Gary Kemp comes face-to-face with the late David Bowie in the animated lyric video for his latest single Waiting for the Band.
The tune is the third to be lifted from his forthcoming LP ‘INSOLO’, due July 16, after lead single Ahead of the Game and Too Much.
It’s inspired by Gary attending David Bowie’s final Ziggy Stardust performance at the Hammersmith Odeon, London in 1973, and a new animated video sees the star pay tribute to his idol.
Speaking exclusively to Retro Pop, the singer-songwriter opens up about the nostalgic track, revealing: “Waiting for the Band happened in one sitting.
“It’s a hymn to being a fan; it’s about me when I was a kid, dressing up and going to Bowie concerts and wanting to be a disciple of different artists.
“I’d got into this idea of thinking about how I deal with my younger self now and I came up with this piece of music – I remember the moment it happened because I got goosebumps at the piano.
“In my head, my younger self came into the room – this 13 year old boy, who was so full of innocent enthusiasm for music – who had fallen in love with this rock star, who wanted to emulate him and be him and find him.
“So I started singing about me and that gang of kids and our whole journey that we went through.”
Referencing Bowie’s iconic London show, he continues: “As the song developed, I just thought, ‘Why don’t I just go into the Hammersmith Odeon in this middle section, take him to the front of the stage and hold my hand out as he comes on stage.’
“I started to write that as a middle eight. The song then goes back into this sort of reverie where it finishes with me saying that feeling has never left me. I’m still waiting for this person to take me away.”
The track features audio recordings of fans being interviewed on the eve of the Bowie concert that inspired Waiting for the Band, affectionately referred to by Gary as “ghosts” that made the song come “alive”.
And while lyrics like ‘Even though we’re all estranged / I never really felt short changed / I’m still waiting for the band’ could be taken as nods to the musician’s time with Spandau Ballet, he insists he isn’t “sitting around waiting for the band to get back together”.
“It’d be nice if we just spoke to each other,” he quipped. “Some of us still talk, some of us don’t…
“I can’t see us getting together now.”
‘INSOLO’ – Gary’s first solo effort since 1995’s ‘Little Bruises’ – is available to pre-order on CD and LP. Signed CDs are also available.
