Spandau Ballet were 1980s hitmakers who epitomised the decade’s extravagance.
But before they sold more than 25 million albums and racked up 10 Top 10 singles, the group were the little-known Gentry.
Now a lost song recorded during their early days will be released after almost 50 years. Eyes, recorded in the late 1970s, will be heard by the public for the first time on Friday.
Gary Kemp, the band’s songwriter and guitarist, said the song was recorded at Halligan’s rehearsal studio in Highbury, north London.
“Eyes, which we demoed at Halligan’s, was one of the early songs that I wrote with the synthesiser,” he said.
“It’s kind of Gothic post-punk. It suits what was going on at the time with Joy Division, Siouxsie and Magazine. We liked the dirty garage quality of that period.
“We had all been brought up on guitar riffs, and now we could riff in a way that was very monophonic and grainy that had a very modern but retro sound.
“I would write on the synth and on an upright piano in our hallway at home. Producer Richard Burgess didn’t think Eyes was right for the album. I liked it, but it went by the wayside.”
The track, which featured in the band’s Blitz Club sets, will feature on a new box set of their early work called Everything Is Now – Vol 1: 1978-1982, which will be released on Sept 12. It features on the Demos disc of the new box set
Halligan’s was where the band was given the name Spandau Ballet by the journalist Robert Elms.
The release comes as the band is due to feature in the Blitz: The Club That Shaped The 80s exhibition at London’s Design Museum, opening on Sept 20, which they will soundtrack.
Made up of Kemp and his brother Martin on bass, singer Tony Hadley, saxophonist Steve Norman and drummer John Keeble, Spandau Ballet are best known for True and Gold, and also had a UK number one album with the LP of the same name, released in 1983. Gary Kemp said in 2021 that band would never reunite.