MARTIN FRY VISITS SUFFOLK!
“I’m just getting started!”
Martin Fry opens up about his walk on the wild side
They were the band that redefined glamour and cool. Led by the charismatic Martin Fry, ABC scaled the heights of pop stardom with hits such as ‘Poison Arrow’, ‘All Of My Heart’, ‘The Look Of Love’ and’ When Smokey Sings’, and enjoyed Transatlantic success with ‘The Lexicon of Love’ - a brilliantly distinctive debut album, unapologetically flamboyant and fizzing with bright ideas.
Easy as ABC …
At the forefront of the early 1980s New Romantic scene, which included Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Japan and The Human League, Martin Fry, with his gold lamé suit, harked back to an era of sophistication.
At the peak of his success, Martin survived a brush with Hodgkin lymphoma, an uncommon cancer, while going on to hang out with such luminaries as Andy Warhol and Robbie Williams. And now, with the publication of his autobiography ‘A Lexicon of Life’, he’s hitting the road to share his remarkable stories and sing acoustic versions of his greatest hits.
“It’s been an incredible journey,” says Fry, who grew up in the north of England, being inspired by David Bowie and The Sex Pistols: “I vividly remember that magical moment when I first went to see a rock show. Even before the act came on, I was looking at the roadies on an empty stage and admiring the size of the PA system, totally entertained by that mind-boggling spectacle. My first gig was Cockney Rebel and opening up for them were Sailor. There was something totally comforting about watching a band on stage.”
The gig that changed his life was The Sex Pistols at the Lesser Free Trade, in Manchester. “John Lydon just crouched and clutched his can of lager. He was very vulnerable, but he had complete and utter disdain for the audience. He wasn’t going to fight them; he was just beyond that. There was just something brilliant about them, artistically. It wasn’t the safety pins and Kings Road fashion that attracted me to Punk, I felt that was a bit of a Fleet Street invention really. It was something much deeper. They were great.”
Band mates came and went as ABC became a fixture of the charts, hitting the number one spot and earning a platinum disc for ‘Lexicon of Love’ and enjoying gold discs for ‘Beauty Stab’ and ‘Alphabet City’.
The band hit the road, playing to audiences around the world and hanging out with famous people. “After we played New York, we met Andy Warhol. We got this call to the hotel on a Tuesday morning, asking if we’d like to go and meet Andy at the Factory. Andy was there and he was the most down-to-earth guy you could meet. He was talking to me about acne products because his skin wasn’t great, and neither was mine. He was drinking a cup of coffee and people would constantly come in and ask him to sign paintings and prints.”
Fame came at a price …
“I remember later in Tokyo, the four of us were sitting eating in a restaurant, and a crowd gathered outside. People were literally trying to smash the window to get in. We had to go out the back door as the front window splintered and we were ushered into a speeding car. That kind of fame and recognition I can live without.”
Fry survived the crazy journey of pop stardom, eventually getting sober after his rock’n’roll lifestyle had taken its toll. “Things changed dramatically for me. I just entered a new and very different world of being sober. I wanted to be present for my family. Prior to that I’d always been off somewhere - off to a show, off to a bar, or just drifting off if I was in the room. That reality check had a profound effect on me. Sitting in AA I’d be looking down at my cup of coffee, thinking: ‘What am I doing here? My whole future is in this polystyrene cup.”
“Obviously, there’s a big part of me that identifies with the man in the gold lamé suit. That’s who I became. There are 40,000 people dancing in a field, singing my words back at me. But, you know, you have to understand that that’s just one part of who you are and what you do. Performing and playing shows had changed for me in the 90’s. I woke up to the reality that, in the past, I’d been half-hearted, in comparison to what I was capable of. It’s a tough thing to admit to, but I felt I could have done so much better.”
A renaissance came and he joined Robbie Williams for a tour of football stadia, playing to tens of thousands of fans each night.
“Playing to something approaching 200,000 people at Milton Keynes Bowl for three nights was something I never thought would happen. But it did. Robbie’s tour felt like being part of a Medieval Kingdom. It must have been like that when they took Henry VIII to Agincourt.”
More tours followed, including a set of shows with Meatloaf. “About midway through the tour after a Sunday matinee in Leipzig, I could hear Meatloaf smashing up his dressing room, and for a while I was the only other artist who dared go in there. I didn’t try to restrain him - he was too big to restrain. But I did tell him to calm down and I warned him that if he carried on smashing up his room, he’d end up having a heart attack.”
Fry created a new record: The Lexicon Of Love II, which took him back into the top five of the UK album charts. A tour in early 2024, accompanied by an orchestra and Anne Dudley, sold out huge theatres across the UK.
And now he’s sharing his stories during an intimate theatre tour, in which he’ll play acoustic versions of songs with two trusted bandmates, while remembering the remarkable journey he’s been on.
“It’s been a wild ride,” he says. “And the incredible thing is that as I hit the road with The Lexicon of Life, I feel as though I’m just getting started.”
* ABC – An Intimate Evening With Martin Fry comes to The Apex on Saturday 14 June at 7.30pm, see here or ring 01284 758000 for more information or to book tickets.
