Album By Album - Interview by Gavin Martin
Uncut Magazine -March 2008
2008 will see Madness’ first album of new material for nine years. The Liberty of Norton Folgate is a concept LP of sorts, inspired by the geography, history and “teeming humanity” of their home town, London. “When we were starting to work on it, I said we should write about what it’s like living in this city,” says frontman Suggs. “And Chris (Foreman, guitarist) quite rightly replied: “What the f**k have all the other albums been about?”
And there’s no getting away from it. London has always been the backdrop. From the banker to the bloke on the corner talking into his beer, the inspiration is everywhere – and what we always come back to…
”One Step Beyond (Stiff 1979)Coinciding with the introduction of dancer/compere Chas Smash as full-time member, the band’s debut album established their trademark Nutty sound, a mix of Motown, rock and roll, vaudeville and ska. The latter influence chimed with the emergent 2-Tone sound.
SUGGS: We were very upfront in realising that the 2-Tone thing was going off like a packet of crackers and we were in that mode stylistically. We certainly started to put more ska into our set and we’d been very lucky to meet Jerry (Dammers) and that whole thing happened. Earlier than God had intended, we were suddenly the thing.
The great thing about that period was that we were still a gang, the road crew were all our pals, joining in on the backing vocals, and it was an ebullient time. Madness were the leaders of the little bit of North London we lived in and we all led colourful lives, which fed into the songs. I was the idiot savant – well certainly an idiot. I was just happy to be there, they were all older than me and I just wanted to be in their gang or be cool.
There’s a flame that burns for a few years for every band where it’s not mindless, but it’s not intellectualised either. It’s just happening. If we did ‘One Step Beyond’ today we’d be going ‘What about the middle eight? Maybe we should have a key change?’ Do that and you get into committee mode, and before you know it you haven’t got the single-minded approach you had when you were young.
FOREMAN: It was all the songs we were doing live, we didn’t write anything especially for the album. We’d done the single (‘The Prince’) already so recording wasn’t a mystery to us, we knew that you go in and play the songs to the best of your ability. It was quite a breeze to do – the only album where we are all in the room together playing.
We were full of ideas. For the beginning of ‘In The Middle of The Night’ you can hear Lee calling out like a newspaper-seller. We went out on the street and recorded him doing that in the traffic.
The Specials were doing their album the same time. I remember listening to tapes of what they were doing, checking out the competition, but not in a sneaky way. We never set it up like ‘I’ll write with him and they’ll work together’ and at first Mike Barson was the main writer – he could write by himself. ‘My Girl’ was a genius song, and if someone gave him lyrics he could think of a tune. Clive Langer suggested strings on ‘Night Boat to Cairo’ and I thought it was the ponciest idea I’d ever heard, but it turned out really good. Maybe we should have had strings on some of the other tracks too.
Lee (Thompson, sax) had been in reform school – that was what ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ was about. He used to come home at weekends – he’d get out on Fridays and we’d spend the weekend with him and see he got back on the train OK.
‘Bed and Breakfast Man’ was about Jon Hasler. He’d been our manager and was very important to putting the band together. He’d turn up at your house, and next thing you knew he was there for breakfast, eating the kids’ leftovers!
Absolutely (Stiff 1980)For their sophomore release, the band expanded their musical range beyond ska to include, amazingly, Genesis and Pink Floyd!
SUGGS: We’d spent five years carving our own little niche. 2-Tone came and it was great, but we didn’t want to latch onto something, find the bandwagon off the rails and labelled as just another ska band. ‘Baggy Trousers’ was sort of an answer to Pink Floyd, even at that age I thought the line “teacher leave the kids alone” was a bit strange, sinister – though I think Floyd are a great band. It sounded self-indulgent to be going on about how terrible school days had been; there was an inverted snobbery about it, too. “You went to a posh public school? You wanna try going to my school.
”Absolutely was more of a reflection of where we were at than One Step Beyond – all the influences that were piled up in our head let out, more succinctly. We were very conscious of not making a carbon copy of the debut. Like The Specials, we were always aware we needed to move on with each album.
FOREMAN: Despite the Nutty image, we worked really hard, took it really seriously. There was a blackboard with all the songs up in the rehearsal room. We had so many influences that get overlooked – like Pink Floyd and Genesis. One night Lee and I had bunked into see Genesis at Drury Lane. At a point in the set there was an explosion and Peter Gabriel went flying through the air. That’s why Lee went flying in the ‘Baggy Trousers’ video – he always vowed that when he got the chance he’d do the same thing.
Seven (Stiff 1981)Recorded in the Bahamas for “tax reasons”, where the neighbours included Joe Strummer, the Tom Tom Club and Robert Palmer.
SUGGS: ‘The Opium Eaters’ is the sound of Nassau – it’s even got the crickets on it. ‘Grey Day’ was a definite step on for Madness. I remember going to a club with a copy of it and Joe Strummer was DJ’ing. I asked him to put this on, because I thought I’d finally done something that he could dig, not just jumping up and down – but he wouldn’t play it.
FOREMAN: Our accountant said we should record in Nassau for tax reasons – and who wouldn’t want to go there? But it wasn’t the same gang – people brought their wives and I brought my five-year-old son along. We had our own little apartments. Carl did a lot of cooking, Robert Palmer would come by and hang out with us, the Tom Tom Club were there recording ‘Wordy Rappinghood’ for what seemed like forever. The surroundings didn’t really affect the album – it wasn’t like ‘let’s go to India and put some sitars down, man’. We had first done ‘Grey Day’ three years before, a 60’s psychedelic thing with no structure and only a few lyrics. ‘Shut Up’ was a kitchen sink production. For my guitar I had Slade in mind, the Duane Eddy bit in the middle was from another song. I remember (co-producer) Alan Winstanley and I brought the album tapes back through customs. I couldn’t help laughing at the sticker “These tapes have absolutely no commercial value.
”The Rise and Fall (Stiff 1982)Back in London, Madness cut their most musically accomplished album to date – even including string and brass arrangements from famed avantgardist David Bedford.
SUGGS: Those of us that wanted to, had all had psychedelic experiences in our teens. We used to go to Dingwalls with our green bomber jackets turned inside out with the orange lining. Early Syd Barrett had a big effect on us, the videos were all psychedelically inspired. It wasn’t consciously thought out but we were definitely reflecting a change in our environment. Musically we just wanted to go deeper. Clive (Langer, producer) was very prominent in this – he was a psychedelic child too. The other big influence was Robert Wyatt. One of the greatest days in my life was going to Elvis Costello’s Meltdown and Robert made a beeline for me and said, “You are the most important pop band in Britain – since me!”
FOREMAN: It’s the one album where I wrote most of the music, more than Mike Barson (keyboards). We were recording in the West End, which was great. We were conscious of a change on Rise and Fall … I started writing about places I used to play when I was a kid. Then Suggs went up to Liverpool after the riots – it looked like friggin’ Beirut – and he finished the tune off. ‘Blue Skinned Beast’ was about body bags coming back from the Falklands war.
Keep Moving (Stiff 1984)Exhausted and creatively dry, the band also had to contend with the departure of key songwriter Mike Barson ….
SUGGS: We had run out of ideas at that point. I wrote ‘Keep Moving’ inspired by Spike Milligan in The Bed-Sitting Room. It’s a post-holocaust setting and he’s in a hot air balloon with a loud hailer going ‘keep moving, keep moving’. I identified with that – the ridiculousness of where we were going. (Stiff label boss) Dave Robinson thought we should have an album cover to reflect the forthcoming Olympics – bonkers – although we all got a free pair of Nikes. You see photos of Mike at that point and he’s always covering his face, he’s just had enough of fame. Because of Dave we had the success we did, but we were also burnt out. Stiff Records survived on a shoestring that required Madness hits to keep them going. And we were tired.
FOREMAN: It was made under a cloud – when we were rehearsing Mike told us he was leaving the band. It wasn’t unexpected, he’d married and gone to Holland, I think he’d found it hard being the main songwriter all those years. The album was a bit of a mess, it doesn’t seem complete to me. Suggs and Carl had both become more musical, which was obviously a bonus. But I had some songs that wasted away in the cupboard because there was nobody to write lyrics for them.
That was part of the problem after Mike left, I think – not a balance of power, but a balance of who does what.
Mad Not Mad (Zarjazz 1985)Without Barson, Madness faltered, unwisely embracing drum machines and harmonicas, and delivering a misjudged cover of Scritti Politti’s ‘The Sweetest Girl’.
SUGGS: This was Madness’ long-delayed “difficult second album” – we didn’t have songs – we’d have been better to take a year off. ‘The Sweetest Girl’ was my idea. “Let’s get really serious and take a song that we don’t even understand.” The artwork was strange and the haircuts weird, but I have no regrets. We were just doing the best we could. It wasn’t all bad – ‘Uncle Sam’ was a watershed. Sting said he liked it …
FOREMAN: We really wanted for direction. We’d gone right up our own arses. We’d parted company with Dave Robinson and Mike – both very strong people who gave the band direction. We had fun doing the songs, but recording was a bit difficult – the technology, the drum machines and stuff swamped us. Clive Langer thought it was a great idea to get Judd Lander in to play harmonica on ‘Yesterday’s Men’ – he’d just been a big hit on ‘Karma Chameleon’. Lander was alright, but not on my song. I fought and fought not to have him!
‘Burning The Boats’ was a really good demo – organic sounding – but there, and elsewhere, there was a failure to stay true to the original idea.
Of all our albums, I think it’s dated the worst.
Wonderful (Virgin 1999)The original line-up reconvened after a series of reunion shows, bolstered by a cameo from Ian Dury, who made his last appearance on Top of The Pops with the band.
SUGGS: We’ve all had our periods in the wilderness and mine came around this time. But then I got back right into it. My thoughts were, we’d do this album, reconnect with each other and then really get our act together with the next one. Frustratingly that didn’t happen, but I think it’s a stage we are getting back to now with the new album.
FOREMAN: It was a good return to form. We went into a studio and recorded a lot of songs without Suggs. But the songs aren’t Madness without Suggs – it’d be like Oasis without Liam. Suggs came back and we redid them, though I think musically some of the demos are better.
Lee saw Ian Dury in a bar and thought it would be great to have him on ‘Drip Fed Fred’. That was brilliant, because he’d been such an influence on us. But it was sad, too, the last time he appeared on Top of The Pops was with us, doing that song. When he died (in 2000) they wanted a couple of members of Madness to carry the coffin. I thought the frontmen would be asked, but because The Blockheads were small, they asked Lee and me! So we carried Ian, and I was crying it was all very emotional.
The Dangermen Sessions Volume 1 (V2 2005)
An album of cover versions (Motown, Prince Buster, The Kinks), which gave the band their biggest hit since 1984, but alienated Foreman…
SUGGS: The Dangermen Sessions went through about nine machinations. It was originally going to be our 1978 Invaders (Madness’ earliest incarnation) set with ‘Downtown’, ‘For Once In My Life’ and ‘Tears Of A Clown’. We did a few of those, but it just sounded like a disparate set of old Nuttiness. My idea was to get everybody up dancing like we used to at the Dublin Castle in Camden on a Friday night and then make the album that we’re doing now showing our pop sensibility, something that is dense and rich.
FOREMAN: We did the gigs at Dublin Castle as a warm-up to recording the album, which was great – but a bit parochial. I wanted to do a tour of small places around the UK, blow the places apart, then record the album – but that idea got blown out of the water. It just didn’t seem good enough for my band to be doing cover versions. Our body of work is too good for that.I
left, but last year I came back. I was onstage at Brixton and I got all teary-eyed and thought, ‘I love these blokes’. You get to a certain age and their habits become annoying, and you fall out. But you still love ‘em.
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