Tony Hadley Didn’t Expect Spandau Ballet ‘True’ Would Be A Hit

Spandau Ballet’s former lead singer Tony Hadley says he never expected their band’s classic song ‘True’ would have been a hit.

‘True’ gave Spandau Ballet their first ever number one in the UK. It also reached no 4 in Australia and the USA.

Tony tells Noise11.com, “I didn’t think ‘True’, for instance, was a single. I don’t think any of us did. But when the DJs in the UK started saying ‘if this is not released as a single, if its not number one, I’ll eat my hat’ and all that kind of stuff, it ended up being number one in 25 countries including Top 5 in the US so I was wrong”.

‘True’ is one of three songs he always plays at every show. “It is still song whenever we sing it today, there are certain songs you sing every time,” he says. “Whether it be a private show, a public show or a festival, ‘True’, ‘Gold’ and ‘Barricades’ are those three songs we always have to do”.

That third album ‘True’ took Spandau Ballet in the completely different direct to where they started. “It’s a bit of a weird one,” he says. “If you look at the very first album we could easily have gone down the road of Depeche Mode and been a ‘four on the floor’ kind of band. We kept changing, we got a bit funky on the second album. By the time we hit the ‘True’ album Steve Norman was playing the saxophone, percussion. That had quite an influence on Gary’s writing. We went to the Bahamas ‘yo man!’, everythings laid back there. The third album ‘True’ took on a completely different, kind of laid back, soft rock production”.

Tony Hadley kicks off his solo tour of Australia on the Gold Coast tonight.