Marc Almond says Soft Cell may still continue to make music but their days as a live act are over.
The 62-year-old singer/songwriter has confirmed that although he and David Ball, the other half of the synthpop duo, have committed to never again playing live following their 40th anniversary farewell performance at London’s O2 arena earlier this year – they may continue to make music together “in some capacity”.
Speaking exclusively to BANG Showbiz, Marc said: “I think Dave and I have always thought that it probably is it when it comes to live shows, as a live entity.
“We’ve always looked on Soft Cell as an open story. We never really officially split. We always said, ‘Let’s take a break and do something else.’ We always planned we’d do something, maybe get back together in some capacity.”
Almond went on to explain that he and Dave, 60, often make unplanned music together and insists their 2002 album ‘Cruelty Without Beauty’ was totally spontaneous.
He said: “Dave wrote songs for me as a solo artist and did mixes for me. Then we got together around 2000 to do the ‘Cruelty Without Beauty’ album and that wasn’t even meant to be an album then.
“It was just songwriting together which turned into a project and I said, ‘Let’s release some songs. If we’re going to do it it’s going to have to be Soft Cell, we can’t call ourselves anything else.'”
The musician went on to explain that they underwent their emotional goodbye concert in order to say “thank you” to their fans and insisted he’s “very conscious” of preserving the band’s “legacy”.
He said: “The main thing was it gave fans something who have been loyal for all these years, who made Soft Cell into this mythical thing.
“I’m very conscious of that, I’m very conscious of our legacy, I’m very conscious of not breaking that enigma that Soft Cell has.
“That mystery and legend which goes around Soft Cell. I like to keep that preserved. At the same time, it’s great to say thank you to the fans who have followed us.
“We haven’t done any of the retro festivals over the years, we’d not played at all in 17 years, and we didn’t really play very much when we did 17 years ago.
“It was a great way of giving something back to people and making things right between Dave and I and tying things up. 40 years and we’re still a viable great live act.”
Soft Cell’s ‘Say Hello Wave Goodbye’ – the recording of the band’s final ever show at The O2 – comes out on CD and DVD on July 26.
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