Spandau Ballet's Steve Norman talks feeling invincible, taking the world by storm, and the 40th anniversary of their first album

Sickness, mild recovery, two days of celebrations, and then… “I was like, ‘oh my goodness, is that it?’,” he says, speaking in early January. “To be fair, it’s that horrible time when everyone’s gone down with something and we’ve been isolated from the normal bugs and viruses, for too long you know?” he continues amidst my murmured consolations. “So they’ve come and bit us back!”

40th birthday celebrations for Journeys to Glory

Steve Norman is a superstar. For just over a decade, Spandau Ballet were on top of the world, emerging from the sizzling Blitz Club scene in the late ‘70s to sell over 25 million records, record 23 hit singles, win a litany of awards, and change countless lives. Now, 40 years on from the band’s debut album Journeys to Glory, Steve is coming to Lancashire.

Accompanied by his band, The Sleevz, Steve is gearing up to play Lytham St. Annes’ Lowther Pavilion on February 4th, a gig which is as much a love letter to concepts which still inspire him to this day - nostalgia, potential, and reminiscences - as it is an homage to and celebration of Spandau. Suffice to say he’s excited.

“The reason I wanted to do this is because I thought it was a shame that other bands, our peers at the time, are out there celebrating 40 years together and stuff like that while we’re not together anymore,” Steve says. “We were a huge band but, because of our internal squabbles and immaturity - I’ll leave it at that - we’re no longer a working unit.

“I find it really tragic that stupid things stop us from really appreciating in later life what we did and being proud,” he adds. “I find it really sad, so I didn’t want the occasion to go by without acknowledging how groundbreaking that first album was. Spandau will always have a special place in my heart, so I couldn’t let it slip by.

“Personally, the saddest thing is that we were a family,” he says, an endearing wistfulness in his voice. “Besides not being able to enjoy life together musically, that’s what I miss. But I don’t want to focus on Spandau anymore - I know it seems like I am, but I just want to mark certain Spandau milestones.”

The birth of the groundbreakers

Without a DeLorean going at 88mph, it’s hard to quite do justice to how groundbreaking a concept Spandau Ballet were during the ‘80s, which is all the more impressive given that four of the five members met, entirely coincidentally, at school.

“I pulled Gary [Kemp] out of his hippie band, I bumped into John [Keeble] in the music room at lunchtime because we both loved the drums, and Tony [Hadley] came up to me in the school common room and said ‘I hear you’re looking for a lead singer for your band, I’ll do it’ but I’d never met the guy before!” says Steve.

“He was so tall and was wearing this leather jacket so I just thought ‘you’ve got some front’ and invited him down to rehearse with us,” he adds. “That was it, four of the five members - Martin came along a couple of years later - all there in 1976. Little did we know that we’d not only reach the Holy Grail of signing a record deal but that we’d inspire a generation.”