The former frontman of English new-wave band Spandau Ballet, now a solo act, Tony Hadley is popping over to our shores early next year.
He’s part of the line up for the 2026 Selwyn Sounds, performing alongside the likes of Ronan Keating, When The Cats Away, and Opshop.
Hadley joined John MacDonald for a chat about his career, influences, and gave an insight into why Spandau Ballet won’t be reuniting any time soon.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Canterbury Mornings podcast with John McDonald
from News Talk Z'B.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Well, that's Tony Hadley when he was with Legendary at
his band Spend Out Ballet that is going to be
here in March for the Selwyn Sounds Music Festival, but
is with us now on the line from the UK.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Tony, Hi, John, Hey, all right.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah, I'm very very well. Before you thought about singing
for a living, I read that you wanted to be
an orthopedic surgeon. What changed You're thinking?
Speaker 3 (00:33):
That is absolutely true? No, I did. I wanted to
be a doctor, an orthopedic surgeon. I had microscope scalpols,
I had books on spare pot surgery. I must have
been a real nerd, you know. So I couldn't do
the maths physics and chemistry. She us couldn't do it
and never have been stally good at maths. And then
(00:56):
my mum and dad bought me a tape recorder and
I started getting into music and Queen and God, Stuart
and Out and John and people like that, and started
recording myself singing along and thinking, oh okay, this is good.
But I'd always sung in choirs at school anyway, So
I had a good grounding in singing, and then when
I won a competition at a summer holiday camp, I thought,
this is the life for me. I've never looked back.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Well, what age were then?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
About fourteen fifteen?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Okay? All right, well let's fast fast forward a bit
and we'll come back to more of the historical stuff.
But also, you left spender Balle in twenty seventeen, and
a couple of years ago you told the Mirror newspaper
that you wouldn't perform with them again for all the
tea in China and light of what Oasis have just
pulled off, what do you reckon? Still feel insame?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
There's a lot of tea in China. Yeah, no, I
have been listened. I quit. I'm having a good life
and I always wish the guy as well. And without
those guys, I wouldn't be where I am now today.
But you know, we had a good time, we ran
our course, and my position within the band has become untenable.
(02:03):
Really sounds like politicians. Yeah, so I just yeah, but
I enjoyed. I got I've got a wonderful band. I
called him a fabulous h band. They're amazing musicians.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
I look back at.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Spand Out with the majority of the time we spand
out with from this and the songs are great. But
I'm enjoying my life as a sido artists and have
done for a long time.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
What do you wish you'd known before spending I made
it big.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
For Wow?
Speaker 3 (02:33):
We made some silly decisions as a band. I mean
my advice that I was on Breakfast TV here one
morning and she said, I think it was Lorraine and
she said, what what advice would you give any young bands?
I said, get independent legal advice, and I kind of
stick by that.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
Really, it's a really weird business because you you're in
this kind of fluffy world where all you want to
do is sign a record contract and you're not a businessman.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
You don't know anything. You just trust everybody. But but
you know, you really should as a young musician, solo
wise or in a band, you should take take some
independent league of dedvice. Definitely.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Has it ever occurred to you that the worst thing
you can do is to start a band with friends?
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Well, it's a good thing in a way. I mean
we were sort of sixteen at school. I mean I
was pretty much friendly with Steve Norman, myself and Gary
and John Keeble actually weren't particularly friendly at that time,
and I think John John Keebole definitely didn't want me
in the band at that point, but I was a
bit of a loud mouth, you know, a bit of
a bit of a lad, and so but we did
(03:41):
become good friends, and myself and Gay became great friends
as well. It might have been slightly business like sometimes,
but generally speaking we had some amazing times. And then
when Martin joined the band in seventy eight, that was it.
And we were lucky enough to sign our first record
deal when we were about twenty years of age and
top five hit with Cutlong Story Short, which we will
(04:01):
be performing at the festival. So yeah, so you know,
we were lucky, lucky boys.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
You said once that Spender ballet, you know, you drissed
up all the new romantic gear and all the fancy stuff,
and you said I read that. You said that people
expected you to be cool dudes when an nextual fact,
you were unbelievably ordinary. How much how much pressure was
it on you to be anything other than ordinary?
Speaker 3 (04:28):
I mean all our parents were our parents. Actually, we're
all good friends and would go out periodically and have
drinks together and stuff. They were so proud of what
we achieved. So our parents were really grounded. My friends
are still I went to the pub with when I
was sixteen, seventeen and younger are still the same guys
that I hang about with now than my mates. My
(04:49):
oldest friend is I've known since I was four. It
goes we go back a long way, and I just
think between the parents and the friends, we just remained grounded.
And although we were super cool on camera, you know
when it came off off the camera set, ever of
the video set. Anyone want to go down the pub.
(05:10):
It's just a bunch of laps from from North London. Really.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
I read once that you've you say you've never used
illegal drugs, which must have really set you a part
in the eighties when it seemed to be all about
champagne and cocaine.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Well, I don't like champagne.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
I mean, I love I love beer. I love real al,
you know, warm out, British warm out. I love wine,
a lot bit of Jack Daniels just medicinal of course,
but I've never been a fan of champagne, and I
just I never see the I've never seen the point
of drugs. I'm happy enough with life as it is,
(05:47):
just looking around me, just experience in life. I don't
need anything to enhance that. And it's a really silly,
silly road to go down. I've known guys from the
early club days that were straight as a die and
then ended up doing heroin all sorts of things. But
it was It's pitiful, it really is, and it's sad
to see.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Did that isolate you were but you know Beck and
the Heyday in the eighties, or is that just sort
of urban myth that it was so drug reddled.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
I mean, it was a ridiculous I mean, mind you,
I think I was protected from it quite a lot
because I was very very anti truck So I just
think they just look, you know, don't worry to you know,
don't worry about time. He'll be fine and we'll we'll
protect him from all of that. But I mean it
was pretty right, yeah, I mean in all the clubs
and amongst bands and stuff. And I suppose still it
(06:36):
still is in a lot of ways. But I just
in my way of doing things.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
It's interesting because you know, your life's been up and
down with the court cases and the financial impacts of that,
but you've managed to stay on the straight and narrow
the spital that.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
I mean, I'm my glass is always half full, whatever's
happened in my love and trust me, if I've been
up and down a few times, I'm one of these
guys you could knock me down, but I don't stay
there for a very long I'm up before the camp
and I'll be back on a matcha so And I've
always had that attitude to life ever since I was.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
A kid, and it's the same now.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
I mean, I'm still super enthusiastic about music, love touring,
love performing. Got a new big band album coming out
on vinyl before Christmas, and then the new new album
next year which we'll hopefully get to New Zealand as well,
contemporary album. So I'm always, you know, wanting to move
forward and try and do different things and just enjoying
(07:37):
life and enjoying music.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Really, I read you've got the big band doing a
tour in the UK before Christmas? Have you always been
into big band music?
Speaker 4 (07:46):
To be honest, I love it is. My mum and dad.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
They were just a massive Sinatra Bennett, Jack Jones, Sammy
Davis Fans, Ela fitz Erald and so I grew up
listening to that kind of music and it seems to
be I mean, the tour it's not until November and
it's I think it's pretty much sold out now. It's
quite interesting people, even young people, seem to really want
(08:09):
to cling on to that kind of music. And when
you've got a big band and the rock band on
stage as well, it just sounds a million dollars. And
we're doing the Lovely Royal, Albert Hall and places like
that around the UK. And it's just the last till
I went down a storm and this one's doing even better.
So yeah, it's great.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
A couple of weeks ago I was talking to Graham
Goldland from ten c C and he told me that
at seventy nine and on stage, he's amazing at seventy nine.
But he was saying that he's enjoying performing more now
than he ever has. You'll know when he is seventy nine.
But are you the same?
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Yeah, no, I know, Graham, he's a great guy. Yeah,
I know exactly how my voice works now. It's a
really weird thing. I mean, I took lessons from an
opera singer when I was younger, and two years of
singing with her Pamela jobs. But yeah, I kind of
know where he's coming from. I kind of know what
(09:04):
it's about now and I'm enjoin playing with my voice
and I haven't dropped any of the keys, so I
still singing all the original keys and just feel I
have more control so and just loving it. I mean,
I walk on to stage and I'm just I'm in
my element. It's the best place to be.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
So when you hear in March, what are we going
to say? What are we going to hear?
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Well? Coming with the band obviously the Sad ch Band,
and they are awesome musicians. The main thing to do
is you've got to give people what they want. There's
a whole legacy of music. There's a whole catalog that
goes back to nineteen eighty so anything from Takatang Story
Short Only when you leave, I'll flung I obviously, True Gold, Barricade,
(09:46):
all those kind of songs that people want to hear,
plus a couple of new songs from the new new
album for next year, and we always put a queen
song in as well because I was a massive and
still I'm a massive Queen fan and Freddie Mercury was
an amazing guy, so we always do a Queen song too.
But the most important thing is to give people what
they want. There's nothing worse that artists to deny their part.
(10:10):
I'm my whole new album, not going to do any
of my hit They will shoot you down, I'll tell
you so. I don't want to reach shop.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
I drive that. I drive four hours. Once as Kenny
Rogers to find out he was in his jazz phase.
Didn't go down well really, yeah, it didn't go down well.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
No.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
I mean, even if you're in a jazz place, I
don't jazz up your old hits. But I mean, you know,
when I'm doing the big band stuff, you know, I
still do true gold barricades and only when you leave.
But it works because we've got a nine piece brass
section on stage, so you know, only when you leave works,
gold works true. We've got the sacks in it and everything.
(10:47):
So you've got to give people a little bit of
what they want. There's there's nothing worse than disappointment.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
We can't wait to see in March. Tony, thanks for
your time today.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Yeah, listen, John, thanks very much, and so we're looking
we love coming down your way and so yeah, so
we're looking forward to it and we'll see you, see
you very soon.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
For more from Caterbory Mornings with John McDonald, listen live
to news talks at b Christchurch from nine am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Canterbury Mornings podcast with John McDonald
from News Talk Z'B.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Well, that's Tony Hadley when he was with Legendary at
his band Spend Out Ballet that is going to be
here in March for the Selwyn Sounds Music Festival, but
is with us now on the line from the UK.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Tony, Hi, John, Hey, all right.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah, I'm very very well. Before you thought about singing
for a living, I read that you wanted to be
an orthopedic surgeon. What changed You're thinking?
Speaker 3 (00:33):
That is absolutely true? No, I did. I wanted to
be a doctor, an orthopedic surgeon. I had microscope scalpols,
I had books on spare pot surgery. I must have
been a real nerd, you know. So I couldn't do
the maths physics and chemistry. She us couldn't do it
and never have been stally good at maths. And then
(00:56):
my mum and dad bought me a tape recorder and
I started getting into music and Queen and God, Stuart
and Out and John and people like that, and started
recording myself singing along and thinking, oh okay, this is good.
But I'd always sung in choirs at school anyway, So
I had a good grounding in singing, and then when
I won a competition at a summer holiday camp, I thought,
this is the life for me. I've never looked back.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Well, what age were then?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
About fourteen fifteen?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Okay? All right, well let's fast fast forward a bit
and we'll come back to more of the historical stuff.
But also, you left spender Balle in twenty seventeen, and
a couple of years ago you told the Mirror newspaper
that you wouldn't perform with them again for all the
tea in China and light of what Oasis have just
pulled off, what do you reckon? Still feel insame?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
There's a lot of tea in China. Yeah, no, I
have been listened. I quit. I'm having a good life
and I always wish the guy as well. And without
those guys, I wouldn't be where I am now today.
But you know, we had a good time, we ran
our course, and my position within the band has become untenable.
(02:03):
Really sounds like politicians. Yeah, so I just yeah, but
I enjoyed. I got I've got a wonderful band. I
called him a fabulous h band. They're amazing musicians.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
I look back at.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Spand Out with the majority of the time we spand
out with from this and the songs are great. But
I'm enjoying my life as a sido artists and have
done for a long time.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
What do you wish you'd known before spending I made
it big.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
For Wow?
Speaker 3 (02:33):
We made some silly decisions as a band. I mean
my advice that I was on Breakfast TV here one
morning and she said, I think it was Lorraine and
she said, what what advice would you give any young bands?
I said, get independent legal advice, and I kind of
stick by that.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
Really, it's a really weird business because you you're in
this kind of fluffy world where all you want to
do is sign a record contract and you're not a businessman.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
You don't know anything. You just trust everybody. But but
you know, you really should as a young musician, solo
wise or in a band, you should take take some
independent league of dedvice. Definitely.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Has it ever occurred to you that the worst thing
you can do is to start a band with friends?
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Well, it's a good thing in a way. I mean
we were sort of sixteen at school. I mean I
was pretty much friendly with Steve Norman, myself and Gary
and John Keeble actually weren't particularly friendly at that time,
and I think John John Keebole definitely didn't want me
in the band at that point, but I was a
bit of a loud mouth, you know, a bit of
a bit of a lad, and so but we did
(03:41):
become good friends, and myself and Gay became great friends
as well. It might have been slightly business like sometimes,
but generally speaking we had some amazing times. And then
when Martin joined the band in seventy eight, that was it.
And we were lucky enough to sign our first record
deal when we were about twenty years of age and
top five hit with Cutlong Story Short, which we will
(04:01):
be performing at the festival. So yeah, so you know,
we were lucky, lucky boys.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
You said once that Spender ballet, you know, you drissed
up all the new romantic gear and all the fancy stuff,
and you said I read that. You said that people
expected you to be cool dudes when an nextual fact,
you were unbelievably ordinary. How much how much pressure was
it on you to be anything other than ordinary?
Speaker 3 (04:28):
I mean all our parents were our parents. Actually, we're
all good friends and would go out periodically and have
drinks together and stuff. They were so proud of what
we achieved. So our parents were really grounded. My friends
are still I went to the pub with when I
was sixteen, seventeen and younger are still the same guys
that I hang about with now than my mates. My
(04:49):
oldest friend is I've known since I was four. It
goes we go back a long way, and I just
think between the parents and the friends, we just remained grounded.
And although we were super cool on camera, you know
when it came off off the camera set, ever of
the video set. Anyone want to go down the pub.
(05:10):
It's just a bunch of laps from from North London. Really.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
I read once that you've you say you've never used
illegal drugs, which must have really set you a part
in the eighties when it seemed to be all about
champagne and cocaine.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Well, I don't like champagne.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
I mean, I love I love beer. I love real al,
you know, warm out, British warm out. I love wine,
a lot bit of Jack Daniels just medicinal of course,
but I've never been a fan of champagne, and I
just I never see the I've never seen the point
of drugs. I'm happy enough with life as it is,
(05:47):
just looking around me, just experience in life. I don't
need anything to enhance that. And it's a really silly,
silly road to go down. I've known guys from the
early club days that were straight as a die and
then ended up doing heroin all sorts of things. But
it was It's pitiful, it really is, and it's sad
to see.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Did that isolate you were but you know Beck and
the Heyday in the eighties, or is that just sort
of urban myth that it was so drug reddled.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
I mean, it was a ridiculous I mean, mind you,
I think I was protected from it quite a lot
because I was very very anti truck So I just
think they just look, you know, don't worry to you know,
don't worry about time. He'll be fine and we'll we'll
protect him from all of that. But I mean it
was pretty right, yeah, I mean in all the clubs
and amongst bands and stuff. And I suppose still it
(06:36):
still is in a lot of ways. But I just
in my way of doing things.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
It's interesting because you know, your life's been up and
down with the court cases and the financial impacts of that,
but you've managed to stay on the straight and narrow
the spital that.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
I mean, I'm my glass is always half full, whatever's
happened in my love and trust me, if I've been
up and down a few times, I'm one of these
guys you could knock me down, but I don't stay
there for a very long I'm up before the camp
and I'll be back on a matcha so And I've
always had that attitude to life ever since I was.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
A kid, and it's the same now.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
I mean, I'm still super enthusiastic about music, love touring,
love performing. Got a new big band album coming out
on vinyl before Christmas, and then the new new album
next year which we'll hopefully get to New Zealand as well,
contemporary album. So I'm always, you know, wanting to move
forward and try and do different things and just enjoying
(07:37):
life and enjoying music.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Really, I read you've got the big band doing a
tour in the UK before Christmas? Have you always been
into big band music?
Speaker 4 (07:46):
To be honest, I love it is. My mum and dad.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
They were just a massive Sinatra Bennett, Jack Jones, Sammy
Davis Fans, Ela fitz Erald and so I grew up
listening to that kind of music and it seems to
be I mean, the tour it's not until November and
it's I think it's pretty much sold out now. It's
quite interesting people, even young people, seem to really want
(08:09):
to cling on to that kind of music. And when
you've got a big band and the rock band on
stage as well, it just sounds a million dollars. And
we're doing the Lovely Royal, Albert Hall and places like
that around the UK. And it's just the last till
I went down a storm and this one's doing even better.
So yeah, it's great.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
A couple of weeks ago I was talking to Graham
Goldland from ten c C and he told me that
at seventy nine and on stage, he's amazing at seventy nine.
But he was saying that he's enjoying performing more now
than he ever has. You'll know when he is seventy nine.
But are you the same?
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Yeah, no, I know, Graham, he's a great guy. Yeah,
I know exactly how my voice works now. It's a
really weird thing. I mean, I took lessons from an
opera singer when I was younger, and two years of
singing with her Pamela jobs. But yeah, I kind of
know where he's coming from. I kind of know what
(09:04):
it's about now and I'm enjoin playing with my voice
and I haven't dropped any of the keys, so I
still singing all the original keys and just feel I
have more control so and just loving it. I mean,
I walk on to stage and I'm just I'm in
my element. It's the best place to be.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
So when you hear in March, what are we going
to say? What are we going to hear?
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Well? Coming with the band obviously the Sad ch Band,
and they are awesome musicians. The main thing to do
is you've got to give people what they want. There's
a whole legacy of music. There's a whole catalog that
goes back to nineteen eighty so anything from Takatang Story
Short Only when you leave, I'll flung I obviously, True Gold, Barricade,
(09:46):
all those kind of songs that people want to hear,
plus a couple of new songs from the new new
album for next year, and we always put a queen
song in as well because I was a massive and
still I'm a massive Queen fan and Freddie Mercury was
an amazing guy, so we always do a Queen song too.
But the most important thing is to give people what
they want. There's nothing worse that artists to deny their part.
(10:10):
I'm my whole new album, not going to do any
of my hit They will shoot you down, I'll tell
you so. I don't want to reach shop.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
I drive that. I drive four hours. Once as Kenny
Rogers to find out he was in his jazz phase.
Didn't go down well really, yeah, it didn't go down well.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
No.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
I mean, even if you're in a jazz place, I
don't jazz up your old hits. But I mean, you know,
when I'm doing the big band stuff, you know, I
still do true gold barricades and only when you leave.
But it works because we've got a nine piece brass
section on stage, so you know, only when you leave works,
gold works true. We've got the sacks in it and everything.
(10:47):
So you've got to give people a little bit of
what they want. There's there's nothing worse than disappointment.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
We can't wait to see in March. Tony, thanks for
your time today.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Yeah, listen, John, thanks very much, and so we're looking
we love coming down your way and so yeah, so
we're looking forward to it and we'll see you, see
you very soon.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
For more from Caterbory Mornings with John McDonald, listen live
to news talks at b Christchurch from nine am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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