The late Soft Cell co-founder Dave Ball revealed that his hospital stays and use of morphine were a direct source of inspiration for the band’s final album, Danceteria, per music-news.com.
The iconic ’80s synth-pop duo, fronted by Marc Almond, completed the record just days before instrumentalist Ball’s sad passing on October 22, at the age of 66.
In an interview given to Classic Pop magazine shortly before his death, Dave shared that the “sounds in his head” while under the influence of the painkiller became the foundation for the new material.
“I had strange recollections when I was in and out of hospital, because I was on morphine,” he explained. “The new songs are a digital reflection of the sounds in my head from that time.”
Ball noted the album fused this futuristic sound with nostalgia for their heyday: “In parallel, it’s about the times me and Marc got up to in the 80s. It’s looking backwards and forwards, the creative times we’ve had and how we feel about life now.”
Marc Almond, 69, expressed his heartbreak on his website, revealing the collection was finished mere days before his long-time collaborator’s death. He believes Danceteria will be a “fitting” and emotional end to their musical partnership.
“It is most heartbreaking, particularly at this time, that Dave was in a great place emotionally, feeling focused and happy with the new album, Danceteria, that we literally had only just completed days ago,” Almond wrote.
He praised his bandmate’s final work: “Dave’s music is better than ever – his tunes, his hooks unmistakably Soft Cell. Yet he always took it to a different level… I can take solace that he heard this finished record and felt it was a great piece of work.”
Almond added that the album’s title and theme serve as a perfect conclusion.
“It’s fitting in many ways that the next (and now the last) album together is called Danceteria as the theme takes us for a visit back to almost the start of it all, back to New York in the early 80’s, the place and time that really shaped us,” he said.
Soft Cell formed in 1979 when Almond and Ball were art students in Leeds. They became hugely influential with their trailblazing debut album, Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, in 1981, paving the way for artists such as Pet Shop Boys and Erasure.
Their second single, a cover of “Tainted Love,” became Britain’s best-selling single of 1981, topping the charts in the UK and 17 other countries around the world.
The group released six studio albums in total, spanning 1981 to 2021, and are also credited with creating one of the first remix albums, Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing.
Outside of Soft Cell, Dave Ball was also known as one half of The Grid, best known for their 1990 single “Swamp Thing,” and worked with a diverse array of artists including Kylie Minogue and the late David Bowie.
