As one of the founders of Spandau Ballet, multi-instrumentalist Steve Norman played a crucial role in the band’s success. He is about to return to his punk roots, joining XGENERATIONX, featuring Generation X drummer Mark Laff. The punk movement and the Sex Pistols inspired him to co-found a band that would form the roots of Spandau in October 1976.
Famous for his infectious saxophone hooks on the likes of smash hits such as Gold and True, Norman explains his teenage draw towards music. “I actually never wanted to be a sax player; I wanted to be a drummer, but we lived on the fourth floor of a council estate. I had a mate at school whose parents had a bit of money, and they bought him a top of the range Premier drum kit, so I would play that and got into percussion. I then picked up the guitar when I was about 14.”
The north-Londoner’s next move was to form a band with Gary Kemp. As part of what would become the New Romantic movement, Norman played guitar on the band’s debut gig at the Blitz Club in 1979 and on their first long player, Journeys To Glory, released in 1980.
“Gary was sneaky because we both played rhythm and lead equally. When he started playing all the guitar, I started to look around for other instruments. I moved on to percussion and congas for the second album (Diamond). I wasn’t playing sax up to that point; it wasn’t until 1983 that I bought one when I was looking around for another instrument to play. It was at Chris Sullivan’s house who played trumpet for Blue Rondo a la Turk, and he later designed suits for the band. I started to get a few notes out of it and then bought a sax, which made me go right down the front of the stage. I’d always liked the sax, it’s a very sexy instrument, and soon I was playing it on the recordings for the True album.”
Steve’s signature solo on the album’s title track and smash hit is perhaps the most arresting part of the song. It remains one of the most definitive pop hits of the 1980s. “I’d been playing less than a year when I came up with that,” explains Norman, “I’d bought it from this guy on a council estate in Streatham and I sold it a year or two later in the mid 1980s.”
It was during the Covid lockdown that Norman had a call from the sax’s subsequent owner, explaining he had bought the instrument and that he’d passed it on to an auction for NHS Charities Together. “I ended up bidding for my own sax, I sold it for two bob and bought it back for two-and-a-half-grand! It’s priceless to me, I bought it back simply because I owned it in the first place,” he laughs. Punk rock had been a significant influence on Norman before joining Spandau Ballet.
He is set to switch back to guitar and join Mark Laff, Michael Giaquinto, and Elizabeth Westwood for a tour celebrating punk rockers Generation X, the band fronted by Billy Idol, with a string of hits including King Rocker, Your Generation, Ready Steady Go, and Valley of the Dolls.
“That punk energy never went away for me,” says Norman. “I still look for punk bands; it’s all about the energy of the songs and trusting your gut with very fast punk rock. I hadn’t met Mark (Laff) before we started working on this, but I was a fan of the band, and I felt there had been something missing before he joined. No disrespect to the drummer before him, but I just loved his timing and energy; it was spot on! We both worked for IPC magazines when we were kids, but he left before I joined. Everyone there was talking about him, the next thing I knew, he was on Top of the Pops.”
After the success of the 1980s, Spandau Ballet were under a much harder spotlight when Norman, along with the band’s frontman Tony Hadley and drummer John Keeble, took guitarist Gary Kemp to court over songwriting royalties. Despite losing the case, Norman is philosophical about it now. With his strong, north-London accent, he explains.
“I actually quoted David Bowie during the court case. He had talked about ‘naive saxophone’ and I mentioned that. They were trying to rubbish everything I was saying, and they brought in this musicologist, who said it wasn’t just naive, but it was also out of tune! I had to hold my hands up with that one.”
Steve’s hearty laughter booms down the phone line, before we wrap up, he adds that he has remained friends with his old band-mates and hopes they can reunite one last time to play for a new generation of fans.
“I’ve said for years we never had closure with the fans or the band. We’ve supposedly split three times, but often it was people not saying what was going on or communicating, they didn’t have the balls to say it. In the future, it would all have to be written down because we’ve had situations where people have pulled out at the last minute, and then you’re left out of work for the next year. Having said all that, I’m on good terms with everyone in the band, not everyone in the band speaks now, but we really were a band of brothers, I like to keep those memories alive.”
XGENERATIONX will perform at The Voodoo Rooms on 16 November.
Steve Norman Credit Olga Rozewin
Steve Norman Credit Sabrina Winter
XGENERATIONX Photo Olga Rozewin
Like Loading…
Related