Late Soft Cell member Dave Ball’s morphine trips inspired the band’s final album.
The ’80s synth-pop duo – fronted by Marc Almond – recorded Danceteria before the sad passing of the instrumentalist on October 22, at the age of 66.
In an interview with Classic Pop magazine, given before his passing, Dave shared that the “sounds in his head” during his hospital stays became a source of inspiration for the material on the yet-to-be-released LP.
He said: “I had strange recollections when I was in and out of hospital, because I was on morphine. The new songs are a digital reflection of the sounds in my head from that time. In parallel, it’s about the times me and Marc got up to in the 80s. It’s looking backwards and forwards, the creative times we’ve had and how we feel about life now. I live in a fourth-floor flat today, but I was on the 24th floor of the same building when I wrote most of these songs. Overlooking central London, for my first high-rise album, felt very futuristic.”
Marc, 69, revealed the pair completed the collection just a few days before Dave’s death, and he thinks the record will be a “fitting” end to their musical partnership.
He penned on his website: “It is most heartbreaking, particularly at this time, that Dave was in a great place emotionally, feeling focused and happy with the new album, Danceteria, that we literally had only just completed days ago.
“I listened to the complete album for the first time yesterday. It makes me so sad as this would have been a great uplifting year for him and I can take solace that he heard this finished record and felt it was a great piece of work. Dave’s music is better than ever – his tunes, his hooks unmistakably Soft Cell. Yet he always took it to a different level…
“It’s fitting in many ways that the next (and now the last) album together is called Danceteria as the theme takes us for a visit back to almost the start of it all, back to New York in the early 80’s, the place and time that really shaped us. We always felt we were an honorary American band as well as quintessentially British.
“We have always been self referential to the Soft Cell story and myths and this album in many ways will close that circle for us.
“I wish he could have stayed on to celebrate 50 years in a couple of years time. He will always be loved by fans who loved his music. It’s a cliche to say but it lives on and somewhere at any given time around the world someone listens to, plays, dances, and get’s pleasure from a Soft Cell song – even if it’s just that particular two and half minute epic.”
The duo formed in 1979 when Marc and Dave were art students in Leeds and released their trailblazing debut album Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret in 1981, paving the way for the likes of Pet Shop Boys, Eurhythmics and Erasure.
Their second single, Tainted Love, was Britain’s best-sellnig isngle of 1981 and topped the charts in the UK and 17 other countries around the world.
The group released four more albums between 1982 and 2021, as well as what is viewed as one of the first tremix albums, Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing.
As well as Soft Cell, Dave was also one half of The Grid alongside Richard Norris, best known for 1990s single Swamp Thing, and also worked with artists including Kylie Minogue and the late David Bowie.