GARY KEMP releases new single ‘Too Much’ from his forthcoming album, ‘INSOLO’

GARY KEMP releases new single 'Too Much' from his forthcoming album, 'INSOLO'

TOO MUCH is the second single to be taken from INSOLO the second solo album by Spandau Ballet songwriter and Saucerful Of Secrets guitarist and co-lead vocalist, Gary Kemp.

TOO MUCH, featuring Queen’s Roger Taylor on drums is the follow up to AHEAD OF THE GAME and came out of a feeling of being overpowered by the global bad news that constantly seems to beat us down. Gary elaborates saying, “That feeling of helplessness and exhaustion that it sometimes creates in us. That sense that there’s too much going on to ever be able to change anything can make you retreat into the shell of your family. I was hit by it one day and sat at the piano – my usual solace along with the guitar – and this tune and lyric came out in one sitting. If felt like a comfort to declaim it and not write a song about what we should all be doing.”

As with “Ahead Of The Game,” Charlie Lightening directed the stunning video for “Too Much.” The film complements the reflective nature of the song by showing Meaghan Grace, a lead dancer with the Royal Ballet at The National Opera, in an urban setting. The ballet routine was choreographed by Melanie Hamrick, formerly of the American Ballet Theater and performed in Camden’s Alexandra Road Estate, a post-war brutalist masterpiece designed by Neave Brown, featured in many films including Clockwork Orange and Kingsman.

Watch the video for ‘Too Much’ – BELOW:

Gary Kemp, “I wanted the dancer to be like my alter ego, my wish fulfillment character, feeling free and expressive, while the real me is struggling to deal with the “crisis” surrounding him.”

The track features Richard Jones from The Feeling & Loup Garoux on bass, along with Matt Clifford, who plays keyboards for the Rolling Stones, playing the French Horn. For the drums on TOO MUCH Gary turned to someone whom he’d known since the mid-’80s, “During the recording I sent a couple of songs over to my friend Roger Taylor from Queen, wondering if he fancied playing drums on anything. He chose this and I’m so glad he did. The power in his playing seems to help the lyric and lift the song just at the right moment.”

Twenty-five years on from his solo debut ‘Little Bruises’ Gary has written and produced an album that focuses on two dominant themes: the paradox of solitude in an urban landscape, and his growing obsession with life seen through a rear-view mirror and how the past infects our present.

Asked why make a solo album now Gary says, “It’s confidence, playing around the world with Nick Mason gave me a certain reputation as a guitar player and singer that I never gained from Spandau Ballet. That allowed me to go and do my own record and I am of a certain age where I feel the need to understand the issues in the world and my own life, the only way I can do that is in the self-therapy of songwriting.”

INSOLO RELEASED 16TH JULY 2021 ON COLUMBIA RECORDS

In Solo (6:23)
A Rumour of You (5:36)
Waiting for the Band (5:28)
Ahead of the Game (3:53)
I Remember You (3:47)
Too Much (4:15)
The Fastest Man In the World (4:29)
I am the Past (4:36)
The Feet of Mercury (3:32)
The Haunted (6:02)
Our Light (4:06)

Xsnoize Author
Mark Millar is the founder of XS Noize and looks after the daily running of the website as well as hosting interviews for the weekly XS Noize Podcast. Mark's favourite album is Achtung Baby by U2.

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