New York, NY (Top40 Charts) TOO MUCH is the second single to be taken from INSOLO the second solo album by
Spandau Ballet songwriter and Saucerful Of Secrets guitarist and co-lead vocalist, Gary Kemp.
TOO MUCH, featuring Queen's
Roger Taylor on drums, is the follow up to AHEAD OF THE GAME and came out of a feeling of being overpowered by the global bad news that constantly seems to beat us down. Gary elaborates saying "That feeling of helplessness and exhaustion that it sometimes creates in us. That sense that there's too much going on to ever be able to change anything can make you retreat into the shell of your family. I was hit by it one day and sat at the piano - my usual solace along with the guitar - and this tune and lyric came out in one sitting. If felt like a comfort to declaim it and not write a song about what we should all be doing".
As with Ahead Of The Game, Charlie Lightening directed the stunning video for Too Much. The film complements the reflective nature of the song by showing Meaghan Grace, a lead dancer with the Royal Ballet at The
National Opera, in an urban setting. The ballet routine was choreographed by Melanie Hamrick, formerly of the American Ballet Theater and performed in Camden's
Alexandra Road Estate, a post-war brutalist masterpiece designed by Neave Brown, featured in many films including Clockwork
Orange and Kingsman.
Gary Kemp 'I wanted the dancer to be like my alter ego, my wish fulfilment character, feeling free and expressive, while the real me is struggling to deal with the "crisis" surrounding him.'
The track features Richard Jones from The
Feeling & Loup Garoux on bass, along with Matt Clifford who plays keyboards for the
Rolling Stones playing French Horn. For the drums on TOO MUCH Gary turned to someone whom he'd known since the mid 80's "During recording I sent a couple of songs over to my friend
Roger Taylor from Queen, wondering if he fancied playing drums on anything. He chose this and I'm so glad he did. The power in his playing seems to help the lyric and lift the song just at the right moment."
Twenty-five years on from his solo debut 'Little Bruises' Gary has written and produced an album that focuses on two dominant themes: the paradox of solitude in an urban landscape, and his growing obsession with life seen through a rear-view mirror and how the past infects our present.
Asked why make a solo album now Gary says "It's confidence, playing around the world with Nick
Mason gave me a certain reputation as a guitar player and singer that I never gained from Spandau Ballet. That allowed me to go and do my own record and I am of a certain age where I feel the need to understand the issues in the world and my own life, the only way I can do that is in the self-therapy of songwriting."
GARY KEMP TOO MUCH AVAILABLE NOW - INSOLO RELEASED 16TH JULY 2021 ON COLUMBIA RECORDS
A Rumour of You (5:36)
Waiting for the Band (5:28)
Ahead of the Game (3:53)
I Remember You (3:47)
Too Much (4:15)
The Fastest Man In the World (4:29)
I am the Past (4:36)
The Feet of Mercury (3:32)
The Haunted (6:02)
Our Light (4:06)
Produced & mixed by Gary Kemp & Toby Chapman except Ahead of the Game, mixed by Mark 'Spike' Stent, assisted by Matt Wolach. Recorded at RAK Studios and Metropolis Studios, mastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios.
GARY KEMP INSOLO¨Released 16th July 2021 on Columbia Records.
Limited Vinyl, Vinyl, CD, Digital¨Pre-order here https://smarturl.it/GKinsolo
As the songwriter & guitarist in one of the most iconic bands of the 80's, Spandau Ballet, Gary became one of the most commercially successful writers of the decade. During their career Spandau notched up 23 hit singles and spent a combined total of more than 500 weeks in the UK charts, achieving over 25 million album sales worldwide. Some of their songs, like "True", "Gold" and "Through the Barricades" have become standards.
"True" has now achieved over five million plays in North
America alone and "Gold" was the true soundtrack to the London 2012 Olympics. Gary is also an accomplished stage and screen actor with critical & commercial success in films such as The Krays, The Bodyguard and the BBC TV comedy The Kemps - All True with his brother
Martin and on stage in London's West End as part of the Jamie
Lloyd Theatre Company. As a member of Nick Mason's Saucerful Of Secrets Gary performs early
Pink Floyd material the world over to huge acclaim. His co-front man in the band, Guy Pratt, is also his presenting partner on the Apple #1 podcast The Rockonteurs.
