ABC singer Martin Fry has revealed that in the 80s he turned down the chance to write the soundtrack for Top Gun, convinced the film was going to be a massive flop.
The singer was at the height of his fame with ABC, who had hits with The Look of Love and Poison Arrow in 1982, when he was approached about the 1986 Tom Cruise film.
But after attending a special screening of the director’s rough cut, Martin refused.
He said: “We were invited to see a movie in LA that they were looking for music for.
I remember saying, ‘It’s a film about planes, it’s so jingoistic, it’s never going to take off’.
Six months later the film was out and I was sitting in the cinema thinking, ‘‘S**t, this is that film’.It was Top Gun. Rank stupidity is a big part of being in a band.”
The film went on to win an Oscar and a Golden Globe for the song Take My Breath Away by Berlin and the album went on to become the best-selling soundtrack of 1986.
Martin, 65, has no regrets, and says he enjoys being a pop star more in his 60s than he did at the height of his fame.
His new ABC album, Lexicon of Love Live in Sheffield City Hall, has been released to mark 40 years since the band brought out their debut album.
He said: “All these years on, as an elder statesman of pop, I thoroughly enjoy myself.”
