Dave Ball, the electronic musician who founded influential synth-pop duo Soft Cell and ‘90s techno group The Grid, has died at the age of 66.
Representatives for the band confirmed that Ball passed away peacefully in his sleep at home in London on Wednesday 22 October. No cause of death has been given, but Ball had been suffering from a spate of ill health in recent years that had led him to perform in a wheelchair at recent gigs.
Soft Cell vocalist Marc Almond paid tribute to his bandmate, writing: “Thank you Dave for being an immense part of my life and for the music you gave me. I wouldn't be where I am without you.”
Dave Ball was born in Chester in 1959. He formed Soft Cell with Marc Almond in 1978 after the pair met while studying at Leeds Polytechnic.
“Students had a particular look in the late-70s,” Ball told MusicRadar in 2021. “When I walked through the doors of Leeds Polytechnic in 1977, all I could see was Levi’s and long hair. That was the standard uniform. Complete with a Yes tour T-shirt, bumfluff moustache and Dr. Marten boots.
“But then I noticed this one lad who was wearing gold lamé trousers and a leopard print top. Bloody hell, he looks interesting. That was Marc Almond, and he was the first person I spoke to.”
The pair’s first release came in the form of 1980’s Mutant Moments EP. Soft Cell followed this with a contribution to Some Bizarre Album, a compilation released by Some Bizarre Records that also featured Depeche Mode and The The.
The band’s first proper single for the label was produced by Mute Records founder Daniel Miller. It featured the track Memorabilia, which failed to chart but proved popular in clubs.
Soft Cell’s breakthrough came with the release of Tainted Love, a cover of a track by northern soul artist Gloria Jones. Released in 1981, the track hit number one in 17 countries including the UK, and reached number 8 in the US charts, where it eventually set the record for the longest stay in the Billboard Hot 100 at 43 weeks.
The track also appeared on the duo’s 1981 debut album, Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret. The pair would go on to have further chart hits with tracks including Say Hello, Wave Goodbye, Torch and Bedsitter.
Soft Cell were known for their dark, machine-driven sound, which was highly influential on a variety of synth-pop, industrial and techno acts that followed them. Stylistically, the band developed a distinctive aesthetic that lent into both glamour and sleaze, often playing on themes such as pornography and S&M.
For Ball, discovering Kraftwerk at a young age was influential on his lifelong love of electronic music.
“I know it’s a bit of a cliché to talk about Kraftwerk, but without them modern music would have sounded very different,” he told MusicRadar in 2021. “To my mind, they are as influential as The Beatles; they are the techno Beatles.”
Soft Cell split in 1984. While Almond went on to have a successful solo career, Ball worked on a variety of different projects including the band Other People with his then wife Gini Hewes, and as a contributor to Psychic TV, which was founded by Genesis P-Orridge of Throbbing Gristle.
Ball’s most successful post-Soft Cell project, however, was the techno act The Grid, which he formed with producer Richard Norris in 1988. The pair had a number 3 hit in the UK with Swamp Thing in 1994, and also had success with tracks including Texas Cowboys, Crystal Clear, Rollercoaster and Floatation.
Soft Cell have reformed several times in the years since their original split, resulting in various tours and releases.
The pair had been active in the months prior to Ball's death, recently headlining the Rewind Festival in Henley-on-Thames. Soft Cell had also recently completed work on a new album, titled Danceteria, named after a nightclub in NYC.
In the same post, Almond wrote: “As many of you are aware, Dave has been ill for a long while and his health had been in slow decline over recent years.
“Yet he always came back with a determined spirit to continue his work in the studio and, although he has been unable to travel abroad, he has still been able to perform with me as Soft Cell on occasions in the UK. His last appearance was at the Rewind festival a few weeks ago, where we headlined to over 20,000 people, after which he was elated and given an enormous boost.
“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 ‘80s, the place and time that really shaped us. We always felt we were an honorary American band as well as quintessentially British. We have always been self referential to the Soft Cell story and myths and this album in many ways will close that circle for us.
“I wish he could have stayed on to celebrate 50 years in a couple of years time. He will always be loved by fans who loved his music. It's a cliche to say but it lives on and somewhere at any given time around the world someone listens to, plays, dances, and gets pleasure from a Soft Cell song – even if it's just that particular two and half minute epic.”
Richard Norris also paid tribute to his bandmate, writing: “Thanks for four decades of collaboration, inspiration, good times, music and fun.”
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