THOMPSON TWINS’ TOM BAILEY Interview

Continuing to maintain the musical legacy of THOMPSON TWINS, the band’s lead vocalist and instrumentalist Tom Bailey tours the UK in September 2026 in support of a new “best of” album and boxed set ‘Industry & Seduction’.

Known for their catchy percussive synth-driven pop combined with a cartoonish visual style, together with Alannah Currie and Joe Leeway, THOMPSON TWINS were popular both sides of the Atlantic between 1982 to 1985 with songs such as ‘In The Name of Love’, ‘Love On Your Side’, ‘We Are Detective’, ‘Watching’, ‘Hold Me Now’, ‘Doctor! Doctor!’, ‘You Take Me Up’, ‘Sister Of Mercy, ‘Lay Your Hands on Me’, ‘Don’t Mess With Doctor Dream’ and ‘King For A Day’; their 1983 breakthrough long player ‘Quick Step & Side Kick’ reached No2 in UK album charts while its follow-up ‘Into The Gap’ went one better and got to No1.

Through his connections with THOMPSONS TWINS’ late producer Alex Sadkin, Tom Bailey also played keyboards on tracks by Grace Jones, Paul Haig and notably FOREIGNER on ‘I Want to Know What Love Is’. Meanwhile Debbie Harry’s 1989 hit ‘I Want That Man’ was co-written and co-produced by him. Another co-production came with Jimmy Somerville’s cover of Cole Porter’s ‘From This Moment On’ for the ‘Red Hot & Blue’ AIDS benefit album to which THOMPSON TWINS also contributed with ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?’

Now down to a duo of Bailey and Currie, THOMPSON TWINS would mutate into the more experimental BABBLE in 1992, releasing two albums before Bailey went solo under the moniker of INTERNATIONAL OBSERVER to produce a series of dub electronica records. But in 2014, Bailey returned to pop and live performance with a set comprising of THOMPSON TWINS songs at Reading’s Sub89 ahead of an appearance at the Rewind Festival.

2018 saw the release of his debut solo album ‘Science Fiction’. With a female backing band comprising of Charlotte Raven (keyboards, cello + vocals), Paulina Szczepaniak (drums + vocals) and Alice Offley (bass, keyboards + vocals), he has been touring the world almost non-stop ever since…

Tom Bailey spoke to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about those heady days with THOMPSON TWINS, performing at Live Aid with Madonna as their backing singer, the upcoming best of set and the 2026 tour with BLANCMANGE…

You have a new “best of” compilation ‘Industry & Seduction’ out and a greatest hits tour next year, does it feel like validation having been releasing music for 45 years?

All these things fly by in a strange kind of way… the trigger for next year’s tour is this album is being released and unusually, the record company got us involved in choosing tracks for the second CD in the 3CD collection. The first one is the obvious hits, the last one is a live album, but they said “let’s go into the archives and make a kind of history of the lesser known THOMPSON TWINS recordings” and so we did that… it was quite exciting and it made us realise that we’d done a lot of interesting work that is less celebrated.

So that also caused me to think, now is the time to go out to perform longer sets to play some of these deeper cuts as well.

So is selecting a greatest hits live set like compiling a best of album?

When you’ve got more time, you immediately think “what else can we play?” because everyone wants the hits of course, but you start thinking we can do this and that… as a band, we have a large repertoire of songs that we’ve arranged and rehearsed but it’s nice to add a couple of new things for ourselves and our audience that they haven’t perhaps heard recently.

What prompted your return to pop with playing live in 2014 and then making your debut solo album ‘Science Fiction’ in 2018?

I was away from it for a long time… in fact, I thought I would never come back to mainstream pop music. But a Mexican artist Aleks Syntek asked me to contribute to an album he was making of all his childhood heroes, so he asked me to do a track because I was someone he used to listen to as a kid. The project is called ‘Legends’ and it hasn’t been released yet, although I actually worked on this over 10 years ago, I think he’s still trying to convince all these childhood heroes to get involved! *laughs*

Anyway, that made me realise how much I love pop music, that I was wrong to have ignored it for so long. There’s something very special about that form and the connection with the audience which add up to making it an irresistible thing for me now. For some reason, I’d turned away from it, partly at Alannah’s insistence, she wanted to kill off THOMPSON TWINS and put it to bed forever… but I rediscovered it and think it’s a wonderful thing, so there you go!

Which of your songs from ‘Science Fiction’ have become best accepted and enjoyed by your audience in the live context?

I often play the title track ‘Science Fiction’ live and there’s a song off the album called ‘Shooting Star’ which goes down well. Very occasionally if it’s appropriate in the dynamics of the show, I do a song ‘Come So Far’ which is an emotional take on political matters of the time… all of these songs go down well when they get the chance to be aired.

How did the live partnership with BLANCMANGE for 2026 come to be?

I always enjoyed listening to BLANCMANGE back in the day, I was a bit of a fan and got to meet them a couple of times but never really became that close until quite recently. I started working with Neil Arthur, we get on so well and become friends so we decided to continue that relationship and do a tour together. Neil is amazing live, BLANCMANGE have got great sounding hits so I’m very happy they’re coming along on this one.

THOMPSON TWINS and BLANCMANGE had their chart breakthroughs at around almost the same time, them with ‘Living On The Ceiling’ and you with ‘Love On Your Side’, how do you remember that period when ‘Lies’ reached the lower reaches of the charts to your first ‘Top Of The Pops’ appearance in 1983? Did you feel something was about to happen?

Yes, I think so! But of course, we were innocents, like lambs to the slaughter I think is the term! *laughs*

We didn’t realise what was going to happen but someone from the record company rather perceptively took me aside when we were about to go on ‘Top Of The Pops’ for the first time and said “try to enjoy the next couple of weeks because this only happens once where you feel that giddy sensation of the elevator taking off” and it was true! Within 2 weeks, we couldn’t walk down the streets of London without being captured by people! So things changed very very quickly! *laughs*

With ‘Lies’, you got that amazing fretless bass sound from a synth, how did you do that?

I did it all on an Oberheim OBXa, the entire ‘Quick Step & Side Kick’ album was recorded using that one synthesizer… I discovered a good bass sound and because I’m a keyboardist, that how that happened!

Was it the way synthesizer and drum machine technology was developing that allowed you to slim down THOMPSON TWINS to what became the classic trio?

TOTALLY! You’re absolutely right! For years and years, I wanted to own and use a synthesizer but I could never afford one. What happened was the price of synthesizers came down to the point where my earnings went up a little and I was able to scrimp and save to buy myself a polyphonic synthesizer. From that moment exactly, I started changing the way I made music.

The first thing I did was a filler track on an album called ‘Set’… we didn’t have enough songs so I made a song called ‘In The Name Of Love’ which kind of embarrassingly became the hit single on the album. It showed me that was the direction that I really wanted to go in. I’d borrowed a couple of synths before that but the first one I got to own and know was the Oberheim OBXa, it’s a fantastic piece of kit. I still have it or rather my son has it somewhere *laughs*

Certainly ‘Quick Step & Side Kick’ and ‘Into The Gap’ were made entire with that synth. In terms of pure synthesis, the Oberheim is my favourite and I have a long connection with it that is almost emotional. But of course, we moved into digital sampling as well so the Fairlight became my main instrument after a while.

The next single ‘We Are Detective’ has some sonic similarities with ABBA’s ‘Head Over Heels’ in that synth tango thing, was that an influence or was it more like Grace Jones ‘I’ve Seen That Face Before (Libertango)’?

I don’t know the ‘Head Over Heels’ ABBA song so it couldn’t have been that, maybe someone played it in my sleep but I doubt it! *laughs*

But certainly I loved ‘Libertango’ which is like classic French noir isn’t it? The idea of using accordions and castanets and things just suited our cartoonish ability to laugh at ourselves and act out a part. Of course, the title of the song is a reference to the two Belgian detectives from Hergé’s ‘Tin Tin’; that European stylistic nod all makes sense if you look at it that way.

Speaking of Grace Jones, you did ‘Watching’ with her, what was she like to work with?

Grace is an accomplished trained opera singer, not many people know that but she was able to deliver the richest operatic tone in her voice, I was almost shocked because I just saw her as an interesting disco diva but she has these amazing qualities in her voice. We all had fun doing it, this was in Compass Point Studio in The Bahamas where we just by chance come to be both working.

Is there anyone today you would like to duet with?

Oooh… I better start making a list now then! There must be many! I work a lot of my own so it’s a pleasure where you can lock horns with someone creatively… I’ll get back to you on that I think! *laughs*

Many would say THOMPSON TWINS’ imperial phase came with ‘Hold Me Now’, ‘Doctor! Doctor!’, and ‘You Take Me Up’? Were these songs about the same person?

No! Every song has a different story of origin and some of them are simple, and some of them are complicated with all sorts of stuff! I think sometimes songs just happen in writing mode, sometimes you wake up in the morning and set out to write a song about something. So the story of origin is different in every case.

America really took to THOMPSON TWINS and you played the Philadelphia leg of Live Aid with Madonna and Nile Rodgers in your backing band! That’s mad when you look back at that, what are your memories of that day?

It was an enormously important day and a good example of how back then, music had an ambition to make the world a better place. Sometimes these days, I miss that… I think somehow pop music has become too self-obsessed with celebrity and really, it’s a little bit empty if it’s just about fame and fortune. So making world a better place should be the ambition of art.

We were working in New York with Nile Rodgers on the album ‘Here’s To Future Days’. So we rather casually said to Bob Geldof “Can we play Philadelphia rather than have to come all the way back to London when we have a recording session to do?”, but then not having our band with us, we started looking around for musicians.

We found a lot from the David Letterman band who had the evening off as Live Aid was taking over the airwaves! Steve Stevens from Billy Idol’s band we had been working with so I invited him. Nile obviously played the guitar and he’d just worked with Madonna so we did backstage deal to sing backing vocals on each other’s sets, so we sang her songs and she sang ours!

How do you compare touring back then to touring now?

In a way, it’s better organised now and I think also, it’s easier because you learn to pace yourself better but also, you’re not as ambitious. You’re not looking to take over the world! *laughs*

It’s more calm in your own mind so you’re free to enjoy the experience of playing in front of a crowd of people who want to hear you. I enjoy it a lot more now I think than I did then.

What are your favourite THOMPSON TWINS tracks?

This is always a difficult question to answer because it’s like being asked who your favourite child is *laughs*

They all have qualities you admire and want to emphasise. Everyone wants to hear ‘Hold Me Now’, ‘Doctor! Doctor!’, ‘You Take Me Up’, ‘Sister of Mercy’ but there are tracks beyond that so it’s up to you whether to go with the widely celebrated hits or look further. But there’s an interesting history there and I would remind you this compilation ‘Industry & Seduction’ actually tries to navigate that and put those songs on display.

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ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Tom Bailey

Special thanks to Sacha Taylor-Cox at Hush PR

THOMPSON TWINS ‘Industry & Seduction’ is released by BMG as a CD, 3CD box set and download

THOMPSON TWINS’ TOM BAILEY + BLANCMANGE UK 2026 Tour Dates: Aylesbury Friars Aylesbury at the Waterside Theatre (10th September), Bath The Forum (11th September), Bournemouth Pavilion Theatre (12th September), Manchester Bridgwater Hall (13th September), Whitley Bay Playhouse (15th September), Glasgow Pavilion Theatre (16th September), Birmingham Town Hall (18th September), London Indigo at the O2 (19th September), Brighton Chalk (20th September), Guildford G Live (21st September), Cambridge Junction (23rd September), Buxton Opera House (24th September), Nottingham Rock City (25th September), York Barbican (26th September) – tickets on sale at https://www.alttickets.com/thompson-twins-tom-bailey-tickets

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Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
17th November 2025