Hi All,
There was an interview with Suggs today in Metro (one of the free local
newspapers).
So I've typed it up for everyone to have a look at anyway.
Here it is:
The 60 Second Interview: Suggs
Suggs (ne Graham) McPherson, 39, is the frontman for on-off Eighties group
Madness.
Apart from occasional collaborations with his old band, he has recorded some
solo work and has become an established TV personality.
Q. How did you get into the music business?
A. It was completely by chance.
I hadn't played music before and I was outside a cinema singin when a
member of the group asked me whether I would like to join Madness's former
incarnation which was called The North London Invaders.
We went to the keyboard player's bedroom where there was a piano and an
old drum kit.
Q. Do you like new music?
A. Nintey per cent of the stuff that comes out I don't really like and 10
per cent I feel some affinity with.
Q. What are your favourite memories of Madness?
A. It never gets better than when you hit it big - you go from playing
little pubs to suddenly playing big events and realising you can make a
living out of it.
It is really exciting when you're young, open-minded and innocent - and
you realise that you can do it professionally - before it becomes a job.
There was also our comeback in 1992 in Finsbury Park when 70,000 people
turned up.
We hadn't played together for ten years so that was a really
extraordinary moment.
It was ironic really because we had never done a last concert when we
first broke up in the Eighties, so it was going to be our deleayed last
concert.
But in fact it ended up being the beginning of another cycle.
Q. And your worst?
A. The early days are best but are also, some of the worst - like when
you're playing in pubs to four people and having bottles thrown at you and
there's more light on the pool table than on the stage.
And once we were supporting David Bowie in America.
But we were late because we got caught in traffic.
I ran on stage and slipped off the edge and fell 40ft on to some
scaffolding right on my coccyx.
I then had to stagger back on stage because obviously the show must go
on and gritted my teeth.
That was all very painful.
Q. Why did Madness break up?
A. Health reason - we were sick of each other.
But we have kept re-forming and disbanding.
It's all very complicated because there are seven people in the band
who are all very strong-willed individuals.
It's very difficult to get them all into a room at the same time
because as one comes in, one goes out.
They all have their own ideas of what they want to do - to agree on
anything is very, very difficult.
Q. Are you going to re-re-re-form?
A. It's all under wraps - in the garage under a dust sheet.
Who knows when it will be out again?
We never make any plans, which is probably our downfall.
Q. And have you got any solo work planned?
A. I don't know.
I have got on plans.
I do things on the spur of the moment and I'm really enjoying myself at
the moment.
I've got the stuff on the telly as well, so we'll see how it goes.
Q. So do you think you could have been more successful?
A. I wouldn't exactly say that.
I think we did all right.
Q. Were you ever a baggy trousered rebel?
A. At school, I was kind of bright but stupid at the same time - you know,
'could do better, easily led' kind of stuff.
My school was so big that sometimes we had ten minutes to get from
class to another and, in that ten minutes, anarchy would rule.
When we did Baggy Trousers, there was some sympathy for the teachers.
It came out about the time of Pink Floyd's Another Brick In The Wall
which was all about the alienation of public schoolboys.
Mine was a slight antidote to that in that in comprehensive schools it
was free for all and the teachers were equally as oppressed as the kids.
Q. What was it like being on This Is Your Life?
A. This Is Your life was actually quite embarrassing actually.
It's a feeling of having you ego completely buttered.
I think it was worse for the people who worked there who absolutely no
idea who I was.
Q. Do you miss Ian Dury?
A. He was probably the biggest inspiration to me and on the band.
We copied his lyrical and singing style.
Someone once said you could call a song All The Way To Memphis but you
could hardly write a song All The Way To Walthamstow.
Ian Dury was the person who proved that wrong and, for ordinary
Londoners like myself, that was very inspiring.
I saw his last concert at The London Palladium which was a vey poigant
experience.
Mad Thanks,
Si
Coming soon:
Complete & Utter Divine Madness
featuring news, downloads, links and more!
http://www.mulvaneys.freeserve.co.uk
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