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From black vinyl to silver screen, the Nutty Boys are taking their talents one step further! Bev Perry interviews ......
We've had the nutty sound, the loony videos and scatty ska dancing - and now Madness, the original nutty boys, take one step beyond - into the movies! Yes, the group who brought you crazy tracks like Baggy Trousers and Night Boat to Cairo have captured for posterity their pop career in their first full-length feature film. Considering their crazy reputation, it's something of a surprise to learn that Take It Or Leave It is going to be a serious movie ......
"We all wanted to make a film about how Madness started out," lead singer Suggs explains. "So this is going to be a serious documentary - a record of the band's career with music."
Carl Smyth (alias Chas Smash) joins in. "But just when it comes to a really dramatic scene, there's going to be some funny things happening - out of the blue!"
That's something of a relief to hear, because Madness without laughter would be a bit like Laurel without Hardy - not right at all!
The Madness movie traces the band's fortunes from 1976 to 1979, running from their first steps as musicians when they played as The Invaders, through to their present-day mass popularity.
While they've already featured in the ska movie, Dance Craze (which included concert clips from Specials, Selecter and The Beat), Take It Or Leave It is very much a Madness speciality, concentrating solely on the group. So how did the idea for a movie come about?
"Dave Robinson, the head of Stiff Records, really got the ball rolling," Suggs recalls. "He called on each member of the band and asked all of us what we could remember about the early days. From that, he made seven tapes of what we had said and using them, wrote up the screenplay for the movie - and we haven't had time to look back since!"
Suggs and Chas may still find the energy to lark about, but Madness have actually been under a gruelling schedule since filming started. Their target is to produce a 90-minute film in only three weeks' studio time - a superhuman feat, when you consider it normally takes one and a half days to make a Madness video for Top of The Pops - and that only runs for three minutes screen time!
But the tight schedule doesn't bother the group. "We prefer doing things quick - the faster the better. We made One Step Beyond, our first album in a week, while other artists take two years to produce theirs! With our way you keep ideas fresh."
For Take It Or Leave It, the main idea is to keep everything as authentic as possible. It features band members Mark Bedders, Chrissy Boy, Lee "Kix" Thompson, Mike Barson, Woody, Chas Smash and Suggs as themselves, not surprisingly. Other actors appearing are all unknowns, because as Suggs insists, "We want to keep everyone else pretty anonymous - the film is first and foremost about us."
While all seven Nutty boys came up with different versions of how the group began, agreement was eventually made on all the scenes they wanted included and, after mammoth preparations, the cameras began to roll at locations in North London.
Trying to recapture their early days must have been weird, if not downright difficult. "It's a really funny aim - to get back into the frame of mind you were in two or three years back," Mike Barson agrees.
Chas goes on to describe one of the film's funnier scenes, which recalls the time Thommo started his first job. He had to drive a van with a ladder on top - and, somehow, the van's roof had a close encounter with a bridge, leaving Thommo with an open-top vehicle!
Another scene which proved difficult to reconstruct was of a gig Madness once did, where they had a lot of trouble in the audience .....
"We had to find an audience of threatening kids," Chas explains. "And we were worried that, with film extras, the atmosphere just wouldn't be the same. As it happened, the extras that were brought in looked pretty frightening - so we didn't have to act at being scared - we really were!"
Although the Nutty boys and Stiff boss, Dave Robinson (who's directing the film) want this movie to show exactly what those days were like, they haven't been able to use the original venues where Madness first played. Most other details are authentic, though .....
"I've gone back to my old number two crop," Chas says, referring to his shorter-than-short haircut. He's also managed to dig out his original outfits - faded denim jacket, jeans and moonstomping Dr Marten boots. Suggs also mentions that no Madness member wears camera make-up for the sets - even though they had to employ a make-up artist under union rules. But why should considerations of cost cause them concern? Surely, in the film world, perfection demands that money be splashed around like water .....?
"Not likely!" Suggs says, grinning. "We're financing the film ourselves, along with Stiff. That's what we do with all aspects of Madness - any profit we make is usually ploughed back into the group. So we can't afford to waste time on the set - as it's our money that's at stake."
The word that Madness were making a movie sent quite a buzz around the music business - and when two reporters turned up to catch a glimpse of the scenes being shot they got included in the film too!
But while Suggs, Chrissy Boy, Woody and the rest are nearly always grinning, surely life can't be one long laugh - even for Madness? Hasn't anything about their new celluloid career got them down?
"Yes - getting up at eight o'clock in the morning's terrible," Chas groans. "Because, in music, when you go out touring, you get up really late. In films, you're up at dawn - then have to go to bed early. I can't stand it!"
To show the tension, he leaps on Suggs and grips his head in an arm lock - don't worry, it seems he's only being boisterous! Suggs, once he's fought Chas off, adds, "We found making films so much slower than making records. On the film set, you can hang around for four hours trying to get one little scene right. Also, having to act at being funny is the hardest thing possible. Normally, we're not pretending. But, as we decided to work without a proper script, because we all hate learning lines, we had to keep the mood up and hope the comedy was happening. Sometimes it was funny, sometimes it seemed boring .... we'll just have to wait and see what the fans think!"
Judging by sneak previews of Take It Or Leave It, it seems Madness's worries about its entertainment value are unwarranted. Starting off in black and white, the film splashes into glorious colour as soon as the first Madness concert hits the screen. And while there won't be any Star Wars-type special effects, you will catch a glimpse of saxophonist Lee taking off in flight - a la Baggy Trousers! When the film goes on general release this Autumn, you should also look out for the 'cup and saucer' sequence, the pub crawl incident and an unusually nutty train going up and down Camden High Street. To tell any more would give the game away!
But, movie madness apart, the group are still clearly loved for their monster sound - the heavy beat that made both One Step Beyond and their latest album, Absolutely, Top Ten hits. And while no soundtrack album is planned, five or six new songs should emerge during the film, besides the golden oldies.
So, as Madness want every detail in the movie to be authentic, will their real girlfriends be in it, too?
"There will be a love scene between me and my wife," keyboards player Mike puts in. He recently got married to the lovely Sandra Wilson, in traditional Mad fashion - with an egg and chips banquet afterwards in a caff! "It's supposed to be very touching - at least, we hope it comes across like that."
At that moment, Suggs and Chas had to slip away to change into some policemen's outfits for a photographic session. Meanwhile Chrissy Boy, Mike, Bedders, Lee and Woody carried on clowning, making hard work look like a nutty night out! One last question, though - what do they all think of the film themselves?
You could almost be bowled over by the chorus of, "It's going to be great!"
Given that, we know what we're going to do when Take It Or Leave It hits our cinema screens - we'll take it!
- Contributed by Lee "Loobyloo" Buckley
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