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Marc Almond: Earning a new level of respectNov 28 2007 by Emma Pinch, Liverpool Daily Post

A near-death experience has made Marc Almond more determined to enjoy music, he tells Emma Pinch
WHEN Marc Almond had a catastrophic motorbike crash three years ago, his speedy recovery seemed little short of a miracle.
Within three months of waking from a two-week coma, he was appearing on interview sofas insisting he was better and ready to get back on stage.
He wasn’t better. Closing in on 50, when he should have been coasting along enjoying the fruits of a long career, the accident left him stripped him of his ability to write new music or even the faculty to remember old songs. Depression hit him like a sledgehammer.
He picked himself up and started on the exhausting uphill trek to recapture what he had always taken for granted, struggling against memory loss, patchy concentration and additional adversities including a perforated eardrum and the return of a childhood stammer.
His first tour since the accident bears the scars of his experiences. He needs written prompts to remind him of the lyrics to some songs, and a light stutter sometimes permeates his speech.
Already a singer cherished for his apparent vulnerability, the audible scars of his accident imbue his wistful songs with a sharper poignancy, while, according to critics, the hundreds of hours of singing lessons have honed his voice to a truer pitch than ever before.
“This year, I’ve got a different kind of respect from people,” says Almond. “Maybe it’s been because I’ve survived and had so many up and down experiences, and I bring it to my music much more.
“I just appreciate being back on stage.”
His tour is necessarily “sporadic” because he can only manage short legs to avoid exhaustion.
But the Southport-born singer regards his performance in Liverpool, the city where he got his formative musical experiences by watching the likes of David Bowie and Lou Reed at the Empire, as a return to “home territory”.
“I never really fitted in Southport, so that’s probably why I was drawn to Liverpool,” he says. “It was quite an old- fashioned small town and if you were artistic or you dyed your hair and wore make-up you stood out like a sore thumb.”
The child of an alcoholic Army father and into make-up, piercings and boys, his eccentricity was never going to make for an easy boyhood.
“My school experiences were not always pleasant experiences, but I was very much a loner as a child and an adolescent,” he says, without self pity. “I was kind of left to my own devices. I didn’t fit in with people, even though I had some friends, I was attracted to people and the people attracted to me didn’t fit in with the regular school crowd and the music we liked set us apart from others.”
But even Liverpool’s relative size and musical tradition wasn’t always enough save him from being picked on.
“I remember going to the Empire to see David Bowie, getting the train from Southport, we got quite roughed up by people from Bootle. I got a bottle over my head. But I was covered in make up and glitter at the time,” he adds dryly.
After attending King George V and Southport Tech, he escaped to art college in Leeds, where, he says, his individuality was encouraged. He kept himself solvent by shedding his clothes and performing in galleries. He formed new wave pop group Soft Cell in the early ’80s, releasing hits such as Tainted Love and Say Hello Wave Goodbye and, when it split up, went solo.
His life was brought to a shattering halt on October 17, 2004, when he was riding pillion on a motorcycle in central London. He remembers nothing from the moment of impact until coming round two weeks later.
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-life-features/liverpool-special-features/2007/11/28/marc-almond-earning-a-new-level-of-respect-64375-20169841/