what do you do instead of becoming a young hooligan as i took up horse riding and i was skating i'm in a school at the age of his things and and we we did uh you know we we were quite lucky at our school as well because we were co-funded by the brewers as well yeah and um so we had amazing sports facilities and you know riverside rowing house and everything else in our own country house so i was it was it was pretty good from that point of view and then i was 13 and they said, we're going to start riding in Potter's Bar.

28:44I said, okay, yeah, I've done Donkey Derby. That was it of Pontins. And so I said, yeah, so loads of kids signed up for it. I mean, you've got to remember these kids from the Angel Wizzling have never even seen a horse, probably, apart from a zoo or whatever. And so we signed up for it. And I wanted to do two years of it. And they said, no, no, there's too many applications. and so what happened was within the first week some kids were just terrified and that was it, didn't want to get on a horse then someone broke a collarbone someone broke an arm and literally I managed to do because so many people just dropped out the course I managed to do two years of advanced riding so here I was this boy from the Angel and poncing about on a horse or on ice skates were you good at skating as well?

29:34yeah I got really good actually and then queensway was the best though yeah you'd go around queensway and as a you know just taking i'll take you around love you know that it's brilliant yeah still there queensway but then when i was in lower six yeah i carried on the riding thing and then did a riding thing for the younger kids there and that's how i got to know farmers and it just got to know that kind of country way of life so i've always loved that as well

30:05we haven't talked much about music what would what would you be listening to you'd started going to gigs but by the time you were sort of 15 16 17 uh oh god the gigs i saw bowie uh see bowie see yes um genesis and were you friends were you friends at school with the lads that became the band or were you kind of moving in slightly different not really I was massively into punk as well I loved punk and Queen and you know Roxy and those kind of bands Mark Bolham when we formed the band at school we'd by that time we'd moved to Potter's Bar yeah the school moved and the school moved Damien Lassand moved from the Angel to Potter's Bar and I remember I was a really frustrated drummer I'm in there playing in the drums we actually had a drum kit in the music room so anyway so i'm playing the drums and then uh why not singing why do you want to be a drummer at this point well i was a well it's funny because rick astley drums as well and he sings but no the primary thing was the singing but as a fun thing i wanted to be a drummer as well okay but i didn't i don't think i ever wanted to be a drummer for real got it okay so yeah so anyway so i was in there practicing away and then john keble spanner's drummer came in and uh kicked me off the drums you know we didn't like each other at all actually and he got on the drums and he was infinitely better than i was of course uh and gary kemp steve norman michael ellison who was our original bass player and a couple of the girls were debbie was one of them and i can't remember the other one and so i used to sit there and listen to them and they'd start singing songs r &b covers and things like that and i thought you're not really very good you need a proper lead singer and it was actually steve norman who said to me it's time we're looking for a singer and i said yeah i said here you know and he went oh my god you can sing i said yeah i can sing i said i'm the man i'm the guy well john keeble hated me wow i mean he he i do not want because i was still a bit unruly right i do not want him in the band anyway did the first audition we did a chuck berry cover and that was the start of the band so your self-consciousness had gone by now To push yourself forward like that.

32:15Yeah, I think I'd go over the kind of, you know, do I smell all right? Is my breath okay? But also, you've got, it takes quite a lot to believe that you're a front man. Yeah. I mean, it's... I think it does. Yeah, it does. There's loads of people that want to be front people, front men, front women, front men or whatever. But it takes a certain thing to be that. You know, I've seen bands and there's, you know, the lead singers there. and it just doesn't look like a lead singer. And so I think that confidence that I got from going to pontines and winning competitions and rehearsing with bands as well gave me the confidence to just go, yeah, I'm your man and that's it.

32:59And so that was the start of the band that eventually became Spaniel Ballet. And this is lower sixth. This is lower sixth. Michael Ellison was our first bass player. Yeah. Still in touch with him. Richie Miller was our second one, still in touch with him. and then Martin Kemp joined us in 1978 when we were the gentry just before we became Spanner. Because as they tell the story, because Mark Kemp had told Gary that he had to get his brother into the band or because Steve Dagger said he's the best looking bloke, we know we've got to get him in. There's various versions. There's various versions.

33:33I refer the right honourable gentleman to this. So, you know, we knew Martin because obviously he was Gary's brother and Martin was in an appalling punk band called The Defects I mean they were shocking I remember seeing them at the Pinder of Wakefield which is now the Splash Club at King's Cross which we played several times as well and I'm thinking this is the worst punk band to think this is making not this bad this was this was The Defects so we kind of it sort of it got engineered that Richie Miller would leave the band and I've apologised to Richie I thought their behaviour at the time was appalling and we sort of shoe hunged Martin in It's a mark of how serious everyone was taking things already though isn't it in that you honestly believe pretty early on that you had a chance, you had a crack at the big time Yeah I mean we were only to begin with R &B covers like every band but I think there was something about us that we thought we can do this and then at the time Gary and Steve were writing songs so we do a few original songs as well in amongst the R &B covers yeah there was a sense that we can achieve whatever we want but I think that goes back also to our parents I mean when we were when we became reasonably famous our parents all went out together and would come visit us in Rome or whatever and they'd have nights out and celebrate their boys' success and stuff, which I thought was really lovely.

35:11And they were all just really lovely, you know, great, grounded parents and who were really proud of their sons. And like I said, you'd all come from very, very similar family backgrounds and that probably helped to explain a sense of solidarity. It might not have lasted through the decades, but in the early days it was clear. I don't quite get that. As I said, I'm 12 years younger than you. And that era, that's kind of when the war is still in the rearview mirror, but no one ever talks about it or mentions it. That sense, I think, in the early 60s, and of course what happened in the 60s kind of proves this point, that anything was possible, disappeared.

35:49There was a tremendous sense of optimism because, I mean, opposite my mum and dad's house, which, I mean, my mum still lives, she just lives up the road now. The house got a bit too big, lives in a lovely flat up the road. but literally opposite where the Royal Scott Hotel was eventually built that was a bomb site so we used to play there, we used to go round where I said Pachydam Estate was, Islington Green where the canals were, there were loads of bombed out, rows of bombed out houses there, they were our playgrounds but there was a sense that you could achieve anything you wanted and as I said, my mum and dad were always, you can be whatever you want to be, don't let anyone tell you you're not good enough So you never got a proper job or I mean, you had a proper job.

36:32You were bringing money in a bit, but they never sort of said, don't be ridiculous. You can't be a pop star. No, they weren't. I mean, and also my work ethic was, you know, when my dad worked, my mum eventually worked for the area of health when we became old enough to get back to school on our own. But, you know, I worked up Tom's Dairy when I was 12 for two hours on a Sunday morning. Hated it. Putting labels on. But I wanted to do it because I wanted the money. how I got a job at the Royal Scott Hotel as a maintenance man at 15, I do not know because I couldn't maintain anything. It's just a mixture.

37:06You must have had extraordinary confidence in some ways. Yeah. It was quite a small window when you were looking at your shoes, not having the guts to go up for an audition. And then quite quickly, it goes hand in hand, doesn't it? So quite quickly you develop the confidence. But sometimes confident at 14, 15 looks like naughty. So the maths teacher takes against you and you somehow become labelled as a troublemaker. And you didn't feel like a troublemaker. you didn't want to be a troublemaker but if people were going to treat you like a troublemaker then you were he he i mean his behavior towards me made me it became a self-fulfilling prophecy yeah i was i became yeah yeah you didn't you didn't want to say anything to me put it that way and um but at the same time there i was i worked down chapel market and worked in a store called kennett's mr redding was there we used to wore brown overalls i used to go and get the the bacon rolls on a Saturday morning at DeMarco's.