THE ODD TROUPLE

Thompson Twins came together on the London squat scene as a six-piece collective.

- Lois Wilson

But after splintering into a trio and embracing technology, they assumed a more vibrantly colourful and commercial new style and became one of the biggest synthpop bands of the 80s. For a while, lead couple Alannah Currie and Tom Bailey, alongside bandmate Joe Leeway, were fixtures on front covers and pop TV around the world. Then the fun dried up and they drifted apart. As they prepare to release their first group-approved career-spanning compilation, though, Bailey is back touring under the Thompson Twins name. “It’s been a thrill,” he tells Lois Wilson

“We wanted this thing called success,” says Alannah Currie, Thompson Twins’ lyricist and percussionist, “and we wanted to make really good records. But we had no idea what that entailed. At first it was fantastic: nothing compares to performing or writing and it all comes together. It’s like fucking God for a nanosecond. Then it gets difficult...”

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. That period when the band adopted the three-piece lineup they would become famous for was the result of several years of experimentation, agitation and art-punk fun.

The group, named after the detectives Thomson and Thompson in the Tintin comics, actually began with Halifax-born singer, bassist, and keyboardist Tom Bailey, a music teacher who worked in Sheffield then moved to a London squat in 1977.

“I had piano lessons from seven, sang in the church choir from nine, played clarinet in the school orchestra then took up the guitar,” Bailey explains on a Zoom call from New Zealand, where he now spends much of his time. “But growing up watching Top Of The Pops, these musicians seemed untouchable, distant, remote billionaires. You thought, Wow, but had no idea that was achievable in any sense. Then punk came along and changed all that. It said anyone can have a go.”