50 Facts About Marc Almond

1.

Marc Almond has had a diverse career as a solo artist.

2.

Marc Almond's collaborations include a duet with Gene Pitney on the 1989 UK number one single "Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart".

3.

Marc Almond's career spanning over four decades has enjoyed critical and commercial acclaim, and he has sold over 30 million records worldwide.

4.

Marc Almond spent a month in a coma after a near-fatal motorcycle accident in 2004 and later became a patron of the brain trauma charity Headway.

5.

Marc Almond was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2018 New Year Honours for services to arts and culture.

6.

Marc Almond was born in Southport, Lancashire, the son of Sandra Mary Diesen and Peter John Sinclair Marc Almond, a Second Lieutenant in the King's Liverpool Regiment.

7.

Marc Almond was brought up nearby at his grandparents' house in Birkdale with his younger sister, Julia, and as a child suffered from bronchitis and asthma.

8.

Marc Almond found solace in music, listening to British radio pioneer John Peel.

9.

Marc Almond later became a great fan of Marc Bolan and David Bowie and got a part-time job as a stable boy to fund his musical tastes.

10.

Marc Almond gained two O-Levels in Art and English and was accepted onto a General Art and Design course at Southport College, specialising in Performance Art.

11.

Marc Almond applied to Leeds Polytechnic, where he was interviewed by Jeff Nuttall, a performance artist, who accepted him on the strength of his performing skills.

12.

Marc Almond left art college with a 2:1 honours degree.

13.

Marc Almond later credited writer and artist Molly Parkin with discovering him.

14.

Marc Almond listened at first to progressive music, blues, and rock, and bands such as Free, Jethro Tull, Van der Graaf Generator, The Who, and The Doors.

15.

Marc Almond bought the first ever issue of Sounds because it contained a free poster of Jimmy Page.

16.

Marc Almond discovered the songs of Jacques Brel through Bowie as well as Alex Harvey and Dusty Springfield.

17.

Marc Almond signed the duo to his Some Bizzare label and they enjoyed a string of nine Top 40 hit singles and four Top 20 albums in the UK between 1981 and 1984.

18.

Marc Almond became friends with JG Thirlwell and, in 1983, as Clint Ruin, Thirlwell performed with Soft Cell on the Channel 4 show The Switch.

19.

Marc Almond travelled to New York with Thirlwell and Nick Cave, where they became part of The Immaculate Consumptive with Lydia Lunch.

20.

The Mambas at various times included Matt Johnson, Steve James Sherlock, Lee Jenkinson, Peter Ashworth, Jim Thirlwell and Anni Hogan, with whom Marc Almond worked later in his solo career.

21.

Under the Mambas moniker, Marc Almond recorded two albums, Untitled and the seminal double opus Torment and Toreros.

22.

Marc Almond disbanded the collective when it started to feel too much like a regular band.

23.

Marc Almond signed to EMI and released the album The Stars We Are in 1988.

24.

Marc Almond then signed to WEA and released a new solo album, Tenement Symphony.

25.

Later that year, Marc Almond played a lavish one-off show at the Royal Albert Hall in London, which featured an orchestra and dancers as he performed material from his entire career.

26.

In 1993 Marc Almond toured Russia by invitation of the British consul in Moscow.

27.

Marc Almond recorded a session for the album with John Cale, David Johanson, and Chris Spedding; some made the final cut.

28.

Marc Almond signed to Echo records in 1998 with a more downbeat and atmospheric electronica album, Open All Night.

29.

Marc Almond relocated in 2000 to Moscow where he rented an apartment.

30.

Marc Almond performed many times at the famous now demolished Rossiya Concert Hall with Lyudmila Zykina and Alla Bayanova, and with the Rossiya Folk Orchestra.

31.

In October 2004, Marc Almond was seriously injured in a motorbike accident near St Paul's Cathedral, London.

32.

Marc Almond suffered serious head injuries, multiple breaks and fractures, a collapsed lung and damaged hearing.

33.

Marc Almond began a slow recovery determined to get back on the stage and in the studio.

34.

In June 2007, Marc Almond released an album of cover songs, Stardom Road.

35.

Marc Almond performed for the event at the Royal Albert Hall.

36.

In 2008 and 2009, Marc Almond toured with Jools Holland throughout the UK as well as guesting at shows by Current 93, Baby Dee and a tribute show to the late folk singer Sandy Denny at the Festival Hall.

37.

In October 2009, Marc Almond released his second album of Russian Romances and Gypsy songs in an album titled Orpheus in Exile.

38.

In June 2010, Marc Almond released Variete, his first studio album of self written material since Stranger Things in 2001.

39.

Also in the summer of 2010 Marc Almond was named Mojo Hero, an award given by the music magazine Mojo.

40.

In 2011, Marc Almond released the Feasting with Panthers album, a collaboration with musician and arranger Michael Cashmore.

41.

Later in the same year Marc Almond took part in a music-theatre work Ten Plagues, held at Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre, as part of the 2011 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, from 1 to 28 August 2011.

42.

In 2012, Marc Almond took the role of the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca in the Paris Theatre du Chatelet's experimental rock adaptation of Poppea, based on Monteverdi's original 17th-century opera The Coronation of Poppea.

43.

In 2013, Marc Almond revived Ten Plagues and performed it for a month at Wilton's Music Hall in London.

44.

Marc Almond performed with Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson on stage performing Tull's concept album "Thick as a Brick" at The Royal Albert Hall.

45.

That year Marc Almond received The Ivor Novello Inspiration Award which was presented to him by longtime friend and co-Manager Vicki Wickham, and was awarded the Icon Award from Attitude.

46.

Finally, Marc Almond released a studio recording of his 2011 show, Ten Plagues - A Song Cycle.

47.

Marc Almond is currently working on a song cycle to accompany the filming of a multi media performance of A rebours by Joris-Karl Huysmans.

48.

Reed states that he has written 15 songs for the project commenting that Against Nature is "still probably one of the most decadent books ever written" and that Marc Almond had always wanted to perform it, stating that "now we're both jaded aesthetes we could do it".

49.

In 2016, Marc Almond signed his first major label deal for 20 years, signing a two-album deal with BMG Rights Management.

50.

In May 2022, Marc Almond played a Bauhaus show at the Barbican Centre with his long-term collaborator John Harle.