MARTIN Kemp looks far better than he ought to, given he was up at the crack of dawn to fly to Glasgow on his Spandau Ballet promo.

At 53, and having survived 35 years of pop starring, a stint on Eastenders and two brain tumours the least he could do was look a little rough.

Not a bit of it. The blue eyes and the slick greying hair still offer the image of a forties matinee idol, albeit dressed in a modern black zip jacket and jeans.

You'd like to hate him of course, but any disproportionate envy abates on shaking hands. He's warm and welcoming as he relaxes on the hotel sofa.

But he's also as tough as the e string on his bass guitar, as you discover when you play Devil's Advocate and playfully suggest that a man of his years doesn't need to become a born-again pop star.

"Who suggested that?" he says, performing the role of agitated musician.

"That's like saying to someone 'You don't need to do you hobby every again. You don't need to do the thing you love most, the thing that gives hundreds of thousands of people around the world so much pleasure.

"Look, I still go to see the Rolling Stones. And they may be too expensive, too greedy, but I still want to see them."

He adds, for dramatic effect; "Saying you don't have to do this is the maddest thing in all the world. So I can't give that answer credence."

Well, he just has. And he's underlined the notion life should be about doing what makes you happy.

What's clearly not in doubt is that Martin Kemp loves being up there on stage, hitting snarling bass riffs on the likes of Instinction, or plucking at the nation's heart strings to backdrop True.

"When I talk to my kids about success I tell them it isn't about money. Sure, you need to earn enough to keep going. But it's about more. And if you can do it, then it's about turning your hobby into your work.

"Lots of my friends have made lots of money but they're bored stiff and looking to find that thing that makes them happy. I'm glad I'm not one of them."

Martin Kemp has much to be happy about. He's never been simply a pop star, acting since the age of seven when he attended the Anna Scher Children's Theatre drama club with his brother, Gary.

Acting his given him the opportunity to reveal a powerful range, from light to dark in the likes of The Krays and Eastenders. But he's also been clever enough not to be defined by any one role. He knew exactly when he - and the watching world - would have enough of his combustible soap sex symbol, Steve Owen.

"Oh yeh," he says, smiling in agreement. "After three years you begin to tell the same stories. Just because you change your suit doesn't mean you're saying anything different.

"But I'll always be grateful for the show, And you have to remember the point it came in my life."

The point was in 1998, when recovering from his brain tumour operations, the result of which has left him dyslexic and epileptic.

"I was desperate for something to get me back on the ball, and Eastenders was a godsend. It was a chance to be working, to forget about recovery, to get my confidence back."

Did he feel he'd lost his superpowers? He'd been a confident actor. A pop star. He could appear in front of thousands.

"Superpowers? They, were gone, mate. Well, I thought I was going to die. I had no future. All I could do was take life minute by minute. And during the three years recovery what pulled me round was going to therapy.

"I had to speak to someone I didn't know. You don't want to speak to your wife or your brother because you don't want to lay off your problems on them.

"So I'd go to see the therapist in the afternoon, get all my fears out, and then in the afternoon I'd write them all down.

"And that writing, which I didn't know at the time, turned out to be my autobiography."

Does he agree that no one has it all for very long in life?

"I really do," he says. "I'm a great believer in life that there's a graph. When the graph goes up it has to come down. Take cocaine and you have to come down to make up for it. But as long as you understand that."

He has a 'little film' coming out in June, but for the moment he's concentrating on the band. And of course, Martin can enjoy the Spandau reunion so much because there was a twenty year break.

Spandau Ballet, with their buccaneer boots and big girls' blouses, sold 25 million albums, topped the charts in 21 countries and had five million radio plays. But the band, always brilliant on stage, dissolved in the late eighties and war broke out when singer Tony Hadley, saxophonist Steve Norman and drummer John Keeble sued Martin's brother Gary for a share of writing royalties. .

Gary won but Martin, wisely, stayed on the sidelines. In 2009, the band re-formed, and hatches were buried.

"If we'd carried on for the past thirty years we may have been more jaded, perhaps even looking for something else to do. But now I really appreciate this chance.

"When we were on tour as young kids it was all about what we would get up to after the gigs, now it's about the show."

Was it like an episode of The Inbetweeners?

"It was exactly like that," he says, laughing. "And it was an amazing way to grow up. I wouldn't have missed it for the while."

But is it inevitable pop bands will break up?

"Well, it's such an odd situation," he reflects of pop star life. "It's so intense. You live with each other from the age of seventeen and you're personality isn't yet formed. It just sort of melds into everyone else's, so there is going to be a clash at some point.

"Now, I'm so proud the rest of the guys have gotten through their differences. For a long time, it didn't look possible."

He adds; "The split was really a reflection of life; it can happen to anyone, whether it's a break up with wives or husbands, or a friend you argue with.

"Our lives are the same as everyone else's. You hit bumps."

He adds, grinning; "This was a big old bump, but I'm so glad we've gotten over it."

Would he rather be acting than playing a bass on stage?

"As much as i enjoy the acting, the directing when I get up there on stage with my mates it feels so right, that it's exactly where I want to be."

"And you know when I get up there on stage at the Hydro in front of 10,000 it will be the greatest feeling."

He thinks for a moment, and ruffles his silver hair. "No, it's funny, but the biggest buzz you get is when you're waiting to go on, when you hear the crowd.

"You get the sort of rush you can never, ever get anywhere else. And I love that."

* An Evening With Spandau Ballet, the SECC Hydro, March 8.

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