MARC ALMOND

“When I take a one way ticket to the road of no return

On a journey every man must make some day

When it’s time to meet my maker and explain my sins away

I will tell him, yes, I’ll tell him, I have lived,

I have lived each single moment as a man of flesh and blood

With my soul and all my senses open wide

I have lived and tasted everything that called out to be tried

I’m afraid of neither heaven nor of hell

Never caring if I had a soul to sell!

(‘I Have Lived’)

“I suppose I am a survivor since I am still here recording an album,” says Marc Almond. But Marc hasn’t only survived that near-fatal motorbike crash on 17 October 2004, that put him in a coma for two weeks, included emergency surgery and a protracted, agonising but triumphant recovery from critical injuries; he’s survived the vagaries of fashion and trends, solo voyages and band reunions, creative highs and writers-block lows, acceptance and rejection, love affairs, the death of loved ones and collaborators, the passing of time. He has lived, alright. Like a cat, Marc appears to have more than one life…

All the above, and most likely much more, can be found on his new album Stardom Road, the first he has recorded since his accident. With one exception, it’s an album of covers, chosen and sequenced to tell Almond’s story – no wonder, with such a life-threatening trauma, that he has taken stock of how he has lived that life to date. Each song is a chapter in that life; so Stardom Road resembles not just an album but a play, which clearly suits a man who comes alive on stage, whose songs have always resembled dramas, whether they are underpinned by fizzy synth-pop, 60s-inspired pop kitsch-arama, bare-naked acoustic ballads or orchestrated splendour. All of these, as you can imagine, can be found here too, spanning the divide between the Jim Reeves of Bedsit to the Judy Garland of the Garbage Heap.

There can’t be many who don’t know Marc’s rollercoaster career. From Soft Cell, the

first successful British electro-duo in partnership with Dave Ball, with a string of international hits ('Bedsitter', 'Numbers', 'Torch' ,'Say Hello Wave Goodbye' and, biggest of all, their version of northern soul classic 'Tainted Love', while 'Memorabilia'  is cited as the first techno record ever). 10 million-plus worldwide record sales later, Soft Cell are a British icon, influencing several subsequent generations of musicians - from Pulp, The Pet Shop Boys and Suede, to Goldfrapp and onto Antony Hegarty of Antony & The Johnsons fame.

Marc’s solo career has equally glittered; from Vermin In Ermine and The Stars We Are, which spawned the UK number one (and international hit) Something’s Gotten Hold Of My Heart, a duet with the late Gene Pitney. From the Trevor Horn-produced Tenement Symphony, which included another cover smash, The Days Of Pearly Spencer, to his tribute album Jacques to Jacques Brel (Marc brought the 60s Belgian icon back into the charts with Jacky). From a twin album of French songs to Heart On Snow, a three-year labour of love recorded in St. Petersburg and Moscow and featuring a cross section of Russian singing stars and musicians. From duets with Siouxsie Sioux and former Sneaker Pimp Kelly Dayton to a big band version of ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’ for Jools Holland’s Big Band, Small World album. From his poem/lyric anthology A Beautiful Twisted Night to a limited edition spoken word CD/book The End Of New York. From his first autobiography, 1999’s Tainted Life to his second, 2004’s In Search Of The Pleasure Palace. Not to forget Soft Cell’s reunion in 2001 for concerts and the Cruelty Without Beauty album, or Marc’s burgeoning DJ career, in his role as godfather of Electroclash.

As part of his ongoing recovery, Marc made some short appearances, the first since his accident being Antony & The Johnson’s sensational debut London show in 2005. The standing ovation when Marc walked out of the wings, and the nape-hair-raising version of Antony’s ‘River Of Sorrow’ (“it’s such a poignant song for me,” says Marc, “as it’s about a near-death experience”), displays exactly the love that the audience has for Marc, and vice-versa. In 2006, Marc sung two Brecht songs at Patti Smith's London Meltdown Festival and then popped up in St.Petersburg, backed by the naval choir of 60 sailors and accompanied by the legendary Boris Grebenshikov on guitar and Mikhail Apteman on piano.

But it’s Stardom Road, the first of a three-album deal with Sequel/Sanctuary, produced between Tris Penna (music industry veteran and a fountain of musical knowledge who Marc worked with while at EMI) and Marius de Vries that matters most. Because it’s here, and now, and a rousing confirmation that there is a light that never goes out. “I’d planned an album of new songs,” he explains, “but after the crash, I just couldn’t write. I couldn’t even listen to music as my ears were punctured. It put me in a very strange, dark place – I had trouble getting in touch with my emotions, and I had to learn how to sing again - so I didn’t want to release an album of depressing, morbid songs; I wanted to come out the other side first. So it was the perfect opportunity to pick songs by other people, but to make it autobiographical. Some are direct, some abstract, but it’s my journey through music; the things that led me to performing and singing, and musically inspired me. I listened to so many songs,” he ventures. “If I didn’t write the songs, I wanted them to be one I could have written.”

It’s a simple story – boy dreams of pop stardom, suffers along the way, achieves pop stardom, suffers along the way, looks for love, suffers along the way… French chanson Charles Aznavour’s ‘I Have Lived’ raises the curtain, setting the scene; ‘I Close My Eyes And Count To Ten’, made famous by Dusty Springfield, soundtracks boy Marc, “growing up in the 60s, watching black-and-white TV shows, being inspired by singers.” Cue a duet with St. Etienne’s Sarah Cracknell, plus Jools Holland on piano; Marc’s shift from Leeds to London is celebrated by Al Stewart’s ‘Bedsitter Images’ and ‘The London Boys’, one of David Bowie’s best early songs (from 1967); Sinatra’s other signature tune Strangers In The Night is what happens when a young man embraces the anonymity and (relative) safety of the big(ger) city, with Ballad Of The Sad Young Men the reverse side of that coin, when the strangers have departed and the tears start to fall; note that the lyric is a thinly disguised pre-Stonewall paean to that love that used to dare not speak its name (the song was first performed by Gil Evans in 1958 though made popular by jazz singer Anita O’Day in 1962)

The personal journey gets more careerist as Marc remembers “my earliest experiences in the music industry,” with the utterly gorgeous ‘Stardom Road’ (written by, all of bands, 70s British cult rockers Third World War, but discovered by Marc on Bowie acolyte Dana Gillespie’s Weren’t Born A Man album)… and so the plot continues, through a recognition of pop’s escapist magic (Paul Ryan’s Kitsch, written for brother Barry, is a great undiscovered pop melodrama to match the brothers’ earlier collaborations Eloise and Love Is Love – note too the inserted tribute to T. Rex’s Hot Love),

torment and toreros (to borrow one of Marc’s album titles), on-stage applause and backstage blues, the lure of the audience, some redemption at last, and finally, The Curtain Falls, via songwriter Sol Weinstein and the singer who made it famous, sixties crooner Bobby Darin.

Among the tracks, there are some very personal tributes: ‘Backstage I’m Lonely’ is a song made famous by Gene Pitney, while ‘Ballad Of The Sad Young Men’ (written by Thomas J. Wolf Jr. and Frances Landesman, recorded by Shirley Bassey among others, but probably best known by Roberta Flack, which is how Marc first heard it) is a duet with Antony that kickstarted Marc’s return to recording. It’s notable that Antony introduced Marc that night they sung on stage in London as “the artist without whom I would be nothing”, so it’s poignant that Marc has been part of Antony’s journey and now Antony is part of his. That night, and this tenderly dovetailing version, is irrevocable proof that Marc’s voice is back to former glories, after extensive physiotherapy and vocal coaching.

The penultimate track is the album’s one original, ‘Redeem Me’, co-written with Marius de Vries. “A new song points the way to the future. The song says, if you can’t always do the things you used to, and you have to learn to be the person you are now, in my heart I’m the same person. The song ends with the positive declaration “in my heart I’m still the same man / the me I was is the me I am.”  

And then ‘The Curtain Falls’, backed by a wistful accordion, in pure cabaret style, as the artist walks back into the wings, back into himself, ready or not for the next performance, but always at heart a performer. The curtain will rise again, another day, maybe on another stage, but the show must go on. Marc has fought back to regain much of his previous status as a singer and songwriter and though he realises that many aspects of his life will never be the same again, he retains his unique way of looking at life through his humour and optimism. There is clearly more to come from this unique, captivating character; some drama, exhilaration and probably some tears, but at least Marc knows what it is to be alive.

MARC ALMOND – STARDOM ROAD: some personal reflections

I HAVE LIVED For me, this Aznavour song is the perfect opener. It is the theme song of my life, a celebration of life itself, a rally to live and to experience as much as possible, even when bad experiences turn out to be the consequence of good ones. The song speaks without remorse or excuse for embracing the Joie De Vivre (joy in life), seeking neither redemption nor forgiveness on the day of reckoning.

I CLOSE MY EYES (AND COUNT TO TEN) As a kid, I watched the great ballad singers of the sixties on an old Bakelite-encased black and white television, and they somehow saturated my adolescence In colour; female singers with too much eye makeup, and torch-singing crooners, inevitably recounting lost loves and missed chances. Sometimes it all seems like a dream. This song features the singer Sarah Cracknell, whose voice conjures up perfectly the images of Britain in the sixties

BEDSITTER IMAGES When I left home to live in the city, I moved into a small, squalid bedsit but I recall (looking back) it seemed to me like a palace at the time. I wanted to be an artist, to express myself and my independence. I wanted to show the world that I didn't care, though when personal success came, it seemed I did care and I created a facade to hide behind, especially from my family. This Al Stewart song sums it up perfectly. I even wrote a song called Bedsitter.

LONDON BOYS Though originally a sixties Bowie song, I heard this for the first time in the early seventies - it gave meaning and clarity to how I was feeling at the time. I was a misfit and felt only a city like London could offer acceptance. It was a song that lured me to London and in so doing, life imitated art. It reminded me of the film Johnny Go Home that I had watched with the same curiousity.

STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT Like so many others, I too have looked for love in all the wrong places, but I hope by the end of my life, just as at the end of the song, I might have found it. For me this song is about so many things - growing up, acceptance, casual encounters, sometimes sexual, the anonymous rendezvous that might, despite the odds, have something close to a happy ending, and at worse, human contact.

THE BALLAD OF THE SAD YOUNG MEN That chasm of time that is our late teenage years, endless and filled with self-doubt and uncertainty…Having left home and having no plans or ideas about the future, I was at a low-point,  drifting and wondering just who I was, killing time in bars and coffee shops, and later clip joints, feeling purposely and vulnerable. I was such a sad young man. I'm joined on this song by the inimitable voice of Antony Hegarty. Our paths crossed long before we ever met each other, and our journeys have now been a part of the others.

STARDOM ROAD As I found success as a so called 'pop star', I also realised it came at a price. This song (by Third World War) deals with the cruelty and rejection - something that I personally felt when I first tried to make my mark on the music scene, and the derision and manipulation I fought against. “Ain't got the looks / Ain't got the chords / And sure ain't got the voice” perfectly sums up how it was for me, and I still feel the weight of that baggage whilst riding my mule up stage.

KITSCH In many ways pop stars, pop music and the celebrity moniker that accompanies it is ultimately kitsch - so this song for me says it all; pointless grandeur, failed seriousness and a celebration of mediocrity and banality. It had to be utterly overblown, a colossal, colourful, tasteless ride to nowhere. It reminds me of the strange situations I've been in, the surreal shows I've performed on and the insane people I've had to endure in order to promote my music. Kitsch is, of course, ultimately in the eye of the beholder, and I am all too aware that some people would consider me kitsch, so this song is also for all of them. Above all, though, it is great fun in a chintzy, tasteless and garish kind of way.

BACKSTAGE I'M LONELY This song is my tribute to the late Gene Pitney who played an important part in my journey. It was an honour to sing with him and to have one of the biggest hits of both our careers. As a child I had watched him on TV in the sixties, unaware of course then that our lives would eventually cross and I would form part of his journey. The sentiment in this song touches me deeply, and one that I feel is felt by all performers at some stage in their careers. Backstage for me is a lonely place where fears and ghosts can cloud your thoughts. The payoff is the time you get to spend on stage, which is where I am most happy.

DREAM LOVER (In dreams) A fascinating song of paradoxes, the subtext belies the strange theme of the lyrics, especially in the original uptempo classic by Bobby Darren.  It always felt darker than it appeared, and this version fulfills the influences that David Lynch’s film Blue Velvet instilled in me. Looking out from the stage when I perform I see so many 'dream lovers' - so near yet always just a fantasy. The show is for them, and the relationship between audience and performer is about the dream, the lover, loving dreams. The song was also used in Kenneth Anger’s film Kustom Kar Kommandos - an erotic soundtrack, ‘The Ultimate Dream Lover is Death’.

HAPPY HEART I suppose I am a survivor since I am still here recording an album.  Music has been much of my life and to perform on stage has been a privilege that I never take for granted. This song makes me realize why music means so much me.  I have been lucky, especially after the crash, to even still be singing. Luckier still to have so many people around me who have been there throughout, and that includes those people who I've never met who come up to me and thank me for a song or lyric that spoke to them, a memory of a moment in their lives.  This song is for all those people. “Music fills my soul now / I'm not half I'm whole now / With your love”

REDEEM ME (BEAUTY WILL REDEEM THE WORLD) “Beauty will redeem the world,” said Dostoevsky. And now I'm older and hopefully wiser, I understand just what he meant. I want different things from life now, though inside I still might yearn for the same things I always have, I understand that I can't have or do them anymore, and it is this acceptance or compromise if you will, that has set me free. It has been one hell of a ride, so I can't complain. This is the one original song on the album, and for me is a pointer to tomorrow, after all the future is where I'm spending the rest of my life. Beauty will perhaps save us all.

CURTAIN FALLS Take off the makeup Turn off the lights Goodnight.