Marc Almond Quotes

For me it always comes down to what is a good song and I'm very old fashioned in the way that I like to make songs that have something classic about them whether you can play them with an orchestra or an electro synthesizer or an acoustic guitar.

Soho has got to be at its centre. It's got such a history for rock, pop, poetry, jazz, writers, all those things, and I think it should be valued as such, and protected as this centre for bohemia.

People come from all over the world to see this little place they've seen in movies and read about in history books: Soho.

I think the older I get the more creative I get, I don't have the distractions that I had when I was younger.

I think in the past I think I probably was a little too diverse, probably went from one spectrum to the complete opposite and confusing people.

I don't enjoy being a celebrity, I don't want any part of that or any part of that fame for fame... i'd actually rather die than be a celebrity slime!!!

The way the business things work in Russia is you have to meet people, you have to go through a certain amount of etiquette and business things are done just simply by a shake of the hand and whether they like you or not.

As long as ugly people are not on TV, you should only ever have interesting people on TV.

I was a magnet for people who want to take advantage of people like me, who think they're part of this life but they're not.

I think there's always been singers like that and i've done my fair share of cheese as well.

My next record I really just want it to be a collection of great songs, classic songs in a way.

We just kind saw the images and knew the cliches, so to have the opportunity to go there and learn something about Russian music and about Russian people and to see things apart from being a tourist.

That's the way I work and one day I won't have the energy to do it, so I think it's always good to make the most of your life and living as much as possible.

Knowing what I knew about Russia, as much as I loved the music and was fascinated by the songs and the whole idea of it, I knew it would be a very lengthy and frustrating process.

I don't really have anything against Will Young or Gareth Gates.

I'm not one of these people who thinks everything in the past is great and everything modern is terrible. But I do think cities should be a mix of old things and new things.

I made a creativity out of that messiness.

A lot of youth today have become very narrow and conservative in a way, whereas we in the older generation are kind of living it.

Sometimes I ask myself, "Should I be out in a club?" But it's about realising I don't need to be always chasing after being who I was 20 or 30 years ago.

I'm often prone to self-doubt about everything I do.

When people talk about gender-benders and bracket me with George, I always think I'm not like that. I had more of a rock edge, mixed with the 80s electro.

I've always been the sort of person who immerses myself in things, and eventually you become part of that life.

A lot of the early songs I wrote were about the experience of going to London and meeting rent boys and transvestites and drag queens. A lot of my early material is that: the wide-eyed adventures of a middle-class boy.

I was quite naïve, a boy from Southport. When I went to art college in Leeds, I lived in a basement flat, and I heard clunking on the stairs all night, and I thought it was just nurses going to work on the night shift at the local hospital! Then I found out it was all working girls upstairs. I suppose I came from a protected background and had my eyes opened wide by that side of city life.

People always go on about sleaze, but I think it's only a small part of what I write about.

I have a long history with Soho: even when I was at art college, I came down to Soho to work in the summer.

I can imagine moving out to the seaside at some point. I like Brighton, my sister lives there. I'm a seaside boy and whenever I go there, I find myself writing songs about it.

I became the magnet for a lot of scary aggression. Cos it's scary Up North!

These days i tend to use one project I do as a kind of offshoot to the next.

I love this idea of shape-shifting and changing when you put on clothes, and turn into somebody else.

The weird thing was that Soft Cell was supposed to have come and gone before I started the album.

I thought, I'm in my late 50s now, am I ever gonna get the chance to do another album again?

Russia can be quite a dangerous place sometimes, but I never think about it.

Frank Sinatra said this great thing, that singing isn't about singing in tune, or great technical singing. It's about making people believe in the story you're telling.

Don't sing a song you can't carry off, like some 16-year-old kid singing 'My Way'. That song's not for you. You haven't lived that.

So often, the singer is the sound of the record. People think they can cover anything, but the whole voice is the thing that's unrepeatable.

Sometimes, with autobiographies, it turns into a bit of score-settling. And looking back, I don't feel the way I did then, and you kind of grow up and let it go behind you.

What was great about the 80s was that you still had record companies who would get behind developing you as an artist. You had these bonkers heads of department and A&R people who, even after a flop album, would let you make another one.

I was very much a mess, as a person. I'd come from a very turbulent teenage life, with parents who had broken up in a very bad way, and a lot of illness at school.

I thought, I might not look my best, I've forgotten half the words to my songs and I'm suffering from post-traumatic stress, but I've just got to get out there and do it.

I've got so much I want to do, and not a lot of time to do it in. People say to me, "You really shouldn't do so many records", because it actually harms your career.

I liked the idea of writing a song saying I'm happy with who I am, and I don't mind if people think I'm some old git.

Maybe I was a bit harsh on some people. But I was harshest on myself, really.

I'm always aware of mortality.

You can't keep pursuing pop success, and chasing the past.

I can't read music and I'm crap at learning lyrics. Especially since the accident I have memory problems. I can't remember words, names, places.

I'm the most indecisive person in the world. I'll do three versions of a song, then think, "Is the demo better?"

I don't care much about success or anything like that. I've only ever wanted life to be an adventure.

I like situations that force me to rethink things.

If you were born by the sea, there's always a magnet that draws you back there.