Tony Hadley

Anthony Patrick Hadley (born 2 June 1960) is an English pop singer.

Hadley co-founded Spandau Ballet in 1976 as The Cut, with Gary Kemp, Steve Norman, John Keeble and Michael Ellison, all of whom were students at Dame Alice Owen's Grammar School.

He rose to fame in the 1980s as the lead singer of the new wave band Spandau Ballet and launched a solo career following the group's split in 1990.

As a member of Spandau Ballet, Hadley went on to enjoy international success in the 1980s, including hits such as "True", "Gold" and "Through the Barricades", as well as appearing at Live Aid in 1985.

As the lead singer of Spandau Ballet, Hadley became known for his Suave image, as well as his powerful voice, which has been described by AllMusic as a "dramatic warble".

In his book on the New Romantics, music journalist and author Dave Rimmer described his voice as "like a foghorn—if a foghorn could be imagined trying to emulate both [Frank] Sinatra and [David] Bowie".

His Spandau Ballet bandmate Steve Norman described him as having "a massive vocal range".

According to Tim Rice, Hadley had a "strong and expressive voice that few of his contemporaries came near to matching".

Spandau Ballet disbanded in 1990 after their final studio album, Heart Like a Sky, failed to live up to the critical and commercial success of their earlier albums, such as True and Parade, and was not released in the United States.

After Spandau Ballet disbanded, Hadley pursued a solo career, signing to EMI and recording his first album, The State of Play, in 1992.

Meanwhile, Debut and Obsession, two live albums featuring recordings taken from a performance in Cologne in 1992 and Ronnie Scott's in 1999 respectively, were released in limited numbers by small-budget labels.

The album spawned three singles, but neither it nor any of the singles achieved any kind of chart success, and after one final single, Absolution, released in the summer of 1993, Hadley was subsequently dropped.

After leaving EMI, Hadley formed his own record company, SlipStream Records, and his first release was the single "Build Me Up", from the soundtrack of the film When Saturday Comes.

In 1996, Hadley performed in a BBC Radio 2 live performance of Jesus Christ Superstar, playing the title role opposite Roger Daltrey's Judas.

In December 1996, Hadley embarked on an orchestral tour of Europe, along with Joe Cocker, Paul Michiels, Dani Klein and Guo Yue.

On his return from that tour, Hadley collaborated with Tin Tin Out on their hit "Dance With Me", which reached #35 on the UK Singles Chart, and was the first in a series of electronic, dance and house collaborations over the course of the next three years.

In May 1997, Hadley signed a joint deal with PolyGram TV, and released his next eponymous solo album, which included covers and songs that were chosen to match his voice.

The album also featured some of his own self-penned songs, such as "She", which he wrote for daughter Toni.

The album spawned three singles, but neither the album nor the singles achieved any chart success, and Hadley was once again dropped.

The resulting album was True Ballads, a compilation of three re-recorded hits from the Spandau Ballet days, ten tracks from his 1997 self-titled album and two new songs: "I Can't Make You Love Me", which he performed on the show, and "After All This Time", the theme song from the BBC drama series Down to Earth, which ran from 2000 until 2005.

Following his success on the show, Hadley continued with a busy performing schedule, and co-headlined a tour with Cox, performing songs from both the

Go West and Spandau Ballet back catalogues, as well as number of covers.

In April 1999, Hadley, along with fellow band members Steve Norman and John Keeble, failed in their attempt to sue Gary Kemp, the band's songwriter, for a share of his royalties.

In 1999, Alan Parsons chose Hadley as the lead singer for the track "Out of the Blue" on his album The Time Machine.

This led to collaborations with the likes of Eddie Lock, Marc et Claude, Regi Penxten (Milk Inc.) and the Disco Bros, and saw Hadley pursue an altogether different style of music: Euro-House.

Following a number of successful collaborations with other house artists and DJs, Hadley became the subject of some newfound respect in the 2000s, rooted in an "ironic" appreciation for Spandau Ballet.

This saw him begin work on album of solo euro-house material, which remains unreleased, after signing a deal with European label Frontera Recordings.

Two singles from the project were released to markets in continental Europe, with Will U Take Me being released in November 2000 and Sweet Surrender in March 2002, neither of which sparked enough interest for the album to be released.

Back on home soil, fearing that the project was too far removed from his origins with Spandau Ballet, Hadley released an EP of four new songs, Get So Lonely, on his own label, Blueprint Recordings, in the summer of 2001.

The summer of 2002 saw Hadley reunite with former band members John Keeble and Steve Norman for a tour entitled An Evening of Gold, under the moniker Hadley, Norman and Keeble.

Although a collaboration with Marc et Claude followed in April 2002, no further singles from the house album were released; and by the autumn of 2002, Hadley had signed up to partake in the new ITV reality series Reborn in the USA.

Competing against the likes of Peter Cox, Hadley beat ten other artists to win the prize of a recording contract with Universal Music.

Hadley returned to the band in 2009 but left again in 2017.

Hadley is known for his "expressive voice" and "vocal range".

Anthony Patrick Hadley was born the first of three children at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, North London.

He has a sister, Lee, and a brother, Steve.

His father, Patrick Hadley, worked as an electrical engineer for the Daily Mail, and his mother, Josephine, worked for the local health authority.

On 25 March 2009, it was confirmed that the band had reformed with Hadley and were embarking on a tour of the UK and Ireland in October 2009.

Hadley remained a member of the band intermittently until 2017, when he announced his permanent departure.

He later said in 2020: "I'd rather be happy on my own than be in that band again."