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40th Anniversary: Spandau Ballet sign with Chrysalis Records - October 10th, 1980

Thu, October 22, 2020

“18 with a bullet, got my finger on the trigger gonna pull it! What a way to spend your 18th birthday! Signing a record deal with Chrysalis Records…the start of an amazing adventure!” Martin Kemp

Spandau Ballet signed its first record agreement with Chrysalis Records on 10th October 1980 at lunchtime in the boardroom at the Chrysalis UK offices at Stratford Place just off Oxford Street in Londons West End. We were to have our records released through our own label Reformation and were to have complete creative control over our recording and how the group was marketed. There was an advance which amounted to £200,000 on our first album and a very high royalty rate for a new artist. It was at the time, the most valuable recording agreement for an unsigned artist in the UK.

Various Chrysalis executives attended, Chris Wright, one of the owners, Doug D’Arcy, the managing director, and Roy Eldridge the head of A&R. Everyone chatted over glasses of champagne while a couple of small details were ironed out with Chrysalis business affairs, and signatory copies were prepared. It was Martin Kemp’s 18th birthday. A day earlier and his Dad would have had to have signed for him.

However, there was no big party or celebration, soon after the contracts were signed, at about 2.30 pm, the band left to go to Jam recording studios in Finsbury Park, where they were half-way through recording the first single “To Cut A Long Story Short”, I went home to make some phone calls with a cheque for £40,000, the first part of the advance, and the delighted Chrysalis execs went for a late lunch at Langan’s.

The fact was, that by this time we were very much in control of most of the key aspects of launching Spandau Ballet, and the first single and album was going to come out in much the same way whichever record company we chose. By now we had even selected a record producer we wanted to work with, Richard Burgess, the drummer in the band Landscape and another member of the “Blitz” scene. He had seen the band perform several times and knew exactly what was needed to get their sound on record.

In September, with Richard’s help, we had recorded a session of four songs for the BBC Radio 1 Peter Powell drive-time show. Peter had attended our second event at the Scala Cinema in May, 1980 and been hugely impressed. He had even contributed to Janet St Porter’s TV documentary on the band. Such was the positive response to the session from the listeners when it was broadcast that other Radio 1 shows started to play it, and quickly the session version of “To Cut A Long Story Short” was playlisted on the station. The listeners loved it and wanted to know when they could buy it.

It was a hit waiting to happen.

So simultaneously to finalizing our negotiations for our record deal, we set a release date of 31st October 1980 and started to record our album and single at Trident and then Jam Studios. Such was the clamuor for the group’s signature, the record companies agreed that whoever we chose would pick up the studio bills.

So the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle was the record company, and that was probably one of the biggest factors in choosing Chrysalis. We realised that having a record company do things in the way that we wanted them done was just as important as the commercial terms.

Amongst many successful acts, Blondie, Jethro Tull, Leo Sayer, Pat Benatar, and many others, Chrysalis had just had a huge success with the Specials and 2 Tone. It was quite similar to our situation. A band that was part of a youth cult with a huge following, who knew exactly what they wanted and how to market themselves creatively and commercially. Apart from all the other attributes of Chrysalis, I genuinely believed that they would listen and facilitate our demands for our own label and full creative control over marketing and music, so we chose them.

I felt sorry for some of the others who really wanted the band, Dave Ambrose at EMI, David Betteridge, Simon Hicks, and Muff Winwood at CBS, but particularly Roger Ames and Tracey Bennet at Phonogram who entered the race with such gusto and enthusiasm. They went on to huge success running London Records and Roger became one of the world’s most powerful record execs. Happily, we stayed great friends and have worked together on other things, but at the time they were gutted, but like all the others they immediately turned their attention to trying to sign Duran Duran.
The evening we signed, I went to the recording studios with Doug D’Arcy the MD of Chrysalis UK. He heard the un-finished “To Cut A Long Story “ and was visibly excited, and pronounced it a massive hit.

So everyone was happy.

I left the studio and decided to go to the Blitz to meet some friends, Bob Elms and some others. It was a Friday, so not a Steve and Rusty night (in fact they had moved on from the Blitz by then) but a Soul Night. Great music to relax to and beautiful people. I still had the cheque for £40,000 on me. An awful lot of money to ordinary people in those days. Everyone asked, “Have you signed ?” I said “Yes. “ and showed them the cheque.

Do you blame me?

***

Steve Dagger - Spandau Ballet, Manager

October, 2020

(Photo credit: Graham Smith)

***40th Anniversary Features***

40th Anniversary: Spandau Ballet and The Arista Demos, August, 1980

40th Anniversary: Spandau Ballet at HMS Belfast - July 26th, 1980

40th Anniversary: Spandau Ballet in St.Tropez - July, 1980

40th Anniversary: Spandau Ballet at The Scala - May 13th, 1980

40th Anniversary: The Blitz - The First Spandau Ballet Performance