Kim Wilde on being back recording and touring at 64

Being Kim Wilde, it turns out, is better the second time around.

The pop star who appeared on Top Of The Pops and on teenage boys’ walls (mine may have been one of them) at the start of the 1980s before reinventing herself as a mum and a gardener has now spent most of the last two decades back on the road again.

And she loves it more than she ever has.

“Standing in front of the audience, seeing their faces, interacting with them, growing up together with them. Being on tour for me is wonderful,” Kim says. “We go out and we have the best time.”

Tuesday morning and Kim has appeared on a Zoom call looking like, well, a proper pop star – that familiar shock of tousled blonde hair, nails polished and shining. At 64, she remains picture perfect.

And, despite my glitchy WiFi, audio-enhanced too. We’re here to talk about her upcoming album, Closer, out at the end of January (with a tour to follow in March).

It is, as the current parlance would have it, a bit of a banger. A confident, ear-catching pop treat that is both of the moment but also has plenty of echoes of the music that made Kim a star in the first place.

“Yeah, it’s got a lot of that influence in it,” she agrees. “Ricky, my producer and my brother, has mined the 80s sound that we started with. The song Midnight Train could be a Duran Duran track.”

Maybe, but if so it has a better singer than Simon Le Bon, I suggest. She laughs.

“It’s pure fun,” Kim says of the album. “There are some quite serious subject matters dealt with on the album, but, yeah, I think it’s a very positive album overall.”

In that it reflects its creator. Kim thinks she’s now in her prime. She’s certainly happier than she was her first time in the music industry. Born Kim Smith, she adopted the pop star surname of her dad Marty – who had himself been in the charts in the 1950s and 1960s. Her single Kids In America went to No.2 in the charts in 1981. She went on to have a string of top-10 singles through the rest of that decade and even toured with Michael Jackson and David Bowie.

Who was that young woman who turned up on our TV screens and on the cover of Smash Hits back then?

She says: “It was a very different me to the one now in many ways. My oldest friends would say I haven’t changed very much at all, bless them. But, at 64, I’m just a much happier, much more confident individual than I was at that point.

“I think it’s quite hard being twentysomething and then suddenly becoming very famous. The pressures of that – although I was very grateful for all the success I was having – did take its toll. It was a lot to take on. Growing up in public. Falling in and out of love with various boyfriends. The break-ups and the travelling. It was highs and lows all the time. Such a bumpy ride.

“One minute you’d be high in the charts and high on life and the next you’d be in the depths of despair. It was a mixed bag of emotions. Everything feels a lot more settled now. I am a much happier Kim than I was then.”

Her return to pop in the 21st Century was something she couldn’t have imagined back in the 1990s when she stopped performing, got married and had kids.

She says: “When I stepped back from my career that was it as far as I was concerned. I closed the door very firmly. And I spent several years being virtually anonymous. People always seemed to recognise me, but I kept a low profile. I concentrated on all the gardening stuff. I was a mum at that time. Nappies and school runs and all that. I had no intention of getting back into the saddle again.

“And then a few things changed. I just decided to go for it and I was amazed the audience was still there.

“I just thought the audience would want the 1980s version of Kim, the 21-year-old pouting away and strutting her stuff. I didn’t think they would want to see a middle-aged woman with a mortgage and kids and dogs. And there’s a little bit more of me than there was in the 1980s. I just didn’t think people were still listening to Kids In America. I didn’t realise how much people loved hearing all the old songs and now nearly 20 years later the whole 80s phenomena seems to get even stronger.

“I love the 80s and there’s a lot of 80s influence on the album, but it’s also very contemporary sounding. I don’t want to get stuck in the past. But I’m at a point now where I can celebrate the past while moving forward and creating new music.”

Greenfingered Kim in 2005 (Pic: Geoff Robinson/Shutterstock)

Life is change. In 2024, Kim is divorced and her kids have grown up. Twelve years ago she was filmed drunkenly singing Kids In America on the London Tube on her way home from a Magic FM Christmas party. These days she doesn’t even drink.

After years of looking after others, now she is looking after herself. She goes swimming as often as she can for a start. “I get in the sea in all seasons. I was in the sea in Portsmouth a few weeks ago while everyone was walking on the beach in woolly coats and woolly hats,” she says.

“I just want to keep myself as strong as I can, as active as I can, as positive as I can and all of those require a bit of input,” she explains. “You don’t gain that by sitting on the sofa and watching loads of TV. You do that by getting up and going for a walk or training or swimming.

“I’ve just become far more active in my late 50s and 60s. The last five years I’ve really taken my health by the scuff of the neck.

“Giving up alcohol was a very big decision for me. I think it’s had a huge impact on my mental health as well as my physical health.

“I did a Stoptober once. I had felt I was relying on it too much as a mostly daily occurrence at the end of the day. And maybe more. I was thinking, ‘I’ve had a really good run with this stuff and had lots of fun. Drunk on a train and all that. It has been brilliant. But I wonder what life is like on the other side?’

“And I can tell you it’s even better. Absolutely. It was a great decision to make. I felt fantastic in Stoptober and I thought, ‘Wow, I want to keep on feeling this good especially as I’m approaching my later years.”

Kim Wilde pauses for a moment looking for the words to sum up where she is and where she wants to go.

“I want to go out dancing.”

Forget about her past. Kim Wilde is looking to the future.

So Wilde about the family

For Kim Wilde, music and family have always been intertwined.

She’s recorded her new album with her brother Ricky who she has been working with since her breakthrough hit Kids In America in 1981. Ricky’s daughter Scarlett is now also part of the team.

This month all three will be on “a Christmas acoustic tour” in Germany.

Kim said: “That’s a lovely way to end the year and get ready for Christmas. And I’ll be back here at home sharing Christmas with my family.”

Of course Kim and Ricky are following in their father Marty’s footsteps. When Kim came to record a Christmas album, Wilde Winter Songbook, in 2013, she made sure Marty was involved.

She also re-recorded Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree with fellow 80s star Nik Kershaw. She had originally covered the song in 1987 with the late, great comedian Mel Smith for Comic Relief. She said: “He had the energy of 20 20-year-olds.”

The same could be said of her own dad. “He’s keeping well,” she said of Marty. “He’s just done a one-man show. He’s 85 and he’s in the studio recording a new album.”

Will that be her in 20 years’ time? She said: “He is such an inspiration and I don’t see why that shouldn’t be me doing something crazy in 20 years’ time.”

Kim Wilde’s new album Closer comes out on January 31 on Cherry Red Records, To pre-order visit here. She plays Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on March 25, 2025