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Start of part two.
"We started talking about doing
a new record as long ago as 1994," says Suggs, in his trademark breathless
cockney accent. "It was a difficult decision because there are seven of us in
the band, and everyone had to be available. And as we've been in the public eye
so long, we're sort of like public property. Everyopne had a view on whether we
should do it or not. We wanted to be sure that what we were doing was...you
know, dignified."
Madness dignified? These are not
words that readily go together. In the early Eightees, Madness were reggae and
ska, with touches of big jazz band bravado, gaudy vaudeville and debts to The
Kinks, The Small Faces and Ian Dury in the lyrics. Their songs were shot through
with cameos of teenage life. Baggy Trousers became an anthem for school
boys everywhere (Naughty boys in nasty schools/Headmaster's breaking all the
rules).
In an era whenthe music scene
was divided between punks and New Romantics, Madness were neither. They were
simply themselves, utterly original. Madness were laddish before laddishness.
But it was the laddishness of boys who want to be men; whereas today it's
about men who want to be boys. They were never particularly sexy
either.
"I remember being at an airport
and there were thousands of screaming girl fans - we were trampled as they ran
past us to get to Duran Duran. We had two girls with carrier bags waiting for
us. They used to follow us everywhere," recalls Suggs.
Like so many bands before them,
the strain of touring proved too much and after the split Suggs was left to
himself, wondering what he should do with the rest of his life, when he was
still in his twenties.
"I was beginning to think
that I wasn't a bona fide paid-up member of the world of rock 'n' roll. At
that stage I couldn't imagine singing on my own or joinging another abnd.
Not that I got any offers."
End of part two.
On The Beat Pete
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