Former Spandau Ballet guitarist and present member of Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets and techniques, Gary Kemp lately adopted up his profitable Insolo album with a brand new work, This Vacation spot. He tells Prog in regards to the journey of self-discovery that led to him there and hints at what the longer term holds for the ‘Punk Floyd’ collective
You’d think about Gary Kemp can be brimming with confidence, given his spectacular CV. In addition to being guitarist and singer in Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets and techniques, Kemp has offered greater than 25 million information with Spandau Ballet, starred in blockbuster motion pictures together with The Krays and The Bodyguard, and hosts Rockonteurs, the UK’s primary music podcast, together with his bandmate and greatest mate Man Pratt. So that you’d think about he has each purpose to be assured.
“I’m not!” he protests, his brow crumpling right into a frown. Kemp, 65 – whose new album This Vacation spot was launched on the finish of January – is neatly attired in button-up black shirt and charcoal gilet, the very image of well being, however point out of the ‘c’ phrase brings on a sudden bout of diffidence. Whereas his third solo studio album is a formidable testomony to his songwriting capabilities (he received an Ivor Novello for Excellent Tune Assortment in 2012 and a BMI Icon Award in 2023) he says it began from a spot of doubt.
“Possibly I seem actually assured, and that’s how I noticed myself in some ways. However a few years in the past, I actually had loads of painful nervousness. I don’t know whether or not that was a standard trait due to what we’d all skilled with the pandemic.”
Aftser asking himself existential questions (“Who am I? What am I?”) coinciding with reaching his 60s, Kemp determined to take inspiration from different songwriters. He known as Sheffield musician Richard Hawley, who informed him to go to a piano and put his arms over the keys, including: “I’m going to go now, and also you’re going to put in writing a fucking sensible tune.” At that sitting, he conjured up the spectacular Work, a paean to his dad and mom that has a contact of the Sondheim about it.
Earlier than that, he’d made himself take up the baton once more throughout a visit to see Pete Townshend in Richmond. “I bought on a tube, and it was a protracted journey. I believed: ‘I’m going to see certainly one of my songwriting heroes, one of many best songwriters that ever lived on this style. I’m trying round; I’ve bought the town above my head and this sense of the completely different individuals approaching and off the prepare… and I’ve simply bought to put in writing.”
Borrowed City was the outcome, a tune that posits the concept the place we reside solely on mortgage to us. “There was a time after I was the king of the road, proper, the peacock of my technology. We had been these youngsters; it was our city, and there have been outdated individuals on the road that I didn’t give a shit about. However hey possibly fought within the conflict that gave me the liberty to be a peacock. We didn’t care, in the identical method that now I’m on the aspect of the road.”
Kemp’s taking part in on the album is crisp; his guitar strains on Borrowed City accommodates shades of David Gilmour about them; a transparent affect on his fashion that he’s not afraid to come clean with. “Once I grew up there have been two guitarists that I actually appreciated – David and Mick Ronson.
Nick is type of a simple man. He’s not Roger, and he’s extra versatile than David, presumably
I feel I’ve at all times appreciated melody. I’m not a shredder. However then David was influenced by Hank Marvin and Jeff Beck; and in some ways, Syd Barrett as properly, as a result of Syd began taking part in with the echoes and delays. So when David got here into Pink Floyd, he needed to take that on board as a result of Syd had already established that.”
Kemp remembers practising in a college pal’s basement as a youngster, rehearsing a rendition of Pink Floyd’s Set The Controls For The Coronary heart Of The Solar. “That was the primary tune I ever jammed with different musicians,” he says. “All of us went to this counter-culturalist’s home close to the place I grew up in Islington. I’d been going to a drama membership and I bought to satisfy middle-class youngsters, arty youngsters from arty households, and certainly one of them was [publisher and nightclub owner] Jay Landesman’s son, Cosmo, who seems to be a very well-known journalist.
“Jay’s home shocked me – it was the primary time I’d seen a wok or a bottle of wine; the primary time I’d ever smelled garlic. Chairman Mao was on the wall; the chairs and the sofas didn’t match. We go downstairs to the basement and there’s a bunch of us, together with Phil Daniels and Peter-Hugo Daly, who finally grew to become actors, and Miles [Landesman, Cosmo’s younger brother] was there, too. He placed on Set The Controls For Coronary heart Of The Solar, and I had my guitar, and we jammed all of it day.”
Half a century later, Kemp would wind up taking part in the tune reside with the precise drummer from the recording. So, what’s Nick Mason like? “He’s type of a simple man,” says Kemp. “He’s not Roger. And he’s extra versatile than David, presumably.”
I used to be in a band that went from digital to blue-eyed soul and did very properly, so individuals suppose that that’s all I’m
Taking part in with Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets and techniques supplied Kemp a method again into music after the confidence-shaking underperformance of his 1995 album Little Bruises, a Celtic-inflected work that was very out of types through the top of Britpop. However 36 years later, the nine-minute Steven Wilson mixture of Ready For The Band, from 2021’s Insolo – that includes Mike Garson on piano – is perhaps the best second of his profession thus far.
“It’s onerous to put in writing one other a kind of,” he admits, “however Ready For The Band was a tune that I feel lots of people needed. It felt like a tune for the followers. Clearly it’s written with Bowie at Hammersmith Odeon in thoughts, however it might imply anybody I noticed in that interval within the 70s: T Rex, Pink Floyd or Genesis.”
All of a sudden he had a brand new palette to color with, and he might experiment and even solo with out being swatted apart by Spandau Ballet saxophonist Steve Norman. “It was working with Nick that constructed my confidence,” he confirms. “Individuals began to recognise me because the guitar participant I’m.”
This author remembers eyebrows being raised when Kemp appeared in Saucerful Of Secrets and techniques, and likewise when he took on the function of Ronnie Kray within the glorious 1990 movie The Krays. He rapidly silenced the doubters in each circumstances. Prog wonders if being underestimated at occasions works to his benefit?
We didn’t suppose we might do Echoes, after which we did it. Might we go into The Darkish Aspect Of The Moon?
“I in all probability have those self same opinions about myself typically, however you’ve set to work onerous and take up the problem,” he says. “Loads of it comes from bizarre misconceptions and judgements that individuals make from a slender view. I used to be in a band that went from digital to blue-eyed soul and it did very properly, so individuals suppose that that’s all that I’m, and I have to solely be listening to that kind of music.”
So, what now for Saucerful Of Secrets and techniques? Having performed loads of pre-The Darkish Aspect Of The Moon materials one wonders the place they’ll go from right here. Kemp confirms there’s one thing thrilling within the pipeline – however he can’t say any extra in the intervening time.
“The place can it go? That’s fascinating, as a result of we didn’t suppose we might do Echoes, after which we did it. Might we go additional past that into The Darkish Aspect Of The Moon? I don’t suppose so, as a result of individuals have been used to seeing these songs carried out with 10 musicians and backing vocalists onstage, and we’ve at all times been Punk Floyd.
“However I feel there are nonetheless some songs that we might take a look at that we’ve by no means completed. Nick is 81 and he needs to maintain taking part in music. I needs to be so fortunate to be taking part in with this big who modified my musical panorama with Darkish Aspect Of The Moon.”
Furthermore, Kemp has now joined an unique society: “I’ve been accepted into the Pink Floyd universe. And I can inform you what, that’s a tough membership to get.”