Marc Almond: I feel much more at one with who I am as an artist

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Louise Thomas

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Striking the balance between evolving with the times and staying true to yourself is a challenge for many artists, and one Marc Almond has been navigating for 45 years.

“I can’t be the artist that I was years and years ago,” the singer says as he reflects on his five-decade career.

“People want you to always remain the same and you can’t be like that. You evolve as time goes on.

“You become a different singer. You listen to different music. You’re influenced by different things. Your life changes.”

Born in the seaside town of Southport in 1957, Almond was raised in the 60s and 70s by young parents who immersed him in a plethora of genres from an early age, listening to blues rock, progressive rock, punk, glam rock and disco throughout the years.

He found his stride in the 1980s creating synth-pop and new wave sounds with his group Soft Cell alongside Dave Ball. And throughout his expansive solo career, he has explored a host of genres from folk and pop cabaret to Russian romance songs.

“I’ve been making music for 45 years and I’ve recorded a lot of albums in different styles,” he says from his home in Portugal, where he has been based for nearly two years.

“You sing things in a different way, you see things in a different way. I think I’ve become a better singer, really, I know how to use my voice, how to express songs more.

“And the songs that appeal to me are songs that really would appeal to maybe an older artist as well.

“Even when I was younger, I’ve always been attracted to the songs that were probably more suited to an older artist because they say more about life experiences.

“So I’ve fitted into myself a lot more. I feel much more at one with who I am as an artist.”

His latest project, a covers album titled I’m Not Anyone, sees him draw from psychedelic and prog rock music, to folk, gospel and soul. Among the 11 tracks are his versions of Neil Diamond’s emotional Lonely Looking Sky and Don McLean’s powerful Chain Lightning, as well as two duets with musician Bryan Chambers.

Creating a new covers compilation album offered Almond a welcome reprieve from the emotional purging that comes with songwriting after he felt “drained”. However, the project was just as much a labour of love as he spent two years planning and curating the list of songs until he finally settled on the line-up.

He says the process can be easy if he is just exploring a particular genre or songwriter, but the challenge with this record came with bringing an array of material together from different periods and genres and getting them to cohesively work together.

“It’s a really enjoyable process to me,” he says. “I’ve always felt that I enjoy singing other people’s songs more than my own.

“I never go back and listen to my own albums, very, very rarely.

“But I do listen to the cover albums that I do and I can enjoy them because they are other people’s songs and they’re saying the things that I want to say or expressing the things I want to express.

“I don’t feel I’m too near to the songwriting. I listen to my own stuff sometimes and I think: ‘I wish I’d written that differently, I wished I’d expressed that differently.'”

When selecting the songs, he says he gravitated towards those that had “emotional resonance” with him.

“Emotional, spiritual and elemental as well,” he adds.

“To have very earthy and spiritual references in some of the songs, maybe not so obvious in some ways.”

Almond feels a song’s ability to connect and say something about the world is what can ensure its longevity, and so he does not wish to disrupt the fundamental elements of what makes it great when covering.

“Often when I’m listening to a song, I don’t just enjoy it for the lyrical content of what it says, I enjoy the arrangements, I enjoy the sound,” he explains.

“So when I make an album like this, I’m not so much interested in reinventing the songs totally because the reason that I like them and they have a resonance to me is because they have a particular sound or particular string or melodic arrangement that I like and all those elements that go into the song are what makes you want to listen to it again and again.”

His new solo work follows after Soft Cell reunited for 2022’s Happiness Not Included, their first album together in 20 years, which was warmly welcomed by fans and critics.

Can fans expect another reunion on the horizon? “Dave and I have started writing some songs, just initially to see what happens,” Almond reveals

“There’s never any big plan with Soft Cell. It’s always a continuing story.”

He says when they first parted ways in 1984 to pursue other projects, they never properly split up and always left the door to returning to the group.

“I think with us, we just like to see how it goes,” the singer says, but confirms there are no concrete plans for another album just yet.

“And as long as there’s good ideas bubbling and there’s some tunes and I have some lyrical ideas, then we’ll take it forward.”

Almond says he is glad that he started out in the music industry back in the 1980s as he feels it was a time when you could still be a maverick.

“It wasn’t that desperation of: ‘You’ve got to make one record and that’s it, you’re done’,” he says.

“We live in a very instant gratification world and you do one album and that’s it, you’re not allowed to express yourself as an artist.”

However, he notes that the decadence of his formative years was not all bells and whistles, and feels the industry becoming more diverse and democratised is a positive. But he hopes that up-and-comers are allowed more space to explore, and most importantly, fail.

“I’ve had huge successes and huge flops as well, and the huge flops help you learn and grow, and that’s important to have,” he says.

“That gives you longevity as an artist, that you’re able to always change and do different things, diversify and not be afraid of doing something that’s wrong.

“Because in a 45-year career with any artist, you’ve done a lot of things and you’ve really taken the wrong paths, but those paths have always led you back again to doing something right.”

Marc Almond’s new album I’m Not Anyone is out now.

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