MARTIN Fry, frontman of ABC, has scaled the heights of pop stardom. He created an iconic debut album, The Lexicon of Love, and enjoyed chart success both sides of the Atlantic with hits such as Tears Are Not Enough, Poison Arrow, The Look Of Love and When Smokey Sings.

At the peak of his success, he survived a brush with Hodgkin lymphoma and hung out with the likes of Andy Warhol and Robbie Williams.

A family man who received an honorary Doctor of Music degree from the University of Sheffield the day before his daughter, Nancy, got her degree from the same university, Martin created sophisticated pop songs that have stood the test of time. Now, as his autobiography is published, he’s hitting the road to share his remarkable stories and sing acoustic versions of his hits.

His book, A Lexicon of Life, is lavishly presented. A superluxe version is hand-bound in the same Savile Row fabric used to make Martin’s famous gold suits, and features a gold vinyl of his most popular songs.

ABC were the Eighties band that redefined glamour and cool. Led by the charismatic Fry, they had huge success with The Lexicon of Love, a brilliantly distinctive debut album, unapologetically flamboyant. Frontman Martin embraced a golden era of luxe, as though Cole Porter had been re-imagined among the streets of Sheffield.

Martin grew up in the North, inspired by David Bowie and the Sex Pistols, starting a fanzine and getting into bands. “I vividly remember that moment when I first went to see a rock show,” he says. “Even before the act came on I was looking at the roadies and admiring the size of the PA system. My first gig was Cockney Rebel and opening up for them were Sailor. There was something totally comforting about watching a band on stage.”

The gig that changed his life was the Sex Pistols at the Lesser Free Trade in Manchester. “John Lydon just crouched and clutched his can of lager. He was very vulnerable but had complete and utter disdain for the audience. He wasn’t going to fight them; he was beyond that,” recalls Martin. “There was just something brilliant about them, artistically. It wasn’t the safety pins and Kings Road fashion that attracted me to punk, I felt that was a bit of a Fleet Street invention really. It was something much deeper. They were great.”

Martin lived a bohemian life at Sheffield University, creating the springboard for ABC, and global success. “I remember in Tokyo, the four of us were eating in a restaurant and a crowd gathered outside. People were literally trying to smash the window to get in,” says Martin. “We had to go out the back door, ushered into a speeding car. That kind of fame I can live without.”

He recalls a memorable encounter with Andy Warhol after a New York concert: “It was the final days of Studio 54 and Pat Hackett, his friend and co-writer, introduced us to him. We got this call to the hotel on a Tuesday morning, asking if we’d like to meet Andy at the Factory. Andy was was the most down-to-earth guy you could meet. He was talking to me about acne products because his skin wasn’t great and neither was mine. He was drinking a cup of coffee and people would constantly come in and ask him to sign paintings and prints.”

Bandmates came and went as ABC became a fixture of the charts, hitting Number 1 and earning a platinum disc for Lexicon of Love and gold discs for Beauty Stab and Alphabet City. Martin survived the crazy journey of pop stardom, eventually getting sober after the rock’n’roll lifestyle took its toll: “Things changed dramatically. I entered a new world of being sober. I wanted to be present, for Julie, Louis and Nancy. I’d always been off somewhere; off to a show, off to a bar, or just drifting off if I was in the room. That reality check had a profound effect on me. Sitting in AA I’d look down at my cup of coffee, thinking: ‘My whole future is in this polystyrene cup.’

“There’s a big part of me that identifies with the man in the gold lamé suit. That’s who I became. There are 40,000 people dancing in a field, singing my words back at me. But you have to understand that’s just one part of who you are and what you do.”

A renaissance came in the 90s when he joined Robbie Williams for a tour of football stadia: “Playing to 200,000 people at Milton Keynes Bowl for three nights was something I never thought would happen. Robbie’s tour felt like being part of a Medieval Kingdom.”

A set of shows with Meatloaf followed: “About midway through the tour after a Sunday matinee in Leipzig, I could hear Meatloaf smashing up his dressing-room. I didn’t try to restrain him, he was too big to restrain. But I did tell him to calm down and warned that if he carried on smashing up his room he’d end up having a heart attack.”

Fry’s The Lexicon Of Love II reached the top five of the UK album chart, and a tour this year was the most successful of his career. Now he’s sharing stories in an intimate theatre tour, playing acoustic versions of songs. “It’s been a wild ride,” he says. “And the incredible thing is that as I hit the road with The Lexicon of Life, I feel as though I’m just getting started.”

* Martin Fry is at King’s Hall, Ilkley, on November 22. Call (01274) 432000 or visit bradford-theatres.co.uk