It’s only a few minutes into our conversation when sense of loss becomes apparent. Sighing, he says simply: “I really missed working with him.”
The person we’re referring to is, of course, – arch synth wielder, and Almond’s co-conspirator in synth pop godheads Soft Cell from their art school roots in the late 70s to Ball’s sad passing last year.
If our chat is tinged with sadness, there’s also undoubted joy. New album ‘Danceteria’ is fantastic, a homage to their formative experiences as drugged up Brits in New York as the 80s dawned. A love letter to their youth, it finds Almond & Ball rolling back the years for their final Soft Cell album.
The energy for all this comes from their remarkable stand at the O2 Arena in London – a cavernous venue, they packed it out for an emotional, rapturous journey through the electronic ages. “We hadn’t done anything together for 17 years when we did the O2 show,” the singer recalls.
“We wanted to celebrate 40 years of the band,” he says simply. “I’m the sort of person who loves marking things and marking special times.”
“It was my manager who actually said: Well, you know, why don’t you just do something risky, go completely out on the limb and do the O2? I thought we’d have like a few smattering of fans down the front…It sold out in a weekend! It was kind of like: oh wow, oh my God we better get a show together?!”
Recalling the pair’s finale of synth mega-banger ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’ the singer gets misty-eyed, before stating simply: “It’s one of the best moments of my career.”
“It was just the two of us onstage, and that’s how we started. I remember doing our first gig in the Art School common room with a Revox tape recorder and a tiny little screen with a slide carousel. And there we are at the O2! I just thought, it doesn’t get any better than this.”
Not wanting to let the moment end, Almond insisted the pair work on something new. “I felt that instant chemistry of wanting to write these things. I said, let’s do an album. No more touring. Let’s do an album.”
2022 full length followed, a record whose gestation was unhappily disrupted by the pandemic. Marc Almond felt the pair had unfinished business, and – when he touched base – he found Dave Ball in agreement.
“He had so much creativity left in him – what he was doing, what he was writing, there was still a great creative park between us. In almost 50 years we never fell out, never disagreed on anything…ever!”
And so sessions for got underway. “I did go into this thinking, this is going to be the last album. I was thinking thematically about it being a love letter to New York when we first went there.”
“It’s a really touching record,” insists the singer. “There’s a lot of touching moments on it. It’s kind of light. It’s kind of dark. And it ends in positivity.”
Drawn together in Leeds as two ne’er-do-well art students, Marc Almond insists that New York became the duo’s spiritual home. Growing up, they’d dream of Warhol’s Factory – now, they were ready to experience the city’s gritty bohemia first-hand.
“Nothing prepared us for going to New York, and the experiences that we both had there, the people we met there, the journeys we were taken on. And at the time, New York was a chaotic place. I mean, it was falling apart! It was dangerous. It was crime-ridden. It was like the Wild West. It was anarchic – you’d drive home past cars on fire, things like that.”
“But there was a huge club culture happening, and it wasn’t just about music – it was about expression and performance and cabaret and art. It was a kick against the system.”
Duly inspired, Soft Cell build on their unexpected instant classic breakout ‘Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret’ with a string of phenomenal albums, inspiring everyone from Trent Reznor to Madonna – who was the coat-check girl at titular club Danceteria – in the process. Thrust into the mainstream, Soft Cell found their reflections in New York’s anything-goes 24 hour party culture.
“We went to Leeds Polytechnic, which was a kind of out-there college. We’d specialised in performance art, and it was during the punk period so everything was in your face! We were originally quite confrontational and transgressive. Soft Cell developed out of that. It was an underground performance art thing that developed into pop!”
“I can’t say we enjoyed being the pop,” he laughs. “I always felt like I was lucky. I’ve worked with so many great record companies, producers, and various sorts of things. I’ve sent a couple of record companies to the wall, making albums that were completely over-budgeted, racking up massive debts!”
“At that time we were very reluctant pop stars,” the singer smiles. “You know, we did an interview with bags over our heads… just to be annoying. We didn’t take any notice of what the record company was saying to us.”
“We were two belligerent art students who found ourselves in this strange pop world.”
That staunch creativity is on display throughout Soft Cell’s final album. ‘Danceteria’ pulls tricks that musicians even half their age couldn’t manage, standing as testimony to Marc Almond’s powerhouse voice, and of course Dave Ball’s groundbreaking production skills.
Thankfully, the album was finished and wrapped up, so Dave Ball could hear the project in its entirety. The pair performed at Rewind Festival as the sessions drew to a close, and after that Dave Ball reached out to his old friend. “He told me he loved the record, and that he felt really really positive about it. And a few days later a friend came into my room and said: Dave’s just died.”
Two friend who reshaped the lexicon of British pop music, Soft Cell leave a remarkable legacy. Closing, Marc Almond chews over their final chapter, before saying simply: “I feel that if it had to end, it ended in a fairly good way.”
‘Danceteria’ is out now.