1976–1982: Formation and early success Gary Kemp and
Steve Norman first decided to form a band, both playing guitar, in October 1976 after witnessing
the Sex Pistols perform that summer at Islington's Screen on the Green. Close friends and school mates at
Dame Alice Owen's in Islington, they were joined by
John Keeble on drums, Michael Ellison on bass and
Tony Hadley on vocals when the school relocated to
Potters Bar. They rehearsed at lunchtimes in the school's music room, playing sped-up versions of
the Rolling Stones' "Silver Train",
the Beatles' "
I Wanna Be Your Man" and
the Animals' "
We've Gotta Get Out of This Place". They also played an original Gary Kemp composition, "I've Got Roots", which inspired their band name, Roots. Their first gig was a fourth-form Christmas party in December 1976 in the school dining room. The band changed their name to the Cut when Michael Ellison left, with Steve Norman filling in on bass. In 1977 another Alice Owen pupil, Richard Miller, took over on bass guitar and the band changed their name to the Makers, playing
power pop compositions by Gary Kemp or Steve Norman, with titles like "Fantasy Girl" and "Pin-Ups", inspired by mid-sixties bands like the
Small Faces. They received a number of positive gig reviews from the British music press in
Sounds and the
New Musical Express. The band changed personnel and name once more when their manager, friend and fellow Dame Alice Owen's schoolmate Steve Dagger suggested
Martin Kemp be brought in as their bass player after seeing how much attention he got from the Makers' female fans when he was their roadie. The band was now called Gentry and Martin played his first gig on 1 July 1978 at the Middlesex Polytechnic in Cockfosters. Inspired by London's new underground nightclub scene, which began in Autumn 1978 with a weekly Tuesday night hosted by
Steve Strange and DJ
Rusty Egan at
Billy's in Soho, the band switched musical direction to embrace the new electronic music. Friend and writer
Robert Elms suggested they change their name to
Spandau Ballet, a phrase which he told them he had seen written on a wall on a weekend trip to
West Berlin: “
Rudolf Hess, all alone, dancing the Spandau Ballet”. The term "Spandau ballet" originated in
World War I as a description of the twitching movements
Allied soldiers made while being shot by the German
Spandau machine gun. Their first performance was an invitation-only showcase on the morning of Saturday 17 November 1979, at Halligan's Band Centre rehearsal studio, 103 Holloway Road, to test the reaction of the key influencers of the new scene. Having passed that 'audition', the band's first gig as Spandau Ballet was at the
Blitz's Christmas party on 5 December 1979.
Journeys to Glory A series of exclusive 'secret' gigs in 1980 at unique non-rock venues like the Scala cinema and the cruiser
HMS Belfast, advertised only by word-of-mouth, created the hype for a major record companies bidding war. After the band signed with
Chrysalis Records, they released "
To Cut a Long Story Short", produced by
Landscape’s
Richard James Burgess. It became a top five hit on the UK charts in late 1980, as well as reaching the top 20 in Australia, Ireland and Spain. Their second single, "
The Freeze", was another top 20 hit in the UK, Ireland and Spain, followed by the double A-side "
Muscle Bound"/"
Glow" and the gold-certified debut album
Journeys to Glory in early 1981. The band played their first US showcase in May 1981 at New York's Underground Club, on 17th and Broadway, with a fashion show by Axiom, a co-operative of the London club scene's new clothes designers including
Sade Adu. Spandau were the first UK pop band to perform live at the world-famous
Ku Club in Ibiza. Reflecting the rapidly evolving club scene and Soho's hippest new nightspot, Le Beat Route on Greek Street, the band changed musical directions again, releasing the
funk single "
Chant No. 1 (I Don't Need This Pressure On)", which was a No. 3 hit in the UK while reaching No. 17 in the US on
Billboard magazine's
Disco Top 100 in 1981. The song was championed by DJ
Frankie Crocker on
WBLS.
Diamond The follow-up album,
Diamond, also produced by Burgess, was released in 1982. This album was certified gold by the BPI. The band had Burgess remix every single from both albums for inclusion on each single's B-side and for 12-inch club releases. These mixes were later released as a boxed set. However, the second single from
Diamond was "
Paint Me Down", which broke their run of top 20 hits by stalling at No. 30. The third single, "
She Loved Like Diamond", failed to make the UK top 40 at all.
Trevor Horn remixed the track "
Instinction", which was released as the fourth single from the album. Backed with a special dance remix of "Chant No. 1" on the 12-inch single version, the release was very well received. It returned the band to the UK top 10 after the poor chart performance of their previous two singles.
1983–1989: International success True The band released their third album,
True, in March 1983. Produced by
Tony Swain and Steve Jolley, the album featured a slicker pop sound and was recorded at
Compass Point in
the Bahamas. It was at this point that Steve Norman began playing saxophone for the band. The
title track gave the band their first UK No. 1 single. It was a multi-format hit in the US, reaching No. 1 on the
Adult Contemporary chart, No. 4 on the
Billboard Hot 100 and US
Cash Box and also entering the US R&B charts. The band played four sell-out shows at The Wilton and The Palace, Los Angeles, in December 1983. The song was also a No. 1 in Ireland and Canada and top 5 in the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand and Spain. It won a
BMI award as one of the most played songs in history when it passed four million airplays in the United States, the equivalent of 22 years' continuous play. The follow-up single, "
Gold", reached No. 2 in the UK and the top 5 in Belgium, Ireland and Spain. The album topped the charts internationally, spent 64 consecutive weeks in the top 100 albums chart and reached No. 19 on the US
Billboard 200. The singles "Gold" and "
Communication" peaked at numbers 29 and 59 respectively on the
Billboard Hot 100. On their UK tour they were the first rock band to play
Sadler's Wells and the
Royal Festival Hall.
Parade and Live Aid period The follow-up album,
Parade, was released in June 1984, and its singles were again big successes in the charts in Europe, Oceania and Canada. The album's opening song, "
Only When You Leave", became the band's last American hit. The band's first top 10 single in Italy was "
I'll Fly for You", a success they repeated later with the singles "
Fight for Ourselves" and "
Through the Barricades". At the end of 1984, the band performed on the
Band Aid charity single alongside chart rivals
Duran Duran,
Culture Club and
Wham!, and in 1985 performed at
Wembley Stadium as part of
Live Aid to a global audience estimated at 1.9 billion. The "Spandau Ballet World Parade 84–85" was the group's biggest tour to date, spanning Europe, America, the Far East and, for the first time, Australia and New Zealand. Their UK tour ended with six record-breaking nights at Wembley Arena. During the second show at LA's Universal Amphitheatre, Steve Norman tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee and the rest of the tour was cancelled. This also resulted in the cancellation of a proposed summer tour of Spain and Italy and a planned six-week tour of the United States supporting
the Power Station. During this same year, Spandau Ballet achieved platinum status with the compilation
The Singles Collection, which kept the focus on the band between studio albums and celebrated its five years of success. The album was released by
Chrysalis Records without the band's approval and the band instigated legal action against the label.
Through the Barricades After a bitter court case with Chrysalis, Spandau Ballet signed to
CBS Records for £1.5 million in 1986 and released their fifth studio album,
Through the Barricades. With producer
Gary Langan, the band moved away from their pop and soul influences to create a stadium rock sound. A dispute between
Our Price Records and Sony over trading arrangements resulted in the Our Price chain and its chart return shops refusing to stock any CBS singles, which affected the record sales of their first single release, "
Fight for Ourselves". Though it peaked at 15 in the UK, it was a top 10 hit in Italy and the Netherlands. The
title track, a personal favourite of Kemp and Hadley and inspired by the killing of a friend, Thomas "Kidso" Reilly in
Belfast by
Private Ian Thain, reached the top 10 in the UK and in Europe, as did the album. This was followed in 1986/87 by the band's largest European concert tour to date, "Through the Barricades – Across the Borders", with six record-breaking nights at the
Ahoy Stadium in Rotterdam, another six nights at London's Wembley Arena, 80,000 at
Casa de Campo in Madrid and 50,000 at an open-air concert in Treviso. Hadley and Gary Kemp performed "Through the Barricades" for the Prince's Trust at Wembley Arena with the 'house band' of
Eric Clapton,
Midge Ure and
Phil Collins, and "
With a Little Help from My Friends" with
George Harrison and
Ringo Starr. In 1988, the band played for the King of Spain in front of the Royal Palace in Barcelona, on the same bill as
Freddie Mercury and
Montserrat Caballé, to launch the campaign for the
1992 Olympics.
Heart Like a Sky After a hiatus from recording, the band released their next album,
Heart Like a Sky, initially titled
Home, in September 1989. For the first time, new working methods were employed, as Gary Kemp demoed his new songs programming the drums, keyboards and bass on a
Tascam PortaStudio with Toby Chapman, Spandau's session keyboard player, rather than rehearsing with the band. The album and its singles were not successful in the UK and the album was not released in the United States. Nevertheless, the band continued to have success in
West Germany, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands, where the singles "
Raw" and "
Be Free with Your Love" entered the top 40. The album included "Motivator", the first song written by Steve Norman for the band since The Makers.
1990–1999: Break-up and solo projects On Tuesday 6 March 1990, the band played the final date of their 10th anniversary tour at Edinburgh Playhouse before taking a break to pursue other acting and musical solo projects. Gary and Martin Kemp took the leading roles as notorious East End gangster twins
Ronald and Reginald Kray in
The Krays which premiered in London in April 1990. The film won two
Evening Standard British Film Awards for Best Film and Most Promising Newcomer (writer
Philip Ridley). Tony Hadley recorded his first solo album in Los Angeles produced by
Ron Nevison. Steve Norman moved to Ibiza to collaborate on chilled out Balearic records with local producers. John Keeble continued as drummer with Tony Hadley and formed his own band, 69 Daze, with former
Sigue Sigue Sputnik guitarist Neal X, followed by 99 shows across Europe with The Herbs and Pacific with guitarist
John McGeoch. Gary Kemp enjoyed further acting success, moving to Hollywood with actor wife
Sadie Frost, to film both
The Bodyguard (with
Whitney Houston and
Kevin Costner) and
Killing Zoe, directed by Academy Award winner
Roger Avary, produced by
Quentin Tarantino. In 1995 Gary released his solo album,
Little Bruises. Martin Kemp also appeared in films and TV series in Los Angeles such as
The Outer Limits, Murder Between Friends,
Highlander: The Series and Sugar Town which also starred
John Taylor from Duran Duran. In the 1990s, the band split up after a disagreement about royalties. Hadley, Norman and Keeble launched an unsuccessful court case against Gary Kemp for a share of Kemp's songwriting royalties from his work with Spandau Ballet. Although they vowed to appeal against the verdict, they later decided against this. The three non-Kemp members then continued to tour as a trio, but they had to sell their shares in Spandau Ballet's company to Gary Kemp to pay off legal debts. Because the company owned the rights to the name of Spandau Ballet, the trio had to tour under the moniker "Hadley, Norman and Keeble, ex-Spandau Ballet". After successful surgery for the removal of two brain tumours in the mid-Nineties, Martin Kemp joined
EastEnders in 1998 as one of the British soap's most popular bad boy characters,
Steve Owen, winning Most Popular Actor at the 2000
National Television Awards and numerous Best Actor and Villain of the Year awards for the
British Soap Awards,
Inside Soap Awards and
TV Quick Awards. He left EastEnders in 2002 for a golden handcuff deal with ITV drama and wrote his best-selling autobiography,
True. He also wrote and directed his first film, ''Martin Kemp's Stalker''. Gary Kemp wrote songs with Paul Stratham, who had written songs for
Dido, continued acting on stage, in film and in television, and wrote music and additional lyrics with
Guy Pratt for
Bedbug at the
National Theatre in 2004 and
A Terrible Beauty, with Guy Pratt and
Shane Connaughton. He continued acting on stage, in film and on television. He played Serge in the West End production of
Art in 2001. Films included
Dog Eat Dog and
American Daylight and TV shows
Murder in Mind and
Casualty. Steve Norman formed chilled lounge band Cloudfish with Rafa Peletey and
Shelley Preston in 2001. Tony Hadley released three studio albums. He played Billy Flynn in the West End production of
Chicago and won the ITV reality show,
Reborn in the USA in 2003 singing "Through the Barricades" to beat Michelle Gayle in the final. He appeared as a guest vocalist on the
Alan Parsons album
The Time Machine, performing lead vocals on the song "Out of the Blue".
2009–2019: Reunion in January 2010 In early 2009, the official Spandau Ballet website encouraged fans to sign up "for an exciting announcement", fuelling rumours that a reunion was imminent.
Jonathan Ross mentioned during his
BBC Radio 2 programme on 21 March 2009, that the band were re-forming and that he had been invited to the reunion party. The band confirmed the rumours at a press conference on 25 March 2009, on board
HMS Belfast in London, a return to the venue of one of their first gigs to launch their comeback tour. They were introduced by friend and broadcaster Robert Elms after a Billy's and Blitz era DJ set by
Rusty Egan. John Keeble and Gary Kemp revealed current musical influences as
The Killers,
Kaiser Chiefs,
MGMT and
Florence and the Machine. The band began a world tour in October 2009, starting with eight dates across Ireland and the UK, the first of which was in Dublin on 13 October 2009. The tickets for the UK and Ireland shows went on pre-sale on the official Spandau Ballet website on 25 March 2009. They went on general release on 27 March 2009. For the general release tickets,
the London O2 arena tickets sold out within 20 minutes and an extra two dates were added there because of demand. The band also added Liverpool and an extra date in Birmingham to the tour. Members gave their "first public performance and interview anywhere in the world for 19 years" on the BBC television show
Friday Night with Jonathan Ross on 24 April 2009 performing "Chant No.1" with the original
Beggar & Co and "Gold". On 19 October 2009, the group released a new album,
Once More, which featured reworked semi-acoustic versions of 11 Spandau favourites and two new songs, the title track, written by Gary Kemp and Steve Norman, and Love Is All, the first Spandau song to be written by Tony Hadley. The album went Gold in Italy and Silver in the UK. Virgin Media honoured Spandau Ballet as the Best Comeback of 2009 in the Virgin Media Awards. Spandau Ballet went on tour in Australia during April 2010 with
Tears For Fears as part of a world tour. After a headline set at the
Isle of Wight Festival on the same bill as
Paul McCartney,
The Strokes,
Jay-Z and
Pink, the group played their last UK show of the Reformation Tour at
Newmarket Racecourse on 25 June 2010. In 2014, all five played live again with an anthology world tour to promote a critically acclaimed feature-length archive-only documentary of the band's story and the pop cultural history of the Eighties,
Soul Boys of the Western World. It world premiered at South By Southwest with Spandau also playing as part of the music festival, In the UK, the band appeared in an ITV show,
Spandau Ballet – True Gold, in which they performed several hits and were interviewed by
Christine Bleakley in front of a studio audience. The band performed their 1980s hit single "
True" and a new song called "
This Is the Love" on
Jimmy Kimmel Live on 11 November 2014. It was their US late-night TV debut and their first US TV appearance since 1985 when they played on
Soul Train. They were there to promote their new greatest hits collection called
The Story – The Very Best of Spandau Ballet, which also contained three new songs. The album reached the UK top 10. Both "Steal" and "This Is The Love" appeared on the US Adult Contemporary chart. The band embarked on another world tour in 2015. In January 2015, they appeared on
The Today Show, performing "True". They also appeared on
The Talk on 27 July 2015 to perform "True". On 3 July 2017, Tony Hadley left the band due to, as he stated on
Twitter, circumstances beyond his control. The initial plan was for
Seal to replace Hadley as Spandau's singer. According to Gary Kemp, an agreement for a tour was reached with Seal but, as the band was waiting for him to fly in and start to rehearse, he eventually backed off. On 6 June 2018, after a lengthy audition process Spandau Ballet revealed their new lead singer, Ross William Wild, who had previously performed with Martin Kemp in the West End musical
Million Dollar Quartet. The band played live at Subterania Club in West London, a venue they had last played 40 years earlier in 1978 as Gentry when it was called Acklam Hall. Their first song as the new line-up was "Through the Barricades". Wild said: "If it wasn't for Spandau so much stuff wouldn't have happened. They are pioneers." Spandau Ballet finished the year showcasing Wild with five live gigs abroad (Milan, Rome, Padova, Utrecht, Tilburg) concluding with another at the Eventim Apollo in London on 29 October, and attracted favourable reviews. On 16 October 2018, Hadley played the
London Palladium with The Tony Hadley Band. Within five months cracks were appearing in Spandau's new line-up. In March 2019, Wild joined a new band called Mercutio, saying: "I can't wait around for Spandau! Unfortunately Gary [Kemp] has commitments, so we're waiting him to finish until we crack on." One month later Gary Kemp, touring the US with
Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets, said in an interview: "There are no plans for Spandau going into 2020." He said he struggled to imagine Spandau Ballet without Tony Hadley, adding: "I still think that's the ultimate goal". Then on 23 May 2019, Wild tweeted at 6:15am: "I have formally quit the band @SpandauBallet to pursue my own music with my band Mercutio." By 10:30am Martin Kemp was on ITV's
This Morning confirming that Spandau would not be touring "until Tony [Hadley] comes back". The next day Spandau thanked Wild via Twitter for "his brilliant performances with them last year and wish him every success with his band, Mercutio". Within the next few days Wild explained further: "I'd put my whole life on hold and was sick of waiting around for them to make up their minds. I told the boys I was quitting and then never heard back from them." The band's sax player Steve Norman also said: "I was neither involved in nor informed of any discussions or decision-making regarding the future of my band, least of all Ross's position in it." Wild was subsequently arrested in March 2021 and charged (under his real name, Ross Davidson) with a series of sex offences dating back to 2013. He was convicted in 2024 of voyeurism, raping a woman and sexually assaulting two others. In January 2026, he was found guilty of a further count of rape. On 30 April 2026 he was sentenced to 14 years in prison. ==In popular culture==