THE SPANDAU BALLET MAN TELLS JOHN EARLS OF KILTS AND SUITS, HITS AND HIGH GUITARS, SHARING EACH OTHER’S CLOTHES… AND WHO HAS POP STYLE TODAY

STEVE NORMAN

© Denis O’Regan

As well as being the saxophonist and guitarist in Spandau Ballet, Steve Norman was integral to the band’s glamorous image. A big admirer of the New Romantic movement – if not its name – Steve explains how Billy’s and the Blitz helped play a role in keeping the band’s spirits afloat in their early days…

When did you first become involved in the New Romantic scene?

Our manager, Steve Dagger, introduced us to Billy’s. We’d thought we were going to be successful when we became The Makers around 1978. By 1979, we were thinking “Hang on, how come it’s not happening?” I was working for various magazines at Kings Reach Tower, the same building where NME was based. [NME writers] Tony Parsons and Julie Burchill knew I was in a band, and they’d regularly pull me aside, going “What’s happening?” They were describing the latest goings-on in New Wave, but we were on the coattails of that, really. We were trying to go back to our soul roots, but we were getting disillusioned, sat around drinking in our local, The Tiverton Arms in Islington. One night, Steve told us we had to check out this amazing club called Shagoramas. We were in the middle of this despondency that lasted about six months altogether. By the time we actually went, the club had become Billy’s… and the rest is history!