Marc Almond Quotes

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

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.

I mean whatever I do it's important that I put my stamp on it and keep it in my world, whether I'm doing a dance track or something like the Russian album for example.

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.

I've always loved the rock & roll element to live shows, because whatever else I do, I'm basically a rock/pop performer, and that's what I like.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

I made a creativity out of that messiness.

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.

I thinks it really interesting how they throw the world music samples in there. I often wonder what it would be like to do something like that, but use my lyrics and my kind of style.

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.

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

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.

That's what I like to do, I like to make songs.

I'm always aware of mortality.

The albums I did around that time probably wouldn't have been the same without Ecstacy. The first three Soft Cell albums... were all really albums that were just done around Ecstacy and the whole E feeling.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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

Russians have a new freedom, but as long as they don't express that freedom on a public platform.

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.

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

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

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

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

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'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 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!!!

As soon as one project is finished I like to go straight on to something else.

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

I'd always wanted to write a song about a leather jacket and how wearing it makes you feel. I love leather jackets, and I've got a big collection of them.

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

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

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

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.