Sunday Conversation: Bananarama On Their New Album, Duran Duran, Their 40-Year Friendship And More

In these difficult times, it is even more important to appreciate and celebrate the little things. That is exactly what Bananarama’s Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward have done with the group’s brilliant new album, Masquerade.

A joyous and blissful excursion into pop and dance, Masquerade is, in their words, a celebration of the duo’s 40 years of friendship and musical camaraderie. From the opening “Favourite” through the closing “Waiting For The Sun To Shine,” the 11-song collection is a lyrically and musically feel good escape from the troubles of everyday life.

I spoke with the pair recently about the making of Masquerade, their friendship, their admiration for ’80s peers such as Duran Duran and why, 40 years after “Cruel Summer,” they are enjoying music now more than ever.

Steve Baltin: Have you figured out U.S. touring plans?

Sara Dallin: We haven’t because of the whole everything was cancelled. Everything that we’ve done in this country has only been cancelled for two years running as I’m sure is with everybody, so we’re only just starting to get back touring in the UK. We’ve got some album launch shows and then we’re playing some big festivals. We’ve played a couple already. I’d love to come back to the States so we’ll have to see what happens there.

Baltin: Did you miss the touring or did you kind of enjoy the normalcy for a moment?

Dallin: A bit of both really for me.

Keren Woodward: It’s like we adapted, didn’t we, Sara? ‘Cause we’d signed a publishing deal the day before our first lockdown. That’s what I was just saying that’s what we did in the first lockdown. In the second lockdown, we took it from the idea to sort of record a couple of new tracks to doing an album. We sort of made the most of it in some ways.

Dallin: I definitely missed the tours in the summer ’cause it’s just the best fun. So I definitely missed that, but I also welcomed that time to work on a project like the book which we wrote together. And then to write the album, that for me was a great focus and very lucky to have that in our lives.

Woodward: Focusing on the book helped us sort of reflect and it sort of makes you realize what you really want and need out of life in lots of ways. We were okay, but for a lot of people in our business — I don’t know how it worked in the States —but there were what they called a furlough system here that gave money to people who couldn’t go into work. And they got 80 percent of their wages but it just so happened that the whole of the entertainment business and freelance people fell through the cracks. So it was an absolute nightmare for session musicians and people like my son who is a sort of freelance TV producer. They got absolutely nothing for months on end and that was awful.

Baltin: What I meant about the normalcy is for a lot of people they realized there was a lot they missed out on.

Dallin: There was absolutely no pressure to do anything. There was no pressure to dress up, there was no pressure to go and meet people, there was no pressure to wear high heels. So it was just no pressure and it was really nice to focus on something and even do a whole promo tour via Zoom without even having to go out of your house. So it was totally no pressure and I did enjoy that side of it totally.

Baltin: For most artists at least here in the States, you’re on the hamster wheel of album, tour. And like you said COVID was really the first time that allowed artists to reflect. So as you reflected during this period and got to write the book and make Masquerade, do you have a sense now of what you want Bananarama to be going forward?

Woodward: Yeah, I do agree with what you’re saying with the hamster wheel. Sara and I have had that discussion. You don’t even stop to think, it just rolls on and on and having, particularly that first three months where suddenly you couldn’t visit anyone or go anywhere or do anything apart from go outside and walk and think. It did make me sort of think, “Okay, there should be a point every year where there’s time taken to just maybe relax and get your head into a different space rather than that perpetual motion.” We didn’t have an album out for 10 years before 2019 but we constantly traveled and toured and did shows and you just go, go, go. It’s not like we ever had a master plan, we just sort of go with the flow and you don’t stop to sort of think, maybe I won’t work that month.

Dallin: Yeah. I often say “We never say no. We better do that. Yeah, we should do that. Okay, we’ll do that.”Lock down was like, “No, we don’t have to do anything.” And now we are at a point in our career which is great, where we release our own stuff when we want to do it and we are in control of what we do and decide why we do that, we’ll do that, or we’ll do this and that’s a nice place to be. It’s our 40-year anniversary. And we’re in a good place.

Baltin: Let’s jump onto the new record and getting to play these launch shows. What songs from the record are you guys most excited to play live in front of an audience?

Dallin: Yeah, we’re never sure with album launch, whether you do the whole album or you just pick out your favorites. But I think there’s a certain nostalgia probably because this is our twelfth album. A certain nostalgia for certainly mine and Keren’s friendship. We’ve known each other since we were children. So all the adventures we’ve been on personally and in the group, there’s a certain nostalgia there in the lyrics, definitely, and a celebration of all the things we love about our music, which is that sort of poppy but dance-y. We like the electro part and it was just a complete celebration of what we think we’re good at.

Woodward: I feel like it’s my favorite album we’ve done in years. I’ve listened to it a few times because for once in our lives we were prepared early for release and then couldn’t release because of Brexit and all sorts, there’s been a seven months delay on vinyl and there’s a load of manufacturing issues. So I had time to actually live with it and listen to it, and when we came to discuss what we were gonna perform live, we said, “Well, let’s listen to it and maybe take out ones we do not want to do.” And we struggled to take anything out, so it may end up being the whole album [laughter]. We kind of thought, “Yeah, but that will sound great with a band.”

Baltin: How do you balance the new songs with the ones the audience demand to hear?

Dallin: Yeah, I love “Favourite.” That is actually my favorite song on there, and that was like a taster track, but there’s been fans clamoring for, “Can we have remixes and wish it was the single?” You can never know what’s going to work, but that all you can judge it from is by people’s feedback, but certainly “Favorite” is one.

Woodward: “Favourite” was written and originally recorded by Sara’s daughter.

Dallin: Yeah, she is an artist called Alice Dee and she has her own stuff coming out at the end of the month. But she’s a fantastic songwriter and I co-wrote three tracks with her on the album, “Velvet Lies” being one of them, and “Forever Young.” Just because we were in lockdown and she was in my bubble, so we just thought we’ll give it a go, she does very different music to me, she’s more pop R&B, but it was nice to do it. And then as Keren said, we loved “Favourite” and so that’s pretty popular with people that have heard it anyway, and certainly with radio as well.

Woodward: We did album launch shows for our last album and we did a very different show, we did new tracks, we also picked tracks from other albums that we’ve never performed live. And we did that and we had a Q and A session, which was just hilarious and really fantastic. So the same sort of thought will go in to these shows. We’ve already started thinking, but it’s just a more personal thing than going on and doing a festival where you can put a few new ones in. But as Paul McCartney said, you can sort of put the new ones in, but you know that everyone wants to hear and sing along with all the old hits. So you could never deny them that, but that the smaller shows give us a chance to actually do brand new stuff and hopefully the people that come and see it will be expecting that and would be disappointed if we didn’t.

Dallin: Yeah, Paul McCartney said, “Oh, when I do all the Beatles stuff and the stuff people really know, there’s like all cameras come out, it’s like a twinkling sky. And when I play new stuff, it’s like a black hole.” And he said, “Well, I don’t care.” And I thought that was a great attitude. There are times Keren and I are like, “Oh what should we put that in, will they like that? Who cares if they like it, we like it.”

Woodward: Even the festivals we’re doing in the summer we’re putting a couple of new tracks in and we did them last week. We did a big show in London and it seemed to go down all right. You obviously want them to like it, but it would be very dull for us if we only did the same set every time we played a show. So we do try and change it now and again anyway.

Baltin: What does Masquerade mean to you?

Woodward: It’s what Masquerade is about in a way, it’s just being comfortable and confident with who you are and not giving a stuff of what anyone else thinks. You can just be yourself and it doesn’t really matter. And you could.

Baltin: When you reach that point too, you probably enjoy music and everything much more, because you’re not so worried with what other people are thinking.

Dallin: Yeah, you’re not chasing chart positions, you’re not chasing who thinks you’re cool, who thinks you’re fashionable. You don’t give a damn and it really is. I still love making that music and I want people to like it, but at the end of the day, it’s under our own terms completely.

Baltin: Are there artists that you really look at or have admired over the years for the way that they’ve been able to evolve?

Dallin: Yeah, I love seeing Debbie Harry. I went to see her at the Roundhouse and she still had the most fantastic voice. There was nothing about her that disappointed me. I don’t know how it was in America, but she was huge here when we were at school and I loved her then she was really inspirational. Then you didn’t hear anything from her. She wasn’t touring as far as I knew, but then suddenly there’s this huge resurgence, and I think she’s absolutely fantastic because she still delivers on stage.

Woodward: But I think if you’re gonna have a 40-year career, even if you took someone like the Rolling Stones, I’m sure that they’ve released stuff which hasn’t charted and had, but they absolutely love what they do and we’re going to see them next week actually. You can’t keep on a certain level for 40 years, but you learn from the circle and the way it goes around. You go through being massive and then sort of thinking, “Oh, I’m not massive.” And then it’s almost like it comes around again. And I feel almost like you get more respect now. We get more respect now than we did in the ’80s when we were obviously having more chart hits and more success chart wise and probably sales wise around the world. But we get more respect now.

Baltin: In the last few months, I’ve interviewed both Tears for Fears who just put out their first record in 19 years, and Duran Duran who’s another band who is a classic example of what you’re talking to. Are there peers that you look to or that you’ve gotten to talk with that inspire you?

Woodward: We are also gonna see Duran Duran at Hyde park as well.

Dallin: They’re really important to me because they’re our age and they’re our era. They’ve written so many different albums and some aren’t really rewarded in any way chart-wise or whatever, and some are. And you can’t second guess what’s going to work and what’s not. What is great about them is they still have that drive and that creativity that still wants to make music in the same way that I still have that drive. And I just think when I see them, they’re headlining Hyde Park, fantastic. I’m all for it because they are of my generation and I feel proud.

Woodward: I don’t think they’re persevering for the sake of it or for the money or for anything. They do it because they love doing it. And that’s the same reason we do it.

Dallin: Yeah. And also we left school and about six months later, we were on Top Of The Pops. This is the only thing I’ve ever done. So I’m not quite sure what else, what else could I do?

Baltin: I was a literature major and one of my favorite poems of all time is Raymond Carver, “Gravy.” It was written when he was told that he had cancer, was going to die and then he lived 12 years after. And he calls everything in the 12 years after gravy. You’ve had “Venus,” “Cruel Summer,” played Tops of the Pops. Does this feel like your gravy time?

Dallin: Yeah, it’s a very good analogy. It is absolutely true.

Woodward: And also, as you get older and you lose friends, family, you feel, “I’m so lucky to still be able to do it.” So there’s that side of it as well. Until I can’t do it, I’d like to think I’ll still be on stage putting on a show because it’s just so exciting and rewarding. And there will be a point where we probably can’t, but I don’t feel like it should be anyone else telling us that we can’t.

Baltin: What do you take from Masquerade when you listen to it as a complete work?

Dallin: I find it quite euphoric really because I wrote a lot of the lyrics in there for me about my childhood, my friendship, my adventures There’s a future to it, but there’s also just a celebration of enjoying life for what it is at that moment in time, that’s it really.

Woodward: This one was so focused for us and it was done in the sort of second lockdown. And it just feels like it flows to me. There’s nothing that really stands out not really working on the album, I think it’s just a whole joyous piece of work.

I absolutely love it. I think it’s a joyous celebration of our 40-year friendship and Sara wrote “Forever Young” with her daughter, but with the thoughts of our friendship and childhood and what we’ve been to, and I listened to it and got very teary, I find it very emotional.