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MUSIC INTERVIEW: Marc Almond
MARC Almond is in a race against the clock. We've been given 12 minutes for our telephone interview and by necessity our conversation must proceed apace.
He's feeling "very good", he says in familiar friendly northern tones, as we make our introductions. "I'm very busy at the moment, doing promo for the new album and planning this autumn tour and doing festivals during the summer period."
2010 is significant for the 52-year-old singer as it's three decades since he made his first recording. The autumn tour will be something of an extended anniversary party.
"I'll be doing all things that point to the different periods of my career. At the end of the year I've got a singles collection coming out so the tour is concentrating on that side. I'm calling it Singles, Hits and A-sides. It's a 30-year celebration of my best bits, the pop side of my career.
"I will do songs from Variete (his new album], but they'll be the more poppier numbers, not any of the longer ones.
"It will really be how many A-sides can I cram into an hour and a half and having a bit of fun."
It's hard to pick favourites from a long and varied career. "The Soft Cell songs are audience favourites," he says. "I will always love Bedsitter and in Say Hello Wave Goodbye I can sing along with the audience. The affection for those songs carries me through life.
"There have been so many solo singles. Some that I like best are maybe ones that did not did not do so well in the charts. The Idol is one, and Child Star. Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart has a special place for me – I did that with Gene Pitney, it was a magic moment. My Hand Over My Heart, from Tenement Symphony. Jacky..."
It's clear the list is long. "There's a single for every year of my career," he reflects, "and as many clips to go with it."
Surprises
The surprises in his set, he says, will "maybe be a couple of singles that I haven't done in a while".
"People who know my history and my material will be familiar with a lot of it. I have songs over the years that people think have been bigger hits than they have because people have become familiar with them (at concerts]. There are a couple of favourites of mine that have not got a good airing..."
He hopes that at each night there "will be very much a celebratory feel".
It certainly says something for the consistency of Marc's work over the last 30 years that he's not restricted to playing 80s revival tours with his contemporaries. "They're not my kind of territory," he concedes, but this year he is doing one or two 80s shows, more, one suspects, out of curiosity than anything.
"I wanted to do a bit of everything," he says. "The 80s is a big part of my musical history."
Though he prefers playing solo concerts – "I have such a big body of work, fans will be disappointed if I don't make reference to different decades" – he reckons "it'll be fun to play the hits to big crowds".
No Marc Almond tour would be complete without a visit to Leeds. The 30-year celebration includes a show at Leeds Grand Theatre on November 22.
"I have a strong relationship with Leeds," Marc says. "I went to the Poly for three years – that's where I formed Soft Cell. I worked at The Warehouse (nightclub] for quite a while. Well actually, I worked at Leeds Playhouse at lunchtimes and early evenings and the Warehouse at night."
He obviously stays in touch with the city - he even points out a few inaccuracies in the YEP's recent feature on the re-opened Warehouse. "For a start I was never a 'coat-check girl', as somebody said rather offensively, nor did somebody help me put my make-up on. I went through glam, I can put my own make-up on, thank you very much.
"The whole thing was like art performance for me," he recalls. "When the disco boom faded me and a friend started a night there based on early electronic music and post-punk, like Blitz (the famous new romantic haunt in London]. We brought in a whole new crowd, including Roxy (the Warehouse's resident transsexual] and the northern Bowie contingent. We saved the club from bankruptcy, which the owners conveniently forget about.
"And Soft Cell did not make their debut there (at The Warehouse]. We played a few gigs in London and elsewhere before."
He is, however, happy to see the club re-opened. "It's iconic, it's part of Leeds's history."
It was, after all, where he had his first experience of DJ-ing before he and Dave Ball formed Soft Cell. "I returned to it (DJ-ing] a couple of years ago. I enjoyed it in the Warehouse days but when you're older you can't be in clubs at 2am, staying off substances. I'll leave it to the younger DJs these days."
Marc's roots in Leeds extend back further than the club scene. "When I was a young teen I lived in Horsforth. I went to Aireborough Grammar School for three years. I can't remember how many years ago it was but I did come back to a reunion. I met my old classmates and we had a great time. It was brilliant.
"You worry if you are going to get on with everybody but everyone quickly fell back to the way they were in those days.
"I had a few tough times at school but I had some really nice friends, especially the girls that helped me through my homework every day. We were the class misfits and outsiders. It was a lovely experience to come back and see them again."
The clock is rapidly ticking down on our interview. "Can we talk about the new album?" he asks.
Variete has been billed in some quarters as Marc's last record. "I see every 10 years as a phase," he says. "I can foresee it being the last album of totally original songs for maybe 10 years. The last album of original songs I did was Open All Night in 1999.
"In a way when I record albums I like to do songs by other composers. I enjoy discovering songs that say things I want to say better than I can say them."
For once, however, he can say he's rather fond of all the songs on his new album. "I usually fall out of love them very quickly," he points out.
They touch so many personal bases for him. "Glam rock, music hall, my own history, the decades I've grown up through. I hope people will find some very moving songs on it about the times I've gone through.
"People take the 'hand to my head, hand to my chest' angst and they miss the humour – even though it might be dour humour.
"It's about getting older, finding your place in this changing world, how fearful we find this changing world. Variety is a reaction. It's about going back to lo-fi entertainment and vaudeville."
Nov 22, Leeds Grand Theatre, New Briggate, Leeds, 7.30pm, 22.50. Tel: 0844 848 2706. www.leedsgrandtheatre.com
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