WITH EVERYTHING THAT WAS HAPPENING AT THE BLITZ CLUB, IT WAS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME BEFORE THE SCENE FOUND ITS FIRST BREAKOUT SUPERSTARS. A BUNCH OF COCKNEYS WHO HADN’T BEEN TO ART COLLEGE WEREN’T PERHAPS THE MOST OBVIOUS CHOICE, BUT ONCE SPANDAU BALLET FIGURED OUT HOW TO SOUNDTRACK THE MOVEMENT, THERE WAS NO STOPPING THEM – AS GUITARIST/SAXOPHONIST STEVE NORMAN RECALLS…

JOHN EARLS

SPANDAU BALLET

Although barely out of their teens when their debut album Journeys To Glory was released in February 1981, Spandau Ballet had already chalked up nearly five years of various school bands and near misses. Punk wannabes Roots started with Gary Kemp, Steve Norman and John Keeble, friends at Dame Alice Owen School in Islington. They mutated into The Cut and The Makers, before Gary’s younger brother Martin finalised the line-up on bass and another name change to Gentry in 1978. “We didn’t feel like we were close to anything,” admits Steve. “We didn’t have a record deal, and that was the most important thing in our world. We felt isolated and despondent.”

“AS SOON AS WE HIT BILLY’S, THE DESPONDENCY LIFTED. WE COULD SEE WE WEREN’T ALONE – THERE WERE OTHER GUYS LIKE US, FEELING LIKE US” STEVE NORMAN

A friend, Steve Dagger, had recommended they go to Shagoramas, because it was about the only club in London playing the glamorous music Gentry were into. Too fed up to explore pastures new, by the time they finally went to a Bowie night uptown in autumn 1978, Shagoramas had become Billy’s.

“Meeting Steve Strange and Rusty Egan was a massive boost,” says Steve. “As soon as we hit Billy’s, the despondency lifted. We could see we weren’t alone – there were young guys just like us, feeling just like us. It gave us back our gang mentality.” Billy’s also influenced the music Gary and Steve were writing. Only one early song, the charging Confused, made it on to Journeys To Glory.

Spandau captured in 1980 by noted New York photographer Ebet Roberts: John Keeble, Martin Kemp, Steve Norman, Gary Kemp and Tony Hadley

Steve feels Rusty Egan’s influence on 80s music has been overlooked. “I’m a big champion of Rusty,” he says. “I always like to remind people what a true pioneer he was in bringing electronic music to the UK. As soon as we changed our name to Spandau Ballet, we went from playing rock to four-on-the-floor dance music. That changed everything for us, and it’s largely down to what Rusty played at Billy’s and then the Blitz. He’d mix in German electronic music like Can, Neu! and Kraftwerk with proto-electronic music from a couple of years earlier – Bowie’s Berlin era and Iggy Pop, whose Funtime was massive. “Rusty was a massive influence, not just on us, but from everyone of that period like Ultravox and Boy George. Everyone tends to give Steve Strange the kudos, which I understand as Steve was a master of the visual side of that scene. But Rusty Egan shouldn’t be overlooked.”