Synth-pop 80s music icon reflects on success

Thompson Twins singer Tom Bailey has recalled how the band took off in the 1980s as he prepares to tour the UK more than 40 years later.

Hits by the band included Hold Me Now, Doctor! Doctor! and King for a Day, and the vocalist is performing at Dreamland in Margate on Saturday alongside fellow 1980s synth-pop act OMD.

Bailey, whose dates include shows in Brighton and Guildford in September, said hearing fans join in with his songs always gave him "an enormous kick".

"The best of all is when you're on stage and you're singing a song and people start singing it back to you," he said. "There's kind of an emotional warmth as a payoff that you never expect. That's just a great feeling."

The Thompson Twins were among the biggest British pop acts of the 1980s, enjoying success in both the UK and the US and appearing at Live Aid in Philadelphia, with Nile Rodgers on guitar and Madonna on backing vocals.

Recalling the benefit concert in 1985, he said: "We were there making an album in New York with Nile Rodgers, and they said 'will you do it?'.

"We didn't have a band so we grabbed David Letterman's house band to be our backing band and had a few guest appearances from people like Madonna and Steve Stevens from Billy Idol's band.

"It became this very hurriedly put together superstar group and with only one short rehearsal. We just pulled it off."

Asked whether Madonna had effectively become the Thompson Twins' backing singer for the day, Bailey laughed: "Well we sang on her set and she sang on ours, so it was a kind of trade-off."

The celebrations afterwards were less rock-and-roll than might have been expected.

"I think it ended up with a game of Scrabble in a hotel room," he said. "Otherwise it could have gone belly up."

Bailey now performs under the name Thompson Twins' Tom Bailey, revisiting many of the band's best-known hits.

He said he was looking forward to sharing the bill with OMD in Margate.

"We're old friends, we used to tour together in America in the 80s," he said. "It would be great to get back together with those guys. I'm a big fan. And Dreamland's going to be fantastic."

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