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Simon Hills cops a sneak preview of the new Madness film, while Suggs, Bedders, Chrissy Boy, Chas, Woody, Mike and Lee find life on the beat a bundle of laughs.
IN THAT great slab of British rock that Madness have established, commonly known as the nutty sound, a fissure is starting to grow … a fissure of seriousness!
No, Madness are not looking to become a Joy Division, or political commentators like UB40. They will still be “on call 24 hours a day to do something silly,” as Chrissy Boy describes it, still produce hard-hitting but light-weight pop songs – but underlying them you might find a more realistic edge.
If you’ve heard the single ‘Shut Up’ then you might get an idea of the balance that’s coming out as the group matures.
The song’s about someone who tries to lie his way out of being arrested for a crime he committed – not the lightest of material. It’s still a fine three-minute romp with bawdy – almost honky-tonk piano, but it shows that the group’s natural knack of parody is now moving towards the realms of, if not satire, a mild form of irony.
It has already become apparent that Madness are here to stay for some time. They have developed not only a sound, but a whole visual presentation as well, incorporating a cheeky impertinent attitude, a quick guffaw at things serious. But like all good music or comedy, there is more to it than meets the eye.
It is the depth of character within the group that has led to them being able to provide some of the best and most worthwhile entertainment around today. And you only have to see them in action to understand why.
Entering a small West London studio, Madness is truly reigning. The band are preparing to shoot their ‘Shut Up’ video for Top of The Pops and the whole band are walking round chuckling at the task in hand.
Notably the predominant clothes are police uniforms, much to the delight of the group. Chas Smash literally becomes a copper as soon as the uniform’s on. Getting the walk, the mannerism and the voice off to a tee – he becomes PC 109. No trouble.
With a face straighter than a ruler he struts round the studio, and two members of the group jump back with fright, thinking he’s the real thing. Camera operators look guilty while other members collapse with laughter as he adopts a perfect Charlie Chaplin walk to blow the image.
OK, SO Madness haven’t been around for a while. But it’s clear the group are back in action. In the coach to the video location in a nearby park, Chas confuses a couple of genuine coppers by waving to them and astonishes a passer-by by flicking the Vs – well have you had a copper do that to you, un-provoked?
This world of celluloid is all becoming second-nature for the group now. They have just finished making a film ‘Take It Or Leave It’, which shows the group’s formation and how they got to make their first record … you’ll be shocked to see them in the heady days of 1976 with long hair, dressed in fashions of the time, as well as re-makes of the band’s early pub gigs around their native Camden Town.
“The film’s a sort of natural step to take, really,” says Suggs. “Particularly for us as our early years were so dependent on our visual stuff, which is almost as important as the music. We’ve made two albums of music, so we thought it would be a good idea to do a visual thing.
“Dave Robinson (boss of Stiff Records) asked us if we wanted to do it, and it seemed a pretty obvious amalgamation. We just thought it would be a good idea to make a music business film without all the crap. People are always seeing films of being on the road and what being in a band is like, and we thought we’d just show how it all started, how easy it is.
“There IS a certain amount of application, a certain amount of work needed, but it’s something anyone can do,” he adds. “Of course nobody can learn to write songs until they’ve learned to play guitar, but for Madness it’s just a matter of collating your ideas. There’s nothing more to it than that – nobody in the group is a Superman.
“The big feeling then was that it was a group thing with all our mates around Camden Town, we used to play pubs because it was something for people to do.”
Sometimes the film worked really well, sometimes it didn’t.
“We did a re-run of an early pub gig we played at the Dublin Castle in Camden when everyone was pissed in the pub and we came in late, literally running in with our equipment, recalls Mike Barson.
“In that scene we had a lot of the same people who were at the original gig, but I swear that some of them thought it was a real show. Everyone was really drunk this time round and were shouting for us to come on, and we actually did it again – rushed in with all the gear and started playing.”
Writing a script could have caused utter mayhem, but as Chrissy Boy explains: “A guy came round with a tape recorder asking us about the last six years and someone had the job of writing it out. We picked and chose the best bits of what happened. It shows us in our day jobs as decorators and things.
“They are all things we’ve done together, so there isn’t any of us who’s really had to act. I reckon when people see the film they’ll realise I didn’t actively intend to become famous. Mike and I knew each other for a long time and we used to go to his house and play, and I wasn’t very serious about it. We actually did some scenes in Mike’s house with the same stuff on the walls as before.”
It’s hard to concentrate on the idle chatter about the film. Lee is currently swinging round in mid air supported by a mammoth crane while, by now, scores of kids, dogs and the odd Ladbroke Grove hippy look on. Chas Smash is practising another ‘sub-plot’, hitting Woody over the bonce with his truncheon, and the rest of the group gear up for the next ‘nutty’ scene.
Sausage sandwiches and cups of tea are forced down with an array of grimaces and spluttering noises and five coppers trundle off to the top of a small hill in the park for the next scene, hitting each other and falling around while they’re at it.
A squad car (genuine) whispers up to the edge of the park and its occupants look on in disbelief. The five nutty policemen are heltering down the hill, truncheons drawn, bearing down on a bemused Suggsy in burglar’s outfit. But instead of going for the singer the five begin a ridiculous dance, hitting each other as they go before collapsing into a writhing heap.
MADNESS are still going stronger, always coming up with new ideas as they go along. You get a true idea of the way there is no real leader, and the way the band bounce off each other, building up a rapport as they go, just by being with them.
Chrissy Boy agrees: “We are really into it as a group. You’ve just seen us running down that hill there. When that police car came up Carl (Chas) said let’s get one more in before they get a chance to arrest us – OK, they didn’t – but that’s the spirit that’s in the band.
“If there’s something that’s got to be done, we’ll do it. Like Lee there, I mean, who else would swing from a crane like that? Maybe Carl. Everyone in the group can be really nuts, and that’s how I like it, I like it when we’re all dressed up the same, it gives the group a sort of identity.”
So what about Madness as a group? They are all older now; they all developed musically and have gained a style that is unique to the British pop scene. Woody is married to Jane from the Mo-Dettes and Mike is hitched to his former girlfriend, Sandra who’s Dutch. Are they still as youthful as they were?
There’s no evidence of the band becoming tired jaded pop stars yet. They’ve recorded their third album at the prestigious Compass Point studios in the Bahamas’ Nassau, and by now have surely accumulated some wealth. It is usually about this time that groups drift off behind the locked doors of stardom.
Not Madness … yet, anyway. Bedders admits, “there are times when I think Christ, I don’t give a damn, I don’t want to play,” but the group are still determined to stay fresh. As for recording in Nassau …
“Where would you rather record, in London or Nassau?” challenges Mike Barson. “I don’t see why we should stay in London just so that people can say how true to their roots Madness are. Anyway, a studio is a studio, wherever you are.”
No one is keen to reveal what the new album contains. Suggsy says that it does contain more serious elements behind the comic veneer and Woody reckons that it’s more, er, rhythmic – but everyone’s opinion is different anyway, so you’ll just have to wait until you hear it.
Suggsy has definite ideas about the group. He accepts that they are a pop band, but that doesn’t mean to say that quality doesn’t count for a lot – nor subtlety. The idea is to get a balance between the two. What they are not, he insists, is a band led by one person. Rather the fusion of ideas from all the band’s members.
“I think that groups that are started by one person tend to be ruled by one person,” he says. “We look at ourselves, and sometimes we have shitty ideas, but it’s still refreshing and stimulating. It’s always fresh because we can always do what we want, and we can always do it with Madness.
“It’s very difficult to be in the mainstream. Either you’re a teenybop band or you’re not, according to the business. Either you’re doing it for the money or you’re not … but whatever people say or think, we aren’t. We don’t do things to pander to anyone, and we aren’t in it for the money. We do it because we enjoy it.
“What we do is funny, but I hope people can see that we’re not totally comical. There is an element of seriousness in the songs, for instance the single is not a total joke, the story line is pretty serious.
“I wouldn’t deny our sort of humour, but what I’m saying is hopefully people don’t think that it’s all there is to Madness. I hope they realise there is a certain amount of thought given to it. There is a problem in that if you tell people you’re nutty they think that’s all there is to it, and the same goes if you say you’re serious.
“Anyone can go and look silly, but it’s very hard to be original and incorporate other things too.”
WHAT IS not funny, though, is the way the band have been linked to fascism. Since the various riots around the country, Madness have yet again been linked to what is portrayed as an inexorable wave of right-wing among youth.
They want no part of it. As soon as it was mentioned there comes a response from all members of the group which sounds if you’d set light to a two-tonne firecracker.
“Those accusations are exactly what they are – accusations,” snarls Chas. “Our first song was a tribute to a black artist – Prince Buster. We are against the National Front who we dislike. They are a bad thing – anyone can see that. Rock Against Racism challenged us to speak out at a gig, and we just wrote a statement about it. We do not want to be pushed into being active politically; we’re not into that as a group. We don’t want to preach, and who are we to, anyway?
And Mike Barson is equally vitriolic: “It started with one article and we seem to have nothing but people quoting it. We didn’t want to say anything, but then people try and make out we’re trying to hide something.
“I wish they would stop, because we despise things like that. It doesn’t mean that we don’t care about it, we do. Yet when we read these things, the papers seem to be putting in an advert by saying hey look at what these kids are doing, and only at the end they add how disgusting it is. People think we’re bad, but what about the adverts for Nazi armbands in the back of the music press? The less ammunition they get the better.”
Suggsy interrupts the conversation, and adds, almost plaintively, “We’re very amiable fellows; it seems very strange that they’ve picked on us.”
So the slate’s clean. And Madness go on, taking advantage in their stride – a 33-date tour comes up next month, the film goes on release about the same time, and a third album is under their belts. As for stardom, the band don’t need it. Because they put half the money up for the movie themselves it means that Suggsy, for example, is £300 overdrawn. They’ve got a house each, but the lifestyle hasn’t changed.
Bedders reckons that in a year they get a total of three weeks holiday, not that they’re complaining, but as he says, you sometimes get sick of being called up to do videos or interviews all the time just when you think you’re having a rest.
“We all do much the same things as we did before we had money,” says Suggsy. “We try hard to be as normal as possible as people, we try not to get pompous about it, we are the same as everyone else, nothing special.
“I think it would be really good if people didn’t look up to bands any more. OK, you buy the records if you like them, but there’s no need to idolise the bands. I do miss the early days, but I wouldn’t like to go round pubs for the rest of our lives. In five years I’ll probably wish I was running round in policemen’s uniforms again.”
And Chas adds: “It is like a job at times. But you realise it’s a job you want to do, and that you’re lucky.”
Lucky they may be. But as they say, the band simply gelled and people like what they saw. They are not blasé, and they are not resting on their laurels, they are not fascists and they are not completely stupid, they are not bandwagon jumpers and they are not all serious … as the film says, take it or leave it.
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