TOTALLY TUBULAR
A CONVERSATION WITH TOM BAILEY OF THE THOMPSON TWINS
Tom Bailey was one of the founding members of The Thompson Twins when they formed in 1977 in Sheffield, England. By the time they recorded their debut album in 1981 (A Product Of…Participation), the line-up had changed significantly and although the album earned great reviews and critical acclaim, the album didn’t trouble the charts. That changed by their third album, Quick Step & Side Kicks (which had a different line-up again) which did extremely well on both sides of the Atlantic. However, it was 1984 when the dam broke, and The Thompson Twins were international pop/rock stars with their now classic album Into The Gap. Through all the albums, Tom Bailey was a principal songwriter and was surprised when “Hold Me Now” became a huge hit while they were still recording Into The Gap.
“We had already released the lead single, which was “Hold Me Now”,” Tom Bailey said. “While we were cutting the tracks, at the very beginning of “Doctor! Doctor!” and other songs, we kept getting phone calls that “Hold Me Now” was going crazy around the world. This was very exciting. We were in The Bahamas, and this is before the internet and mobile phones. We thought, ‘wow, we better make this album a good one because we set ourselves up for massive success or massive failure. It raised the bar in our intentions to make it good and to be creatively brilliant as we were allowed to be. That coincided that we had matured as a team as well. It was all good.”
Of course, the album was a massive success, hitting number one in the U.K. and the top 10 in the rest of the world. Bailey was not surprised by the success, but the impact the album has had over the past four decades. “We had no idea, even now it’s kind of shocking to think about what has happened with this album. It’s been a great forty years.
Tom Bailey will be touring the UK playing Into The Gap in its entirety, and then in April he will be part of the Totally Tubular Festival, which he is co-headlining with Thomas Dolby. “Interestingly I am doing my own shows in the U.K. immediately prior to this North American tour. They are much longer shows, for a start, so I get to play more. I am doing a show where I am doing a complete album plus a few other things. Whereas in a festival, you get an allotted time slot. The main thing is that a festival is not all your audience, so you can’t assume they are interested in what you did last week. They want to hear the hits. That really steers us to a greatest hits show on festival slots.”
TOTALLY TUBULAR FESTIVAL TICKETS AND INFO
Because he is performing the whole album, Bailey had to learn some songs that he had never performed live in concert. “There were a few deep cuts that I hadn’t looked at, listened to, or played for a long, long time. In fact, I’m fairly sure that I never played the whole album. There were always tracks left off for the live show. Anyway, it was fantastic to rediscover the album. I was a little nervous thinking, ‘you know what? I will be digging into bad soil’,” laughed Bailey. “Actually, it’s a good record. All the kind of side two tracks, as it were, are really well worth exhuming. In particular there are a couple I really dig, and I wonder ‘Why did we leave those out?’”
And for Bailey, it is nostalgic for him, as much as it is for the fans who enjoyed the album in 1984. “I always think that listening to your old work is like reading your old diary. It just takes you right back to the circumstances, the places, the people. In particular, what you were thinking that was interesting at the time and the ideas you wanted to excavate into and discover.”
And with all great works, this is not static. One’s view of the album may change but the work stands on its own. “This changes over time,” agreed Bailey. “It doesn’t mean that it all becomes irrelevant later. There is a kind of archeology involved and bringing up things you have forgotten about.”
On their next album, the brilliant Here’s To Future Days, the band grew even more and presented a commercial and yet adventurous album, including a cover of a Beatles track, “Revolution”, their only real cover in their career. Their first contained some traditional songs, but they were covers. With “Revolution”, the band took the bold step in covering an iconic song.
“It was fun to do. I don’t know how the idea originally came up. I suppose at the time, people were doing the odd cover version, and I thought ‘what would I do?’. For some reason, that occurred. It is a good kind of rebel rousing song. I mean, we played it at Live Aid as well. The thing about “Revolution” is that it sounds like such a riot inducing song, but it is really quizzical about revolutions. It is massively ironic, especially coming from John Lennon who was mister troublemaker par excellence. At some stage I was in the studio in New York cutting the track, and I asked an assistant to get me Yoko Ono’s phone number, because I wanted to call her up and see if she would give her blessing. So, I called her, and she answered, and I freaked out. I put the phone down,” laughed Bailey. “It was just too heavy of a question to ask, ‘will you give your stamp of approval?’ Because if she said no, that would have completely derailed the plan. In the end I thought it was best not to seek approval and just go ahead with the version.”
It is interesting to talk to someone who was on stage during one of the greatest music festivals of time. Certainly, the biggest with a huge worldwide audience. The Thompson Twins performed brilliantly and with a little help from some very special guests. “Most significantly Steve Stevens from Billy Idol’s band, because he played on the record as well. He is a great guitarist. When we decided to perform “Revolution” at live aid, we said, ‘come on’ and he did. Nile Rodgers, who we were working with at the time, pulled a rather clever move. We were in New York, and we didn’t want to go to London to perform, but we had no band to perform with us live. Someone suggested that David Letterman’s band had the day off because of Live Aid. I think Nile made the call, and somehow, we got that band, which introduced me to Felicia Collins, their guitarist and she became part of our touring band for a while and then a permanent band of The David Letterman Band. And there was this singer named Madonna. Niles had been working with her, and we decided she needed a break, you know,” laughed Bailey.
Bailey is looking forward to his return to North America. “It’s been about six years since I have been in Canada,” he remarked. And he is excited to not only share the stage with Thomas Dolby but the other bands too. It seems he is looking forward to hearing the music. “It will be a great show, and there’s lots of other good stuff on that bill, isn’t there. In fact, there is so much good stuff, I don’t know quite how we are going to do it. It is a pleasure to be playing with Tom. Apart from one festival I did in the U.K., I have never played on the same stage as Tom, although we worked on albums together. We’ve even been the keyboardist on Foreigner albums, which is a weird factoid. It’s a weird story, but Mick Jones, from Foreigner, invented a fabulous American corporate rock band. They are musically brilliant because he is a fantastic musician and a great writer. But he was slightly aware of the fact that it had become so mainstream and American sounding. He had this little trick where he would invite troublemaking young English synthesizer players to come and contribute to the record. I think I played on a few tracks for one album. The prize was Thomas Dolby played synthesizers on “I’ve Been Waiting For A Girl Like You” and I got invited to play the keyboards on “I Want To Know What Love Is”. So, these two mega ballads of the all-time famous corporate American rock band are in fact platforms for two kids from England to play synthesizers and it kind of works, doesn’t it?”
Although Bailey has been working away on his own solo album, which he hopes to have out next year, he is reminded that making and performing good, strong, well written pop music is essential. His two tours are assisting him in viewing his own music and catalogue of some of the finest and most creative music created over the past 45 years. “You mix and match in a good proportion. I compartmentalize in a way. I do have my mainstream pop hat, which I wear sometimes and then I go way off into the weird and wonderful, you know the deeply experimental electronic music and Indian classical music is a big thing with me as well. But what I do like to think is that they inform each other. So, you can be writing what you imagine is a mainstream pop song and suddenly sneak some wacky idea from dub or electronica. Or a melodic figure from an Indian Raga or something, or particularly a rhythmic figure from Indian music which normally wouldn’t find its way into those things, unless you allow them.
“The point is the original intention shouldn’t be overwhelmed. There is no point writing a pop song that no one gets, because it is too weird. But there is every point in making a piece of music that is so weird that it interests people.”
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Main Photo Credit: Nick Caro | Background Photo Credit: James Cumpsty
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