When Dave Ball sent Marc Almond the first music for the new album, Almond immediately thought of Danceteria, the Manhattan club they used to frequent after New York City recording sessions. The resulting Danceteria album draws on their memories of that scene: a downtown mix of club music, art, and performance that left its mark on Soft Cell’s early music. It would be Soft Cell’s final studio album, completed by Ball just two days before his death in 2025.
Soft Cell first broke through with Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret and the international hit “Tainted Love.” While never matching that song’s widespread success, Soft Cell went on to have a string of UK hits and club staples before disbanding. In addition to other collaborations, Almond built a solo career that ranged across electronic pop, cabaret, and torch songs. Ball found great success with electronic dance act The Grid, worked with Psychic TV and produced artists including Anni Hogan.
Soft Cell reunited in 2001 for a new album, Cruelty Without Beauty. Their 2018 show at London’s O2 Arena was meant to be a farewell, but a few years later the two reunited in the studio to make Happiness Not Included. More music followed, leading to Danceteria.
In this email interview, Almond talks about the memories behind the album, the chemistry that made a song sound like Soft Cell, and how he feels about performing the older material now. Soft Cell will play a run of West Coast shows in November.
You and Dave wrote Nonstop Erotic Cabaret while you were immersed in that New York world, whereas Danceteria looks back on it more than 40 years later. Had your memories of that time changed or taken on a different significance over the years, and how did that affect the way you approached the new album?
Dave and I wrote Nonstop Erotic Cabaret in Leeds, actually, but we recorded it in New York. Recording there gave us a fresh outlook and changed us both as a band and as people. Memories over time become quite rose-tinted, though many of my memories haven’t changed. I just wish I could have remembered more. It was a life-changing time in so many ways, and the essence of that stays with you. I hope I captured some of the feeling on the title track, at least.
You’ve described Danceteria as a love letter to New York in the early ’80s. Did you have the idea of making a record centered around New York in mind from the start? If not, how did it shape the material and process once you decided to go in that direction?
I’d already started thinking of lyrics even before I got the music from Dave. Possibly, I thought it might be something for my own solo work. We’d recorded a song called “Polaroid” on Happiness Not Included about meeting Andy Warhol at the Factory in New York in the early ’80s, and I thought it would be good to write a collection of songs about that time. When I got the music, it all fell into place, and it seemed like a good theme to bring our story full circle on what I thought could possibly be our last album, due to Dave’s declining health. The first bit of music I got was what would become the title track. “Danceteria” was the first word that came into my head. The nightclub aside, it’s just a great word that I felt described life.
There’s a cinematic quality to Danceteria, almost as though you’re moving through a remembered version of New York from scene to scene. Was that something you consciously set out to create, or did it emerge naturally from the songs?
I wanted it to be a cycle of songs—a trip through New York over one day and night, and then morning again. It starts with the dance-infused “Danceteria” and ends with the dance track “Out Come the Freaks,” moving through various places and getting more druggy in the late-night, early hours with tracks like “Losing Yourself,” “What Is Your Morality,” and “After Hours,” then waking up again with “Wave to America.” Then “Out Come the Freaks” starts the cycle all over again. I like to think people can fill in their own narrative.
The song “Danceteria” name-checks people like John Sex, Jim Fouratt, and Anita Sarko. Was there an element of wanting to preserve some of the people who populated that world, particularly names that might not be familiar to listeners who weren’t there?
Absolutely. These are all New York legends of that time and people I knew from Danceteria. Anita Sarko was a great friend of mine. She really introduced me to much of New York and so many people at that time. She DJ’d and hosted at Danceteria and other clubs, originally at the Mudd Club. She hosted a cabaret with Howie Montaug called No Etiendes at Danceteria, showcasing performers including a young singer and dancer named Madonna.
Danceteria has inevitably become the final Soft Cell studio album following Dave’s death. Before he passed away, did the two of you have any sense that this might be your last album together, or were you still thinking about what Soft Cell might do next?
I felt in my heart this was going to be our last, and that influenced my writing on the record, though honestly, I’d thought we’d made our last one before. Dave’s health was deteriorating. We’d done what was to be our last show together only weeks before his death, and he didn’t seem in good shape. However, we’d finished the record only two days before his death. He seemed very upbeat and wanted to do a UK tour. That wasn’t to be, as he passed away, and it was, in fact, our very last record.
After nearly five decades of working together, what was it specifically about the creative relationship between you and Dave that made something a Soft Cell song, rather than something either of you might have made separately?
There’s a certain chemistry that you get from working with someone for so long. It’s hard to define. Even though we had long periods of not working together, as soon as I got the music from him, the chemistry was ignited. Dave’s music had his sound and signatures that worked so well with my melodies and writing. We created a distinctive sound together that was Soft Cell. Dave has written music for my solo work, including tracks like “Hand Over My Heart,” but it’ll always end up a bit different from Soft Cell. I have a lot of Dave’s music still to write to, but without Dave’s presence, it’ll never be Soft Cell.
Dave finished the album just two days before he died. Has losing him changed the way you hear these songs, particularly since so much of Danceteria is already concerned with memory, vanished places, and people who are no longer there?
I think there’s definitely a poignancy to the album now, but I’m glad we were able to do this together this last time. Two days before his death, we agreed that we’d made a good Soft Cell record. There’s been a big resurgence in interest in Soft Cell since Happiness Not Included, and with this one, probably even more so because it’s our last. I just wish he could be around to enjoy it.
When I interviewed Dave back in 2016 about another project, he said he’d really enjoyed reuniting for Cruelty Without Beauty and the live shows around that time, but that he didn’t see any future plans for Soft Cell. You ultimately went on to make two more albums together. What changed and made Soft Cell an active project again?
It was 40 years since we formed at art college, and I contacted Dave to see how he felt about doing something to commemorate it—a live show, for example. That became the show we did at London’s O2 Arena in 2018. It was meant to be a final goodbye, but a couple of years later, he sent me a file of new music he’d been working on, asking if I’d be interested in recording some songs. I was quite excited about it, and it became the Happiness Not Included album, though it was recorded under strange COVID lockdown restrictions. The album was very well received. Live shows followed, and there was a whole new interest in Soft Cell. I did think that was going to be our last record, so I was surprised and excited when I got a whole new set of tunes that I felt were even better than Happiness. Dave could only do very few live appearances, though, due to health and immobility, so we brought in another keyboard player, Philip Larsen, who was working with Dave as a co-producer.
On the recent tour with The Human League, you opened with “Memorabilia.” That’s always been a favorite of mine, and hearing it again struck me just how unique that early Soft Cell material still sounds. At the time, were you and Dave conscious of how distinctive a sound you were creating, or was it simply a result of following your own musical instincts?
It really was just a case of following our own instincts and influences, which were quite wide-ranging. Dance music was big at that time. We had just come through the disco boom, and there was a new influx of electronic-based bands coming through that evolved from punk—probably more than disco. In the North of England, where we were based, there was a big electronic music scene happening. I was working in a nightclub at night, listening to American dance music. One day, I suggested a repetitive James Brown-style riff to Dave, and we said, “Let’s make it sound like Suicide,” the New York electronic duo. I just added a rap-style vocal about collecting things, including parts of people—like a serial killer. That was Dave’s and my sardonic humor, and that became “Memorabilia.” In clubs at that time, DJs were doing 30-minute mixes of it. It’s credited as being a first acid house-style track.
With Danceteria looking back to the same period in New York that shaped the earliest Soft Cell records, are there older songs that now feel particularly natural to perform alongside the new material?
There are songs in the Soft Cell repertoire that, as an older artist, I didn’t feel comfortable singing anymore. I couldn’t relate to them. They were a younger version of myself from nearly 50 years ago, but I’ve come to reevaluate things, and I know there are songs that people love to hear. If I want people to accept new songs, then I have to give back with some of the older songs, too. People love them, and a live show isn’t just about me. It’s about making people happy. Actually, I’m surprised how many old songs do stand up and still feel fresh and relevant, and sit well alongside new songs. Before Dave died, we updated a lot of the sounds to bring them up to the quality standard of the new songs.
When I interviewed you in NYC for your Open All Night solo album, I asked if you knew what became of Cindy Ecstasy, and you didn’t. Have you heard anything from or about her since?
No, I haven’t, but I wish her well.
2026 west coast tour dates:
Nov 8 San Diego, CA The Magnolia
Nov 11 San Francisco, CA The Regency Ballroom
Nov 14 Huntington Beach, CA Darker Waves Festival
For more info, visit https://www.softcell.co.uk/
