The Thompson Twins | New Music And Songs | The Thompson Twins About The Thompson Twins The Thompson Twins -- who were neither a duo nor related, but simply named after the Tin Tin cartoon -- were one of the more popular synth pop groups of the early MTV era, scoring a handful of hits before fading away into lite-funk obscurity. While many of their contemporaries indulged in stylish variations on Roxy Music or robotic electronic funk, the Thompson Twins were more pop-oriented, even when they strayed into dance-pop. Despite their success -- "Hold Me Now," "Lay Your Hands on Me," "King for a Day" all reached the U.S. Top Ten -- the group was unable to successfully expand their synth pop sound and, consequently, their audience had virtually disappeared by the late '80s. Founding member Tom Bailey was attending a teacher's college in Cheshire, England and harboring dreams of becoming a classical pianist when he met Joe Leeway, a fledgling actor, in 1977. The pair hit it off, yet Leeway wasn't part of the original incarnation of the Thompson Twins, which featured Bailey (vocals, keyboards), guitarist Pete Dodd, guitarist John Roog, and drummer Chris Bell.

During the late '70s and early '80s, the band released a handful of independent singles and became fixtures on the burgeoning New Romantic scene in London before signing with Arista Records in 1981. That year, they released their debut album, A Product Of..., to little attention. Not long after the release of A Product Of..., Bailey added his girlfriend Alannah Currie (percussion, saxophone, vocals), Joe Leeway (percussion, vocal), and former Soft Boys bassist Matthew Seligman to the group. The Thompson Twins recorded one album in this seven-piece incarnation, 1982's Set, which was released in America as In the Name of Love. The record was a bomb, and following its release, the group was trimmed to a trio -- Bailey, Currie, and Leeway. The revamped Thompson Twins released Quick Step and Side Kick in 1983, and the album became a major hit in the U.K., climbing all the way to number two, as the singles "Love on Your Side" and "We Are Detective" reached the Top Ten. In America, the record was released under the truncated title Side Kicks and earned a cult following.

The Thompson Twins had their American commercial breakthrough in 1984 with Into the Gap. "Hold Me Now," the first single from the album, became a bigger hit in the U.S. than it did in the U.K., peaking at number three; it reached number four in England. Into the Gap also featured the hits "Doctor Doctor" and "You Take Me Up," and the Thompson Twins quickly followed the record in 1985 with Here's to Future Days. "Lay Your Hands on Me" became an American Top Ten hit, as did "King for a Day," but none of the singles from the record became major hits in the U.K., signaling that the group's popularity was beginning to decline. Leeway left the group in 1986, and the Thompson Twins remained a duo, releasing Close to the Bone the following year. Bailey and Currie made their romance public in 1988, when the couple had a child. That same year, they released the remix album The Best of Thompson Twins: Greatest Mixes, which was generally ignored. By the late '80s, the Thompson Twins' audience had decreased substantially.

Big Trash, their 1989 debut for Warner, produced the minor U.S. hit "Sugar Daddy," but it was overlooked in England. In 1991, they released Queer, which was ignored in both the U.S. and the U.K. In 1994, Bailey and Currie decided to form a new band, Babble, in order to explore newer electronic musics such as ambient. Working with programmer Keith Fernley, Babble released The Stone in 1994 on Reprise to little notice. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi Hear more of Here's to Future Days: Tom Bailey of the Thompson Twins Returns Here's to Future Days: Tom Bailey of the Thompson Twins Returns Lyndsey Parker Thompson Twins [photo: Estate of Keith Morris, Redferns] More There is perhaps no pop act of the 1980s' British Invasion more critically underrated or overlooked than the Thompson Twins. Despite charting a dozen incredibly well-written hits in America (three of which went top 10) and being one of the most charismatic bands to take over the early-MTV airwaves, by now they've all been written out of new wave history.

Tune in to any "Flashback Lunch" hour on oldies radio or '80s retrospective on VH1 and you'll get Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, even Echo & The Bunnymen… but you're unlikely to hear any Thompson Twins music, other than their No. 3 smash "Hold Me Now." Tom Bailey of the Thompson Twins today [photo: Retro Futura] More The fading of the Twins' once-colorful legacy can mostly be attributed to the fact that they very willingly dropped out of sight. Frontman Tom Bailey and his Twins bandmate/future wife Alannah Currie started a new group, Babble, in 1994 (they divorced in 2003), and Bailey has maintained a busy career both as a producer and with leftfield musical endeavors like International Observer and the Bailey-Salgado Project ever since. However, the Thompson Twins played their last gig in 1986, released their last album in 1991, and never succumbed to pressures to hit the reunion circuit after that. "We haven't maintained our profile in any way, so naturally it diminishes, I think," says Bailey from his home in London.

"Also, to some extent, there's a tendency to move on from pop groups and think, 'Well, that was then, and wasn't it all so silly?' And then you get characterized by your haircut rather than by your music, if you're not careful." The Twins are often unjustly categorized as a novelty act, and that's no doubt due to their deliberately crafted, oh-so-'80s image. First, there was their wacky moniker. ("None of them are named Thompson! And there's THREE of them! And they're not really twins!" said every article written about the Thompson Twins, ever.) And then there were the poufy hairstyles, the giant duck-billed hats, those blindingly bright baggy satin suits, the piles of pearls. "We set ourselves up for ridicule in a way, because we did adopt a consciously cartoonish personality for ourselves," Bailey admits freely. "We were trying to use that subversively; it wasn't just that we were the new Archies or the new Monkees or something like that. We felt a bit more underground than that. But we knew that we had to kind of work 'behind enemy lines' to fit in. We had to make ourselves recognizable and cartoonish.

So, we did that. But that eventually becomes a saw to your own back." Truth be told, a decades-removed listen to the Thompson Twins' discography proves that the band's material holds up better than that of many of their new wave peers. And now fans will finally be able to hear those songs again, as Bailey will be playing them live for the first time in more than 27 years on this summer's Retro Futura Tour (which will also feature Howard Jones, Ultravox's Midge Ure, China Crisis, and Katrina sans her Waves). "It was only six months ago that I ever considered doing this, to be honest," says Bailey. "I'd completely closed the book on that possibility." Bailey's ex Currie and their fellow former Twin, Joe Leeway, won't be joining him on the road. ("Joe and Alannah both left music and did other things, whereas music is absolutely my life and my language, everything I've ever done," says Bailey, who adds that his split from Currie, while amicable, has "certainly added an extra layer of difficulty" when it comes to a full-fledged Twins reunion.) But Bailey is excited about revisiting his group's classic catalog.

"It's actually great for an artist to take a retrospective view of what they were doing and re-inhabit their material with a kind of honesty and vigor that they can find with the benefit of time taken off. I hope that I'm not just 30 years older, but 30 years wiser as well!" he chuckles. Read More As Bailey prepares to play many of Thompson Twins' underrated hits live, Yahoo Music has asked him to share memories of some of his band's most memorable songs. "In the Name of Love," 1982 "This was our first success; I think it was a No. 1 dance record in America. So this was the death knell of the previous [seven-member, more avant garde] version of the band. I'd written 'In the Name of Love' as a filler for side 2 of an album that didn't have enough songs, and it ended up being the successful track, so that was a big signpost for our whole direction.

"We wrote ourselves a manifesto, essentially: 'Let's have an experiment in success.' And this experiment should be measured by certain criteria, like having a top 10 hit, getting onto certain TV shows, having an American tour, things like that. We said, 'If we don't do this within a year, then we're fooling ourselves and we should go back to being an underground, experimental band.' So we were very clear about what we wanted to achieve, and we made sure that we achieved it. And it kind of worked!" "Lies," 1982 "We wanted to escape the press after we'd stripped down to just the three of us. Everyone wanted to know the big bust-up story, which didn't really exist; we just wanted to get on with work. At the time, my home studio was just a bunch of electronic machines; I can't remember now what the acronym stood for, but I called it 'E.G.Y.P.T.' And so someone said, 'Oh, they've gone to Egypt,' and somehow the press got hold of this story that we'd escaped to Egypt, the country.

We thought, 'What a brilliant lie!' So that was the idea behind the song 'Lies': that we were telling lies, the press was telling lies about us, everyone was telling lies about everyone else. It was a kind of strangely accusatory festival of lying!" "If You Were Here," 1983 "I've actually never seen Sixteen Candles [the John Hughes movies that features this song in its iconic, final romantic scene], but I have seen the scene in which the music is used. So I don't fully understand it. I've even met Molly Ringwald and talked about it, but I never saw the whole film! "However, this happens to be one of my favorite Thompson Twins songs; for some reason, that song has a hold over me, and I'm very fond of it. Despite it not being released as a single, probably because it didn't have a chorus, I will be singing it in concert. I've fully re-inhabited it so much that I've even written extra verses for it!

I've really discovered meanings in it that I didn't know were there the first time around." "Hold Me Now," 1983 "We were making our fourth album at Compass Point Studio in the Bahamas, but we had already recorded 'Hold Me Now.' So that was released in America and going up the charts as we were doing the rest of the album, and that was a really kind of interesting raising-of-the-bar. I think that's one of the reasons why that album [Into the Gap] is particularly good, is that we felt the self-fueling excitement of its first single as we were making the rest of the album. "'Hold Me Now' was very much a collaboration, something that unfolded very quickly and very beautifully in front of us. It has an emotional depth which I think sometimes eludes me when I sit down to write. It's not always that you can touch that kind of raw nerve of sympathetic emotion. So it's one song that means a lot to me." "Lay Your Hands on Me," 1984 "In some ways, 'Lay Your Hands on Me' was, even if partly unconscious, an attempt to repeat the success of 'Hold Me Now' — which was a bad idea.

Even though I'm fond of 'Lay Your Hands' in some ways — I like its ritualistic aspects — it's nowhere near as successful to me as 'Hold Me Now.' As a result, I'm not going to be singing it in concert. Sorry!" "Nothing in Common" (the theme song to the Tom Hanks film of the same title), 1986 "We went to Chicago to film the video for this with Tom Hanks, and it just so happened there was a show in town; I think it was the Amnesty International Tour with Sting and Peter Gabriel and lots of other people. We were invited to jump up and sing with them. And that was actually the very last time that the Thompson Twins ever performed in public." A Decade in the Life of Thompson Twins A Decade in the Life of Thompson Twins Joe Leeway, Alannah Currie, Tom Bailey (1983) In 1977, aspiring classical pianist Tom Bailey (b.

6.18.57, Halifax, Yorkshire), joined forces with guitarists Peter Dodd and John Roog and drummer Chris Bell to form a band called Thompson Twins (after a pair of identical detectives in the cartoon Tin Tin.) Moving to London in 1978, the quartet diligently played the club scene for two years. By the time the 1980s rolled around, they were ready to take their shot at the singles charts. In time, percussionists Joe Leeway (b. 11.15.57, London) and Alannah Currie (b. 9.20.59, Auckland, New Zealand) would join Bailey, while Dodd, Roog and Bell would leave the band. When, in the mid-Eighties, the Thompson Twins became an international success it consisted of the trio of Bailey, Currie and Leeway. The band, according to Currie, strove to "make something completely different . . . using technology." At the time, many purists scoffed at the nation that "good" music could be made with machines. The Thompson Twins proved the skeptics wrong -- and became the leading purveyors of synth-pop.

They were innovative, mixing dance, pop, reggae and dance elements with experimental sounds to produce a string of distinctive hit singles that were not only commercially successful but were also critically acclaimed. Daring to be different not only in their music but also in appearance, they became heroes to disaffected youth in the process. May 1980 Thompson Twin's first single, "Squares And Triangles" is released on its own independent label (Dirty Discs). November 1980 Independent label Latent releases "She's In Love With Mystery," which tops UK independent chart. Tom Bailey begins dating Alannah Currie. February 1981 The band signs with Arista Records in the UK. June 1981 The band's debut album, A Product Of..., is recorded. March 1982 Set climbs to UK#48, while the single "In The Name Of Love" soars to #1 on the US dance chart. The album is released as In The Name Of Love in the US, and stalls at US#148.

April 1982 Bell, Dodd, Roog and bassist Matthew Seligman are fired, leaving the Thompson Twins consisting of the trio of Bailey, Currie and former roadie Joe Leeway. October 1982 "Lies" peaks at UK#67, and will reach US#30 in March of the following year; supported by Tears for Fears, the band embarks on an extensive UK tour. January 1983 "Love On Your Side" makes it to UK#9. In a few months it will climb to #45 on the US singles chart. March 1983 Quick Step & Side Kick peaks at UK#2. Released as Side Kicks in the US, it will spend 25 weeks on the album chart, reaching the #34 spot. April 1983 Currie's vocals are featured for the first time on the single "We Are Detective," which hits UK#7. November 1983 "Hold Me Now" climbs to UK#4. Six months later, it peaks at US #3. February 1984 "Doctor Doctor" soars to UK#3.

Into The Gap hits the top spot on the UK album chart and stay there for three weeks; it will spend over a year on the US chart, peaking at #10. In October it will be certified platinum by the RIAA. March 1984 "You Take Me Up" makes it to UK#2. It will stall at US#44 in October. July 1984 As the band begins a world tour, "Doctor Doctor" reaches US#11. November 1984 "Lay Your Hands On Me" climbs to UK#13. It will take a year for the single to reach its #6 high mark on the US chart. March 1985 After two years of touring, and hard at work on a new album, Tom Bailey falls sick from exhaustion. American producer Niles Rodgers comes aboard to help finish the album. July 1985 With Bailey recovered, Thompson Twins performs with Madonna at the Live Aid benefit concert in Philadelphia. August 1985 The anti-drug song "Don't Mess With Doctor Dream" peaks at UK#15. September 1985 Here's To Future Days soars to UK#5.

In November it will be certified gold by the RIAA. It's first single, "King For A Day," reaches UK#22. February 1986 Here's To Future Days climbs to US#20, while the single "King For A Day" will hit US#8 in March. September 1986 "Nothing In Common," title track for the Tom Hanks film by the same name, stalls at US#54. December 1986 Conflict within the band leads to the departure of Joe Leeway. May 1987 Close To The Bone reaches US#76 and UK#90. The single "Get That Love" makes it to US#31. Another single, "Long Goodbye," fails to chart. April 1988 Bailey and Currie have their first child. September 1988 A collection of remixed hits, Greatest Mixes, stalls at US#175. October 1989 Big Trash is released on a new label, Warners, and peaks at US#143. The single "Big Daddy" hits US#28 in November.

Bailey co-produces two tracks on Deborah Harry's debut album, Def, Dumb and Blonde. A Product Of.... (Arista, 1981) When I See You Perfect Game Vendredi Saint "The name notwithstanding, there are no twins and no Thompsons in this globally successful modern pop band. Once an obscure, loose collection of as many as seven Sheffield-to London players led by singer/synthesist, songwriter Tom bailey, the Twins pared down to just Bailey, New Zealander Alanahha Currie and Joe Leeway and became one of the world's leading purveyors of occasionally adventurous, invariably danceable modern chart fare." Trouser Press "After a few mundane 45's, it's good to see the Thompson Twins put together an album that does some justice to their (very) live show. Everywhere the accent is on riddum, with an appealing you-can-all-join-in indiscipline dancing round the central axis.

Not that they don't write a good chown or two, too -- so the results are never as boringly indulgent as they might be in less inspired bands." NME (6.20.81) Set / In The Name Of Love (Tee, 1982) In The Name Of Love Living in Europe Crazy Dog Blind (The US version, entitled In The Name Of Love, substituted two tracks from the band's first LP, "Make Believe" and "Perfect Game," for "Tok Tok," "Crazy Dog" and "Blind") "One of the best live bands around, the Thompson Twins have trouble recreating the style and energy of their stage performance. Their records usually come as something of a disappointment, though Set in fact succeeds surprisingly well. What has been lost is the looseness and rawness, which is a major part of their appeal to me, and at times the result is too smooth, too lacking in spontaneity.

What they have gained, though, is layers of sound and textures which give the songs more depth and imagination." Kevin Swayne, Sounds (3.6.82) "The Thompson Twins belong to that traditionally English pop sensibility which blends galloping eclecticism with offbeat amiability. Their catholic approach incorporates touches from a wide spectrum of present and past music -- from Adam to Brinsley Schwarz to The Move -- but the band of which they're consistently reminiscent is XTC. . . . The result is an all-round lack of bite. The Thompsons have nothing distinctive to offer.

Set comes across as a pleasant-to-dull LP that, for all its hard work and invention, is still a bit of a bore." Graham Lock, NME (2.27.82) Quick Step & Side Kick (Arista, 1983) Love On Your Side Love Lies Bleeding All Fall Out "Don't know if you've noticed or not, but all of a sudden, the floodgates are open and new British pop groups are being welcomed into the American musical mainstream at an amazing rate; haven't seen anything like it since the '60s....The Thompson Twins are right in the middle of all this -- they just may be the most 1983 group of the year.

They have 12" dance club hits like "In The Name Of Love," "Lies," and "Love On Your Side." They now have synthesizers and no guitars, drum programmes but no drums, since their drummer and guitarists were booted out after the TTs decided to trim their ranks down to the threesome of Tom Bailey, Alannah Currie and Joe Leeway (although they did swell back up to six again for touring purposes.) So they may not have stability but they've got instant pan-sexual, pan-cultural credibility and a logo as well; a trio of blank faces topped by three different colors of hair, meaning, I suppose, that all sexes, creeds and colors can get along as long as they all have funny hair-dos. Let Fun Boy Three top that." Creem (May, 1983) "On their American debut, "In The Name Of Love," the Thompson Twins were a welcome alternative to the arch synth-pop then rolling across the Atlantic. Working with a bubbly, salsa-inflected bounce instead of the usual electronic angst, the Thompsons were as fun as they were tuneful. Their new album, Side Kicks, is fun too, and is just as likely to leave you humming.

But with their lineup condensed from seven members to three, the band now relies almost exclusively on synthesizers and percussion, and though they've come up with an impressive synth version of a string-popping funk bass, they have yet to find an adequate substitute for Peter Dodd's chattering guitar. Consequently, most of the instrumental tracks are locked in a percussion-and-synthesizer style that isn't appreciable different from late-Seventies disco. Still, the band has retained most of its wit, and that adds sparkle to the arrangements....And, in the end, Side Kicks is better than no kicks at all." J.D. Considine, Rolling Stone (4.14.83) Into The Gap (Arista, 1984) Doctor! Doctor! No Peace For The Wicked The Gap Storm On The Sea Who Can Stop The Rain? Soft Cell, Human League and their ilk may have transformed synthesizer-based "new wave" music into chart-topping commodities. But few bands make this technical wizardry sound so delightfully commercial as the Thompson Twins.

They use all the tools at their disposal, mix them together with current trendy beats (reggae, calypso, etc.), and create a stunning concoction which, to these battered ears, is the best album of 1984 so far.....Into The Gap could be perceived as a distinctive milestone on how far new musix has come in the past few years. It's enough to make you forget that the old dinosaur bands ever existed." Keith Sharp, Music Express (April, 1984) "Obviously, this is a band that knows how to sell a melody -- "In The Name of Love" and its successors proved that without trouble. But with Into The Gap, the Thompsons have made a breathtaking show of just how adept they are with a telling detail, an illuminating flourish.

"You Take Me Up" features a melody that's just a little too busy to stand out on its own, but after the Thompsons have girded it with an underpinning of marimba, set it on a slippery shuffle and sprinkled the verses with homey harmonica obbligatos, it's hard NOT to sit transfixed.....At times, the gimmicks can be as slight as a sythensizer setting, but they invariable make the album seem dazzling even when it isn't." J.D. Considine, Musician (May 1984) Here's To Future Days (Arista, 1985) Don't Mess With Doctor Dream Lay Your Hands On Me Future Days You Killed The Clown Breakaway (bonus cassette track) From bohemian free spirits to a calculated, commercial music entity -- that has been the price of fame for the Thompson Twins, who find themselves firmly entrenched in rock's mainstream. Into The Gap took them to this position, an album which confounded detractors with its high-gloss production and infectious beat. Tom Bailey, Alannah Currie and Joe Leeway were probably just as surprised as anyone.

It was almost as though they had stumbled onto some secret elixir; to the point where the trio ensconced themselves in the studio for almost a year to dissect their recent success and puzzle over how they would produce a suitable follow-up. To a certain extent, their labors have been successful. Here's To Future Days is, for the most part, a clean and addictive batch of songs with catchy melodies soaring over a calculated synth beat." Keith Sharp, Music Express (October, 1985) "You can't always judge a band by its haircuts. Take the Thompson Twins: on the surface they're the perfect example of vintage 1985 pop, three designer-style cartoon characters lip-syncing breathlessly trendy techno ditties. And sure enough, their fourth U.S. release is crammed full of relentless melodies, singalong choruses, swooning synths, percussive exotica and the sort of hooks that should be baited with Excedrin.

But it also contains actual guitar solos -- groovy, grotesquely distorted ones -- and deceptively simple lyrics that offer love and optimism as an answer to drug addiction, nuclear war, racial strife and loneliness." Mark Coleman, Rolling Stone 460 (11.7.95) Close To The Bone (Arista, 1987) Follow Your Heart Dancing In Your Shoes Perfect Day "Mathematical purists will be relieved that with the departure of percussionist Joe Leeway . . . there are now only two Twins, even if they are non-siblings -- Alannah Currie and Tom Bailey. The Twins haven't lost much musically. Bailey is basically a routine rock singer. . . . He's a top-rank bass-player and arranger, and with Currie's percussion effects -- supplemented in this case by drummer Geoff Dugmore -- the Twins have one of rock's most explosive born-to-dance-to rhythm sections. Currie's lyrics also show occasional bite." Ralph Novak, People (5.4.87) "In April 1986, at the end of a six-month world tour, Joe Leeway left the band. . . .

Finally reduced to the titular duo, Bailey and Currie carried on, releasing the modest and, for the most part, likable Close To The Bone, produced by Rupert Hine. Currie's lyrics (Bailey wrote the music) take a surprisingly reflective approach here, suggesting doubt and anxiety instead of the usual oblique contemplations. . . .[N]otably lacking the group's characteristic energy and rhythmic magic, the record proves that the Thompson factory can turn out quality merchandise even when the creative thinkers are napping." Trouser Press Tom Bailey of the Thompson Twins: Where is he now? - And what's next? Music | And what's next? Music Tom Bailey of the Thompson Twins: Where is he now? Tags: 2009 , tom bailey May 18 As of 2009, former Thompson Twins leader Tom Bailey was performing as International Observer — described as “Indo-fusion music” — and you can check out their myspace page here .

( Readers down under can also check out the Vitamin site .) Here’s a photo of Tom from about 2009: Tom Bailey was born on January 18, 1954 — meaning he was about 55 when this photo was taken. Posts related to Tom Bailey of the Thompson Twins: Where is he now? Philip Barber / August 15, 2011 IH Tom I was in your fan club when you were the Thompson twins, I am disabeled. I was happy to see You on the I pad 2. I am 44 years old. Now I like Star Trer. I Live in Camberley. From Philip Barber…………..

Andrew / January 9, 2012 HI tom,now you are looking like a school teacher.Isaw you perform live at the birmingham odeon when i was sixteen,into the gap,and it is still one of the best stage performances ive seen and i have seen em all.Your music was very unique and your style was cool,i remember dying my hair a red burgandy colour and wareing bright green socks down to you old chap.also remember falling to sleep snugged up in bed listening to one of my favourte t twins tracks,kamikarse.Thanks for all ya hard work back then and hope you have a great and wonderful mature age.best wishes mr A Collinson. Rocco / March 19, 2012 Hey Tom! I was a huge fan of yours in the 80’s. The Thompson Twins were the first live concert I ever saw and will resonate in my mind for the rest of my life. You gave birth to my love of live concerts. I also had all the albums and the hairstyle. Hope all is well and thank you David parr / July 12, 2012 Hi Tom how are you hope your fine .

I’m 44 now and when I was a teenager 16 i was absolutely mad on the Thompson twins . Used to drive mum and dad mad with the music blasting from my hi fi which at the time was a technics with a fab sound . Mum said she could hear it when she was walking down the street . My only regret was not watching you live in concert but hey never mind , I still have great memories . Great to hear that your still in music Tom . Thanks once again for brightening up my teenage years and the great music you gave us all Andi / February 3, 2013 Hi Tom, I must say that your extended mixes are still unbeatable :-) Some favourites are Detective (More Clues), Machines Take Me Over & the 9 min Sister Of Mercy. I have just digitalized my old 12inch TT-collection in 24bit/96KHz. Fantastic! You hear so much more details than on CD. Lay Your Hands On Me was the one that really touched me back then, now I’m 42. Great tune – the melancholic verse plus the optimistic chorus. But it’s the Sadkin version I love, not the one with Nile Rogers.

Thank you for that / making teenage years so much better. In retrospect you did not get the recognition for all these great compositions. I mean, sure, it’s basically teenage music, but listen to all the fantastic details, the great arrangement, the Z-Bass, that fantastic Movement drum machine… I wish you’d use that equipment to do some more tunes in the old way. I prefer these sounds to most of today’s. How much did Joe & Alannah actually help you with the music itself? For me it seems you were the main muscial talent. I think Roll Over was not bad at all, why did you withdraw it? And why was the B-Side of King For A Day (Rollunder) only instrumental? Questions over questions… OMG, how I used to wait for a new TT-single. TWINS 126, haha. These were really exciting times!!! They will stay with me forever! Thank you so much! Von Stafford / April 20, 2013 Hello Tom!, You’re still a good looking fellow! I have always found your particular music amazing! Be it Twins, Babble, and IO! It is very interesting what the Twins (You, Alannah and Joe) are now doing.

Time went by so fast! Best Wishes’ candie holden / June 15, 2014 Hi Tom!!! I remember the very first video of Thompson Twins I seen. I also thought you were the cutest man I ever seen!! (You still looking good) I yall posters and cassette tapes. Your group made the 80’s great Jim R. / August 25, 2014 Some of the best music from my high school years. You could pop with the best, but were so much better than most knew if they only saw you on MTV. Thank God for you all and your songs: Doctor/Doctor, Hold Me Now, Lay Your Hands On Me and You Take Me Up. All I can say is THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR MANY GIFTS!!! You made my life fuller and still do to this day! Charles Augustus Steen III / August 28, 2014 You’re rad!! Oh, and you have good style.

Interview: Tom Bailey (Thompson Twins / Babble) | rhino.com Interview: Tom Bailey (Thompson Twins / Babble) Get the Album Stream the Album From 1977 through 1993, the Thompson Twins – who in their commercial heyday were, as those who lived through the ‘80s know quite well, composed of three individuals, none of whom were related – were one of the more successful of the so-called “new wave” bands, earning seven top-40 hits during the course of their career, three of them hitting the top 10 (“Hold Me Now,” “Lay Your Hands on Me,” and “King for a Day”). In 1989, after releasing five albums on Arista Records, the band made the jump to Warner Brothers, recording another two albums,Big Trash and Queer, before evolving into a new musical entity called Babble, but after recording two albums in this guise (The Stone and Ether), Tom Bailey and Alannah Currie – the stalwarts between the two groups, not to mention husband and wife at the time– decided to leave Babble behind them.

With Big Trash and Queer having recently joined Rhino’s digital catalog, we caught up with Bailey by phone and asked him to reflect on those albums, the transition from Thompson Twins to Babble, his semi-retirement from the music industry for the better part of the last two decades, and what led him to finally begin the process of stepping back in, as he’s doing this summer as part of the line-up of the Retro Futura tour. Rhino: How was the transition for Thompson Twins when the band made the jump from Arista to Warner Brothers? Was it relatively seamless? Tom Bailey: Well, I wouldn’t say that. [Laughs.] I’d say we probably were going through a lot of changes at the time, and behind the scenes we changed managers. We had a new manager, so I think he was keen to start us off on a new footing, because I think by that time we felt that we had too much baggage to carry with Arista.

Not that Arista were a bad company or anything like that, but we needed… [Hesitates.] You know, we thought it would be good for us at that point in our career to have a fresh start, with a fresh set of people, and kind of re-launch and reconsider our approach to doing everything. Which we did: our way of working changed quite fundamentally at that point. Certainly the band had a different sound when you arrived at Warner Brothers. There was always a dance element to the band, but it was more profoundly felt on Big Trash. Yeah, I think it was partly because that was one of those moments where dance music was becoming important again, and the way that dance records had been made… Like, in the early ‘80s, the big breakthrough was electronics, using drum machines and synthesizers for dance records. By the time we moved to Warner, what was happening was that sampling – the looping of drum rhythms, drum samples, and what have you – created dance records in a new way. So suddenly the searchlight of interest landed back in the clubs, and everyone was kind of watching what was going on there again.

It was also a period where it seemed like bands that had been considered mainstream when they first debuted were suddenly being shifted over to the “college rock” charts, for whatever reason. Maybe so. And in our case, maybe we were kind of rediscovering our underground roots. Because we did come from fairly – how can I put this? – minority tastes of music. [Laughs.] When we first started, we were by no means a mainstream pop success. We kind of discovered that as an experiment in how to get a hit record…and it was a successful experiment, but I guess we didn’t want to do it forever. Nonetheless, you still pulled a pretty significant chart hit with “Sugar Daddy.” Yeah! At least, I think it was. It got played on lots of radio stations, I remember. But it was the last of the pure pop songs for us, in a way, because we definitely got more and more underground after that. But “Sugar Daddy” was still a pop record, and in the best sense. And I remember Warner Brothers saying that: “Wow, that’s a real pop record! We’ll have to work it!” [Laughs.] I think they were expecting something more challenging and art-based.

You also had one of the great pop singers guesting on the album: Debbie Harry. Yes, and on “Queen of the U.S.A.” We’d done some work with her – we wrote some songs for her solo album (“I Want That Man” and “Kiss It Better” for 1989’s Def, Dumb & Blonde) as well as producing and recording them – and we became friends, so…I guess by way of some kind of return favor she did that over the phone. Now, this seems crazy now, because these days we’d be going via all sorts of hi-tech internet connections, but she actually sang that down the telephone from her home in New York to the studio we were working in in London. [Laughs.] Is there a particular song from Big Trash that stands out as underrated or unheralded? Oh, they’re all completely underrated. [Laughs.] I don’t know, I don’t really think about it that way, to be honest with you. You’re bringing back memories: I haven’t thought about either of the songs you’ve mentioned for a long time! When you’ve mentioned them, I’ve just gone drifting back to those memories. But it was great fun.

It was a new era, as I said before, and we were trying out some new ideas as well as a new way of working. We’d also pretty much decided not to be a live band anymore. Somehow we saw that video and being studio-oriented was the way of the future. And it was partly because of the concerts that a lot of people were doing then, but also, you know, we had young kids growing up and all this kind of stuff, so our taste for hitting the road for six months at a time had probably waned somewhat by that point. One of the holdovers from your old sound was bringing back Steve Lillywhite to produce a few of the tracks. That’s right! We decided to do two or three quite challenging, aggressive songs – or aggressive-sounding songs, I should say – to snap out of this kind of cute, pop thing that we felt we’d landed in too firmly. We’d been kind of boxed a little bit and felt that we were badly represented in that sense, so we knew that Steve could make a hard-hitting record and asked him to work on it. And that was great fun. We did them very quickly. Well, nobody does bombast quite like Steve Lillywhite. Right!

He makes a big, big sound. And he’s also great fun to work with, and we get on with him very well. I remember also that those songs, in a way, were the point of confrontation with Arista. We kind of said, “This is the way we want to go.” So we were a little bit showing off our ugly side. [Laughs.] In order to make them think, “Hmmm…maybe we should let them go if they’re interested in working with a different company.” Beyond “Sugar Daddy,” the only other song from Big Daddy to be released as a single was “Bombers in the Sky,” which was, uh, not a significant chart hit. But, again, it did receive at least a bit of college rock airplay. I don’t know about the States, but over here it did quite well, I think. [Writer’s note: It apparently didn’t do substantially better in the UK than it did in the US, as it didn’t manage to chart on either side of the pond.

It did, however, make it into the soundtrack of Gremlins 2, so at least it’s got that going for it, immortality-wise.] From there, it was onto Queer, the second of Thompson Twins’ albums for Warner Brothers, and also the last you and Alannah recorded under that name. Yes, and that became quite firmly underground and experimental. Again, we weren’t really looking to have mainstream pop chart success. We were digging in a different scene. [Laughs.] Hoping to find gold of a different sort. But it was great fun, and that was recorded in our own studio, in the building we were living in in London…which is where I happen to be right now, actually. I rarely am, but I’m London for the summer, preparing for this tour. Normally I’m not in England. It wasn’t a pop hit in the States – although it did chart in the UK – but “Come Inside” managed to be a top-10 dance hit in the US, at least. Yeah, partly because we definitely made dance-club versions for that song. We kind of set out to reinvestigate the cool mood and the foot-tapping-ness that makes a good dance song.

We did the loop-sample versions, and we also did house versions and techno versions. It was a time when there were five or six remixes for everything. [Laughs.] One for every different subgenre and style. Do you think the album’s title had anything to do with it being more of a cult hit than a commercial success, or do you think it was the music itself that did that? Yeah, it was, to a certain extent, confrontational. And it was trying to be difficult, I guess. Of course, the real derivation of the title was an Edith Sitwell poem…or, in fact, an Edith Sitwell sample, where the poet was talking about her work, using the word “queer” in its original sense of being odd or unusual. And we kind of seized upon that frisson, that strange sensation with the way that meaning changes. We used it to be controversial. I think we were being slightly naughty with it, to be honest. [Laughs.] Looking at Big Trash, “Sugar Daddy” was kind of the gateway drug into that album. For Queer, do you think that “Come Inside” is the best way to try and approach that record?

[Long pause, followed by an exhale of breath.] I guess so. I mean, it’s a way of looking at it. And certainly the title is an invitation, so…why not? [Laughs.] Again, you’re reminding me of things I haven’t thought about for quite some time…and sooner or later you’ll land one I’ve got no memory of doing! No, actually, I remember a lot of things, and one of the reasons is that I’m a member of a very selective club, in that throughout all of that rock ‘n’ roll madness, I never drank or took any drugs or anything. I, uh, sort of cleaned up my act before success… [Laughs.] …and I was resolutely sober throughout all that madness. So I have relatively clear recollections. Of course, that also means that every mistake you made, you can only blame yourself. That’s right! And there were a couple of accidental medications. [Laughs.] But otherwise I was straight throughout! After Queer, was there any talk of continuing under the “Thompson Twins” name, or had you already decided that that’d be it and then it’d be on to Babble?

Well, I think in many ways the Queer album was the first Babble album, and the first Babble album was the last Thompson Twins album. [Laughs.] Now that was kind of a seamless flow from one to the other. Musically, it gave us the opportunity to be a lot more experimental and just to forget that people thought of us as hit-makers…which, in a funny kind of way, is a millstone around your neck, you know? They just want more of the same. “You know, this is all very interesting, this experimental music, but what we want is another certified hit…and we want it now!” I understand that impulse, but it also closes down one’s options as a creative person. There’s a time and a place for writing mainstream hits, and there’s a time and a place for wild experimentation that takes you a long way from that, and we’d reached that point again. But the first Babble album is one of my favorites. As a piece of work, I’m extremely happy with it to this day. My other favorite is probably Into the Gap, which is our kind of high point of commercial success.

But in terms of what is achieved, in terms of the creative challenges being addressed, the two often are exactly the same to me, although one sold millions and the other one…didn’t. [Laughs.] So what was Warner Brothers’ reaction to you moving from Thompson Twins to Babble? I would’ve thought that they’d say, “Look, you’re dropping a perfectly good, commercially-viable name!” Yes, why didn’t they say that at the time? [Laughs.] I think they were kind of bemused and wanted to see what we were going to come up with, and maybe we believed that it would be interesting, so…they were convinced. I can imagine that, like the two Thompson Twins albums on Warner Brothers, you’d also see both the Babble albums as being underrated, but what are your thoughts on Ether? I think Ether is the more difficult one. The Stone we recorded in London, in the same home studio that we did Queer; Ether was recorded when we moved to New Zealand and built a studio there, and…it became much darker somehow. I mean, there are people who think of that as our finest work because their taste happens to be on the darker side.

[Laughs.] But for me… I mean, I don’t feel quite as happy about it. You know, I use this expression, “having met your creative challenges and having found solutions for them,” and I think on The Stone we absolutely did that. It was very clear what we wanted to do, and we achieved it. Ether was a bit more lost in its ambition, I think. With the understanding that Wikipedia can’t always be trusted, the entries for The Stone and Ether both reference Keith Fernley as being a proper member of Babble as well as a producer. Was that the case? Well, he wasn’t a producer. I was the producer. He was the engineer. But he was still very involved. We were working together so much at that point that he seemed like an integral part of the team, so we kind of had this idea that Babble wouldn’t be like other groups, with formal, fixed personnel. People would kind of float in, and then, say, someone who would work on some artwork for an album cover would temporarily become a member of Babble. That was the way we wanted to do it, so…that’s partly an explanation of what you’re talking about. But Keith was certainly very, very involved.

In fact, he subsequently moved out to New Zealand to do the second album, so that’s how involved he was. [Laughs.] In the wake of Ether, did you ever consider going back into the studio as Babble, or did you just decide that that was it for the time being? Well, there were certainly demos of songs for the third Babble album, and then what happened was… I think Warner Brothers thought we were too expensive for what we were coming up with, so they wanted to negotiate a way out. And by that point, I was living in New Zealand, staring out to sea on kind of a subtropical beach, thinking, “It would actually be quite nice to not have a record deal right now, to see some other things.” And that really began the 20-odd year hiatus, when I was just making records that appealed to me for no other reason than that I thought it was a good idea, or that it was creatively interesting or whatever. It wasn’t in any way chasing success – unless I was producing someone else, in which case I took that very seriously – so out of that time came all sorts of things: electronic dub albums and Indian music projects and so on and so forth.

To bring things up to the present, you opted to end your hiatus this summer, hitting the road as part of the Retro Futura tour. What made you finally decide to dive back in? Well, what happened was, I’d done some work with a Mexican musician called Aleks Syntek – we’re writing together – and he wanted to write a song in the style of the Thompson Twins. And having written it, he said, “Well, why don’t you sing it?” And I thought, “Hmmm, maybe I can get away with this after a long time. After all, no-one’s really watching.” [Laughs.] And I did it, and I enjoyed it. So without realizing it, I crossed that line – that fatal line! – and found myself singing pop songs again. So are you excited or intimidated at the thought of going back on the road? Both! I mean, I’m incredibly excited, but part of me is living in fear. But hopefully by the time I get to the States I’m going to be all right. [Laughs.] Tracklist Christians Dance? 750th Mix Twins Part 1 Christians Dance?

750th Mix Twins Part 1 August 1, 2016 - 12:25 am 303 plays VERSION LABEL People that follow me know I like to go all out for my special mixes with groups may have been successful but are not as common or are known for 1 or 2 hits. For my 750th mix I have put together a nearly 5 hour mix featuring the Thompson Twins (all three of them), sorry that was the old joke I would say whenever I heard them. Actually there were only 2 for the last couple albums before they stopped Thompson Twins and became the dance band Babble but there were still no twins. The Thompson Twins had 7 top 40 hits here in the U.S. and 4 others hit the top 100. Enjoy this 1st of 4 parts featuring hits, extended versions, remixes and b-sides. Tracklist at mixcrate. Faith Hope Love. God Bless. How amazing are the deeds of the Lord! All who delight in him should ponder them. Psalm 111:2 Famous Hollywood twins: Where are they now? | Fox News Famous Hollywood twins: Where are they now?

Published January 09, 2013 Nelson twins. (Ralph Domiguez/Globe Photos, S Bukley/Image Collect, Ed Geller/Image Collect) Mowry twins. (Barry Talesnickipol/Globe Photos) Mataras twins. (Snakkle.com) Previous Next Twins have it good. They get to share clothes, genes, thoughts… We’ve all wondered about that mysterious bond that real-life twins seem to have; maybe some of these famous lookalikes can provide insight. Our friends at Snakkle.com round up some of Hollywood’s cutest and most successful celebrity twins in this where are they now gallery. You’ll be doing double takes with every click. PHOTOS: See all 18 pics in “Famous Celebrity Twins: Where Are They Now?” Matthew and Gunnar Nelson The 80’s iconic identical Nelson twins, of the band Nelson, achieved initial success with their debut album "After The Rain" in 1990. With their killer blond hair and singing and songwriting talent, the brothers--who are the sons of American teen idol Ricky Nelson and actress Kristin Harmon-- make a strong genetically identical two-person act.

More recently, in 2005, Gunnar Nelson became a cast member of “Celebrity Fit Club 3,” after actor Jeff Conaway left due to drug related problems. Both twins have hosted and appeared on several VH1 television programs, and Gunnar is also a co-host of a nationally syndicated radio morning show. Gunnar and Matthew also reportedly perform periodically on cruise ships together for tourists and fans. Big stars' first movies Tia and Tamera Mowry Best known for playing their twin selves on the hit ‘90s series "Sister, Sister," Tia and Tamera are still at it. Being themselves and ultra twinny, that is. They both married men with last names that start with the letter “H” after dating each respective boyfriend for six years (and are now Tia Mowry-Hardrict and Tamera Mowry-Housley). In 2011, the sisters began their reality TV series called "Tia & Tamera." Tia, whose pregnancy was featured on their show, was the first of the two to become pregnant. They couldn’t synchronize that?

Tiffany and Krystle Mataras of “Problem Child 2” Identical twin sisters Krystle and Tiffany Mataras appeared as the rude twins Dolly and Madison who try to extort money from Junior in “Problem Child 2” (1991). Tiffany and Krystle appeared in “Kindergarten Cop” before their roles in “Problem Child 2.” They went on to act in films such as “Single White Female” (1992) and “Camp Nowhere” (1994). They were also featured on “The Dog Whisperer” to get help with their dog in the sixth season of the series. Their latest roles were in the sexy horror film “100,000 Zombie Heads” (2012).

Question: How many people were in the band The Thompson Twins?
Answer: Three