Kaja you believe it
ONE massive hit, eight months of madness... 20 odd years to bury the hatchet.
It is fair to say even Limahl – one-time heart-throb of '80s stars Kajagoogoo – did not expect to be dining out on an albeit huge song his band had a generation ago.
And he almost wasn't. It took much patching up work before the distinctive-sounding outfit could agree to not only let bygones be just that but actually tour together.
After a couple of attempts and lots of legals it took the man behind Scotland's thriving Retrofest to broker a peace deal.
"He banged our heads together and got us talking," recalls Limahl. "Having that third party come in did it – he was like ACAS with the unions."
The singer famously got sacked by his colleagues just months after they became a global item courtesy of debut single Too Shy in February 1983.
Ever since he's been performing solo, largely abroad, while bass player Nick Beggs briefly gave the band vocals.
Limahl suggests musical outlook as well as a much-disputed royalty split was at the heart of the dispute, as well as the band – discovered by Duran Duran's Nick Rhodes – being so young when confronted with such success so quickly.
"I was not embarrassed to admit I liked ABBA the first time around – I was the pop guy and that frightened the rest of them," he says by way of further explanation.
"In any office environment people are not going to get on all the time but you get time when you can be apart.
"But when you're thrown in the deep end at 23 years old, a tidal wave of activity, travelling to every country in the world...
"Too Shy was number one everywhere (23 countries) so it was plane, interview, TV studio, interview, another plane, another interview, day in day out.
"We were too young to handle it and I had a personality clash with the manager. He consulted the band and they sacked me. In hindsight the band fired the wrong guy. Kaja and I did not talk for a lifetime and if we did it was through my lawyer."
Follow-up single Ooh To Be Aah went top 10 and Hang On Now top 20 before Limahl went. Debut album White Feathers sold three million copies. With Nick at the helm of the band, then known as Kaja, next single Big Apple reached number eight but The Lion's Mouth only just made the top 30 and after second album Islands the band split completely.
Limahl admits there's a big 'if' as to what Kajagoogoo could have gone on to achieve had they stuck with him. He swiftly chalked up a film title track number one with Giorgio Moroder, found the top 20 with Only For Love and released album Don't Suppose while a royalties battle raged on.
"I'm so grateful for The Never Ending Story – it keeps me in work in Europe," says Limahl. "As record sales have declined it's all about the live so it's great to be back with the band. Like all marriage break-ups you've got to put it behind you."
And once they did Retrofest was their first UK show. "There was a real energy about it, being a unit again. It was like five old mates getting back together. We have since been gigging in Europe for 12 months."
Limahl says the band tried to reunite in 1998 but it didn't work – "we got in a room but there was no magic" – and then in 2004 he, Nick, Steve Askew (guitar/vocals), Jez Strode (drums) and Stuart Croxford Neale (keyboards/vocals) were approached by VH1 reality show Bands Reunited.
"For most of the bands it failed but it broke the ice for us," he recalls.
"We could not get together while squabbling over royalties. Then we came to the decision to split everything equally.
"Now we have come back with a lot more experience – and we've got all our own hair and teeth. The age thing has got something to do with it.
You get to 50, halfway through your life, you get more reflective and it is great to put all the crap behind us."
Local fans can hear Too Shy and more when Kajagoogoo play Sheffield's
O2 Academy on September 24.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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