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Davy, Dav-ee Hepworth (King Of The Wild Frontier) watches Madness ride off into the sunset.
THEY REALLY ought to warn people. Put it out on local radio or something. "A lorry has shed its load in Shepherd's Bush, resulting in a tail back of traffic right across Hammersmith Bridge ... Whitehall will be closed between 12 and 1 today for the State Visit of the President Of Denmark ... and Madness are spending the day filming a video for "Return Of The Los Palmas 7" ... unless your business is of great importance, please remain indoors with the curtains closed ..."
The first to feel the impact was the proprietor of a small greasy spoon cafe. Innocently enough he gave his permission for a little quiet filming to be done on the premises.
Next thing he knows a van has pulled up outside and begun disgorging pop stars. Hundreds of them. They occupied all his tables and began ordering everything on the menu. Twice with extra chips.
Course, the word spread like wildfire, reaching the local school in a matter of minutes. Next thing he knew his few spare tables had been commandeered by swarms of glassy-eyed girls ordering one cup of tea between three of them and examining Suggs in great detail.
Up in the prosperous suburb of Hampstead, dogs out walking their owners on the Heath were ambushed by the same seven young men, this time dressed up as cowboys. Dogs, of course, take this sort of eccentric behaviour in their stride. Not so the manager of the West London hotel where the afternoon's shooting is to be done.
When he was asked to provide chicken salad and champagne for seven in his best banqueting suite, he'd no doubt imagined it was for some small formal business lunch. True enough the diners were all decked out in thirties evening dress, dinner jackets, starched wing collars, the full bit.
But nobody mentioned anything about Lee Thompson interrupting the meal by jumping on to the table and landing his Doc Martens smack dab in the middle of the lettuce. And then proceeding to play a miniature saxophone. This definitely wasn't part of the agreement.
Gingerly he enquires the name of the group who are responsible for this havoc. Madness? Ah, it begins to add up.
SHOOTING COMPLETED for the day, Chas Smash, Suggs and Bedders loosen their collars and settle down to talk. Not that there's much settling down involved when Lord Suggs and Mr Smash - Carl to his friends - are in the mood for a bit of verbal.
Bedders sits between them, swivelling like a Wimbledon umpire as they rattle away on either side, considering himself fortunate to contribute a cough or two to the conversation.
You seem to enjoy this video business, I venture ....
"We enjoy everything," announces Suggs and grins.
"We're doing a film very shortly," announces Chas and grins too. "And it won't be anything like 'Breaking Glass' ... "
The assembled company then begin to denounce the aforesaid film in terms which couldn't possibly be reported in a family magazine. The Madness feature film, tentatively called "Take It Or Leave It", is more along the lines of a dramatised documentary, tracing the progress of the band from early days to their first major London gig at The Nashville in 1979.
Suggs explains the dominant theme.
"It's about the way it went and the way it could have gone ..."
This project, which will cost them a quarter of a million pounds that they haven't yet got, will probably mark a full stop at the end of Madness Phase One, otherwise known as The Jumping Up and Down Years.
Not that any of them are planning to purchase long raincoats or synthesisers, it's simply that the seven of them, unschooled and relatively inexperienced though they may be, have enough common sense and realism to face the fact that changes must be made if the momentum that has brought them thus far is to be maintained.
"Absolutely" was a step in the right direction; full of fine, salty and thoughtful songs. The next spate of recordings will stretch the company a little further, hopefully without sacrificing that joyous, rubberlegged motion that's been the ruination of carpets from Bolsover to Berlin.
"It's getting to the point," reckons Suggs, "where it could be 'look at those old washouts - here comes Adam And The Ants'. It's up to us."
"In the beginning we were really limited," admits Chas. "I was really limited. You know, I didn't like this geezer or that geezer because he was a punk or whatever ... but now everybody is much more open to new things because of travelling and so forth.
"In this business you meet every race, every creed, every type of person. You meet the saps, the ponces, the grovellers, the intelligent people, the people who are into the music, the people who are into the money. It just opens your eyes to a lot of things ..."
Bedders is about to say something but Suggs is too fast for him.
"We were totally into Madness when we started; the reggae and the ska and everything. And now hopefully we're gonna branch out a bit. Hopefully we've left enough doors open to do something interesting."
What has surprised many people is the ease with which Madness, on the face of it the least weighty and fashionable of the band that emerged from under the 2-Tone umbrella, should succeed commercially, outselling people like The Specials and The Beat effortlessly.
Suggs pretends not to be in the least surprised himself.
"The reason is we're better looking, funnier, more cheerful and more easily acceptable."
Chas has no doubts of what Madness are all about:
"Having fun, making money and making people happy."
But do they not think that the nutty business has tempted people to dismiss the genuine quality of their songs? Songwriters who jump on salads without adequate warning often find it hard to be taken seriously as creative artists.
Suggs shrugs.
"A bit, but I don't care ..."
" ... there's some very serious lyrics on our last album," offers Chas, citing "Shadow Of Fear", a tune about being pursued by a bad conscience, as an example.
Bedders spots a gap in the conversation and seizes it with both hands.
"Lee is very profound. We can't understand his songs. He can't understand 'em either."
Suggs agrees.
"He's very deep."
"OUR SONGS can be listened to easily, but if you think about them deeply you can get more out of 'em," points out Chas.
"The kids, they can just hear 'Naughty boys in nasty schools, headmaster's breaking all the rules' and think 'that's me'," continues Suggs.
The conversation moves on to compare the light touch of "Baggy Trousers" with the long winded, preachy tone of Pink Floyd's song on the same subject, "Another Brick In The Wall."
Suggs, who wrote their lyric, is annoyed that his number was unfairly written off as the usual cheery throwaway while the condescending cliches of a bunch of old hippies are feted as Art.
Chas, who was knocking about Pink Floyd's studio complex when they were putting together The Wall extravaganza, describes them colourfully as "spark out".
"They haven't been in touch with reality for God knows how long," he adds.
"Education for me was a pain," says Suggs. "But it was a pain for the teachers as well and everybody concerned. But it's just something you have to go through."
He sneers at the whole idea of the "teacher, leave those kids alone" theory: "What do they want? We should all go to communes and learn how to grow apples? Nobody gets educated that way. As far as Pink Floyd are concerned we can all live in fields and pick daisies."
Interestingly enough, the teachers who inspired that wonderful line about "passing round the ready rub" were not the middle aged metalwork men that I'd pictured, all leather elbow patches and covered in chalk dust. Suggs modelled them on a couple of younger members of staff at his school. He remembers their Laura Ashley frocks and copies of "Socialist Worker". Pink Floyd fans maybe.
WHATEVER THE future does turn out to hold for them, Madness are determined not to continue the almost constant live work that's taken up most of their time since the unexpected chart success of "The Prince". Like The Specials, Revillos, Clash and others they would like to be able to confine live shows to weekends and then only in interesting venues where they can present their music in new ways.
"We've stopped doing all this touring," says Chas, "because it's spoiling things for us. There's no way you can go out every night and do it and believe in it. I feel sorry for a lot of the people who came along on our last tour because we were sometimes doing two shows a night, and I know it can't have been as good as it should have been."
In these circumstances I always dust off the same old question. Don't you owe it to the fans to tour?
Suggs agrees but points out that they just have to take a bit more time and think up something new.
"Jumping up and down and the Nutty Dance is what got us where we are today. It's just a matter of having a bit of time to think of something new, something a bit more interesting."
They hope to be able to fit in shows for their younger fans, many of whom can't get into the clubs or stay out late. Suggs says it started "because we've seen kids locked out or squashed down the front ...."
"We've made a gesture," continues Chas, "and maybe now a lot of groups will start doing things for kids. People sneer, you know - 'here they are, the teenybop band' - but what's that all about? Everybody's got a right to enjoy themselves."
When Madness first blinked in to the light of day, Chas's position was none too secure. These days it's hard to imagine the band without him. Not that he's taking any chances on being made redundant. Learning the trumpet is his current priority.
"Initially," he says, "I was ..." " .... a hanger on," finished Chrissy Boy as he takes a seat.
Chas begins again: "Initially, I was really insecure. I felt that I threatened Suggs and he felt threatened by my presence. But we resolved it and we joined forces, which is the best way. We're a real unit and we're all gonna sink or swim together."
On that note I start wrapping up the tape recorder. Chas complains that he didn't get his "quote" in. I switch it on again.
Chas clears his throat.
"Squares," he announces, "have all the angles."
They really ought to warn people.
- Contributed by Graeme Sharpe
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