‘Bristol really understands how to dance’

Baggy Trousers, It Must Be Love, Our House… a trifecta of ridiculously catchy pop tracks that immortalised Madness in musical history. Fronted by Mr Suggs himself, who once described their 1985 record Mad Not Mad as a “polished turd”, Madness return to Bristol for an epic Sunday special on The Downs.

We caught up with the man himself ahead of their headline show.

Suggs, Madness frontman

Hey, Suggs. How are you?

I’m good, yeah. Busy. But it’s the days when you’ve got nothing on that are dreary, aren’t they?

Absolutely. How’s life been treating you?

Life is up and down, Tower Bridge.

I get that. Are you looking forward to returning to Bristol this weekend?

Yeah very much, I like Bristol a lot. There was a thing there, it started with the Wild Bunch and that became Massive Attack and all that. I loved that. Going between Bristol and West London, we were all into reggae, you know? We were into ska but then some people went for the more reggae side of things. But there was this kind of mutual appreciation and so I liked all that. I think that Bristol understands how to dance.

I’m biased, but I’d say we do. What can we expect from your set on Sunday?

It’s forty years since we started and we’ve been thinking about that a lot. We’ve got David Rodigan on before us, the great master of the history of reggae music, so we were thinking about adapting our set a bit to some of that earlier stuff we used to do. We started out just doing ska and reggae and then obviously we converted into a very successful pop band. Yeah, we’ll maybe have a think about some of our earlier stuff.

David Rodigan is a legend, isn’t he?

That’s what I’m saying, yeah mate. Everyone says to you, you have to have the enthusiasm to do music and when you look at him, how can you not? He’s not that much older than me (but still a bit) but his energy is amazing. And his music is amazing. It is a privilege to be making music and if you’re not stupid you really appreciate that.

Speaking of age, have you seen a change in your crowds since you first started playing?

Definitely, certainly in the last fifteen years, it’s changed from just our old fans who are a load of old fat blokes. What’s really changed it is all these festivals. Now you can be playing in all these weird festivals, whether they be reggae or RnB or folk, and you get a whole new crowd because they’re there to see whatever’s on. They’re not there just to see one band, they’re there with an open mind and then you see them coming back to see just you. For the last fifteen years we’ve definitely opened the doors to a whole different generation, or they opened the doors to us, one way or another.

You must’ve had hundreds, but are there any Madness memories that stick out to you the most?

I think it must’ve been at Glastonbury. It was 9:30am in the morning. I don’t know whether someone had given me something or not but I thought it was 9:30pm at night. I had another 12 hours to go but by the time I got to that twelfth hour I was really in the mood. There was some discussion about whether we should play at Glastonbury at all, whether we fit in. We were playing this tent that held 500 people inside and about 30,000 people turned up outside. It was a sort of an indication that we might have some relevance in the common parlance. And it was a moment.

I’ll tell you another one too actually… I mean, there’s been millions. I was in Belfast last night and we did a tour in a black cab of the troubled areas and we saw what they’ve been through. Later we played It Must Be Love and I got this strange moment, like if anyone should understand what love is, then I’m in the right place. If you have any empathy for people and you can get paid to see their faces, it’s a remarkable experience. I really do enjoy it every night and I’m not just saying that. It gets better and better for me. As my potency starts to fade, you know, the approach to the downside of the hill my life, I’m very grateful and ecstatically happy when I see the crowd, loving what we do. We really enjoy what we do. So you can’t argue with that.

Absolutely, it’s clear as day you all still absolutely love it.

I look around at my mates like Lee Thompson, our saxophone player, he should’ve been in prison and the rest of them should be dead yet here we are on stage. I know that pop music is a bit of a business, but it’s not a game for us.

Have you thought about what life looks like after Madness?

After Madness? Probably death, I suppose.

Madness play on The Downs on September 1. For tickets and more information, visit www.madnessonthedowns.com

Read More: Acts not to miss at The Downs 2019