Thompson Twins’ Tom Bailey brings Totally Tubular Festival to Uptown this Sunday

Photo Courtesy of James Cumpsty

Back in the mid-’80s, the music of Thompson Twins was, well, inescapable. The radio-friendly Brit-pop trio had become a staple on MTV—with their hits “Doctor! Doctor!” and “Hold Me Now” in seemingly perma-rotation. 

Leading the charge was frontman Tom Bailey, whose unmistakable vocals and keyboard-heavy arrangements helped propel the band into mainstream consciousness. In the 2000s—as his musical tastes evolved—Bailey went on to unleash several dub and electronic albums. 

For the last decade, Bailey has flown solo performing T2’s hits throughout the U.S. and Great Britain. He’ll be appearing this Sunday at Uptown Theater’s Totally Tubular Festival alongside Thomas Dolby, Men Without Hats, and The Plimsouls.

We chatted up with the musician before he did a soundcheck in Santa Barbara to get the 411 on his upcoming performance. He’s hoping for good weather since his last visit to the metro in 2018 at Starlight was a near washout. 

The Pitch: Looking back over your storied career, can you pinpoint the exact moment when you were like, “Well, we’ve made it?”

Tom Bailey: It’s something incredibly mundane, which translates as super exciting in reality. You’re in a store or waiting in an airport and your song comes on. And you think, “Yeah, this is beyond just playing to a few friends or people who are hip to what you’re doing. This has gone mainstream for some reason.” And then suddenly you can’t walk down the street. 

It’s a very exciting roller coaster. I remember people around me saying, “Hey, you know this only happens once, so do enjoy it. You’ll remember it for the rest of your life.”

Where were you when you very first heard the Thompson Twins song on the radio?

The early ’80s, somewhere in London, in a supermarket. I’m buying some groceries, and on comes my song. I had to turn my collar up and get out.

The ’80s were mystical, magical, and larger than life—as was your hair. Was that all hairspray or mousse or what? 

We tried every trick in the book. I think the guys from The Cure—or was it maybe Siouxsie and the Banshees?—they let their secret out, which is to lie on a bed. And you hang your head over the end and have someone place sugar water into it. And then you lie there until it dries. And then when you stand up, you’ve got this great hair. I have to say, Alannah was more of an expert in that department because she really did stack up the hair. 

Agreed. Alannah’s hair had hair. How did this perfect trifecta of you, Thomas Dolby, and Men Without Hats come together?

Photo Courtesy of Tom Bailey

It’s a weird one. Thomas Dolby and I go back a long way. He played on my second album, like, 42 years ago. That was when I first met him and worked together. But we’ve never actually played together on the stage. So, we, over the years, kind of concocted plans to do this, that, and the other. It always fell through for some reason. 

Meanwhile, we were looking for a reason to get back to the stage—because COVID and everything had held us up and frustrated us. And then the idea of double-headlining this tour was like, “Yeah, this is it.” This is the moment we’ve been thinking about. I don’t know most of the other bands on the bill. I know some of their music, obviously. But I have the thrilling experience of meeting some of these bands that I’ve known about for 40 years but never met before.

A few years ago, I saw Men Without Hats appearing with Human League—and the lead singer Ivan came out wearing a cowboy hat. And I thought my life was a lie. He’s wearing a hat.

Yes, from what little I’ve seen of him so far, I think he’s a very interesting and unique entertainer. And he pulls little weird, ironic stunts like that.

The last time you were in town was with The B-52s and Culture Club—and it poured. Like, torrential storms at Starlight. Let’s keep our fingers crossed for better weather. 

Sure. Well, we’ve already had weather problems on this tour. The very first night of our tour was in Milwaukee, and the weather system that came through was so bad. The PA announced to everyone, “You should go home and take cover.” Oh, how’s that for a start to a tour? 

Wait—Are you on stage singing? And they’re, like, run for your life?

This was before we got on stage. Basically, there were 5,000 people waiting. They were told to go home. A very few keen fans stayed. The storm passed. We played to 200 of the craziest people I’ve ever played to. And it was intense—and I’m so pleased we stayed and played!

Photo Courtesy of Tom Bailey

I chatted with Howard Jones and he talked about Live Aid extensively. You appeared alongside Madonna. What do you remember about that day?

It was an intense and amazing event. Those things roll along with an energy of their own. You just have to roll with it. Otherwise, the whole thing is uncontrollable. We had a great time. We had an amazing band, which we kind of put together at the last minute because we asked to play in Philadelphia, rather than London.

So, we ended up with a superstar band made mostly from David Letterman’s house band and a few friends, including Steve Stevens from Billy Idol’s band Nile Rodgers who was producing with us at the time, and Madonna, who we just met. Yeah, it was one of those friendly things where you say, ‘Let’s sing backing vocals on each other’s sets.’ And us and Madonna agreed to do that. 

And then it’s the question I get asked in every interview for the rest of my life—”How come you got to play with Madonna?’ It was a minor detail on that day, and it ends up being so important.

Because she wasn’t Madonna at that point. Like, you guys were bigger stars than she was at the time.

I like to think I gave her a break.

Did I read somewhere you veered off into classical Indian music? Was that a passion project?

Yeah. Well, I still have a strong association with a group of musicians from North India, and when we can we get together. Actually, haven’t done it for a while, and I’m hoping next year—So, hopefully, next February we will get the chance to do that. I love it. I mean, that’s a complete contrast to working with high-tech synth-pop, is to sit down with classical acoustic musicians and just play our hearts out.

Is it weird to still get recognized? Does it throw you off?

Do you mean, like in the street or something? Yeah, I mean, these days, it’s usually not hundreds of people, it’s just an occasional individual. And so, it’s much calmer and easier to accept and accommodate. Back in the day, it was a bit scary sometimes when you get cornered in public. But, hey, we chase celebrity and then we complain when we get it, right? 

Doing music videos—Were you a fan? Pros? Cons?

In a way, part of me hated doing videos. Because I think I’m a musician. Why am I spending all the time in front of a camera? But, they were great things to do. They were great fun, usually. And, of course, they added this visual dimension to the presence of our band. People didn’t know what we looked like before that. The occasional magazine cover was as close as you got. But, videos, and MTV in particular, just really rammed that in front of people’s consciousness. 

I remember doing things like the video for “You Take Me Up.” It was made in a stone quarry in Portugal because we needed to create a prison camp, a kind of stone-breaking prison yard. I was really ill the whole day. I shouldn’t have been there, but I had to do it. And the amazing thing was, the extras playing the parts of prisoners were local students—but also some local prisoners. Some of the prisoners offered their services as extras on the condition that they played the guards. I thought that was a really lovely gesture.

Finally, if you weren’t a singer, what do you think you’d be doing?

I’d probably be on skid row. I’d say, I love to paint, I love to garden, I love to do kind of domestic chores around the house. But the reality is, I probably wouldn’t have a house to do those things in if I wasn’t a musician. So, it’s a good question, but one I can’t really easily answer. I’m useless at most things. You know, I just wake up in the morning and want to make music. That’s my thing. 

Interview gently edited for content and clarity.