Too good to be true

>> Spandau Ballet's working class hero is the nicest guy on East Enders

by JULIET WATERS

Martin Kemp never claims to be the brains behind Spandau Ballet. His brother Gary wrote all the songs, including their big hit True. Marty, who learned to play bass three weeks before he joined the '80s glam new wave band, is the first to admit he was just a pretty face. Specifically, the mirror to his brother's pretty face, since the two looked enough alike that they were cast as the psycho dandy British gangster twins in the late '80s Britfellas movie, The Krays.

Still, Martin wasn't the dimmest bulb in the band. That distinction goes to guitarist Steve Norman. Just before doing the video for "Feed the World," Norman was asked if he had anything to say to the "poor people of Ethiopia." His response: "Yeah, I'd just like to say sorry we couldn't tour down there this year, but we'll try and fit it in next year."

Okay, so Spandau Ballet were not exactly the brainiac kids of the New Romantics. But to give them their due, they were actually on the British charts before Duran Duran or Depeche Mode started to become major rivals and while Boy George was still just a coat check boy at the Blitz.

As Kemp claims: "The Mods had The Who, the Punks had the Sex Pistols, and the New Romantics had Spandau Ballet," a name they ripped off from a Berlin band, figuring it was "trendy enough for the designers and hairdressers not to be frightened away, but heavy enough in case we ever made it to Wembley." Which they did, when they performed in Live Aid, although by then they were starting into the Spinal Tap stage of their career.

The vast discrepancy between the poseur music and the Kemp brothers' hardcore, impressive performances in The Krays is what made me curious enough to pick up Kemp's autobiography, True. But the truth about True is that Martin's a bit dull.

Essentially a polite working class boy, he marries his first love (a back-up dancer for Wham), he remains a devoted husband and father whose worst deed during his rock 'n' roll days seems to be picking his nose on mescaline. Even now that he and Gary are being sued for royalties by the rest of the band--who are currently planning on re-forming to tour without the Kemps--Martin can't bring himself to say anything mean about them. He even takes responsibility for the silly Ethiopia quote claiming, "That was us. Steve's statement showed just how removed you can become being in a band. We had completely left reality behind. But who could blame us!"

What kept me reading is that I'm a closet sap. There's an insidious sentimental sincerity about Kemp's journey from London poverty to his apprenticeship in a printer's shop. From chicken lip sandwiches to instant stardom. From falling off the charts to a critically acclaimed movie. From British stardom to obscurity as an actor in L.A. From the discovery of a brain tumour while filming an episode of Outer Limits, to recovery from surgery, to finally achieving the ultimate in British working class success--a recurring role on East Enders.

Yes, it's all too good to be true. But the image of ma and pa and everyone from the 'hood watching as Kemp, aka Steve Owen, bumps off his crazy ex-girlfriend and buries her in Epping forest and the knowledge that you actually can go home again after shiny zoot suits and flock-of-seagull hair is kind of heartwarming. Really. :

True by Martin Kemp, Orion, hc, 276pp, $34.95