Dave Ball, one half of the electro-pop duo Soft Cell, has died aged 66.
Ball passed away in his sleep at his home in London on October 22nd. His final performance with Soft Cell took place in August when they headlined Rewind Festival in Henley-on-Thames.
Ball formed Soft Cell with Marc Almond when they were both art students at Leeds Polytechnic in 1979, stamping their mark on the charts two years later with their synth-pop masterpiece debut, Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret.
They first split in 1984 and didn’t get back together until 2000, but parted ways again five years later. In 2018, they announced one final show at London’s O2 Arena, which was intended to be their last hurrah, but Soft Cell couldn’t stop.
The duo recently finished work in recent days on their sixth album, Danceteria, which will arrive next year.
In a statement seen by Far Out, Marc Almond said of his bandmate’s passing: “It is hard to write this, let alone process it, as Dave was in such a great place emotionally. He was focused and so happy with the new album that we literally completed only a few days ago. It’s so sad as 2026 was all set to be such an uplifting year for him, and I take some solace from the fact that he heard the finished record and felt that it was a great piece of work.”
Almond also shared, “Dave’s music is better than ever. His tunes and hooks are still unmistakably Soft Cell, yet he always took it to the next level too.”
Almond then went on to describe Ball as “a wonderfully brilliant musical genius”, before describing the pair of them as “obnoxious and difficult, two belligerent art students who wanted to do things our way, even if it was the wrong way”.
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