2013-2015

LEE (speaking in 2013): How we’re still going I really don’t know.

SUGGS (speaking in 2013): It’s amazing – our career has gone on for longer and been more successful than our original incarnation first time around.

LEE (speaking in 2013): Of course, it has its ups and downs…lots of up and downs… but I’m humbled that we have such a diehard bunch of fans.

SUGGS (speaking in 2013): I think the reason we endure is that we genuinely do enjoy ourselves. Our whole spark of creativity is a by-product of our friendship and I think that’s what people feel. It’s a genuine experience, it’s not manufactured. I can’t ever remember being onstage and feeling fed up with the people around me.

SUGGS (speaking in 2013): There have been so many moments of incremental success to get to this point. Two years ago we could have quite happily ended and gone our separate ways, then out of the blue we get the call to play on the roof of Buckingham Palace and the closing ceremony of the Olympics. And so here we are – still going and still doing whatever it is we do.

WOODY (speaking in 2013): We still take a long time to make a decision, but that’s just the way it is. You’ve got to go through seven people, and even then, when the majority have made up their mind and we’re set to go forward, we’ll then go, ‘Nah.’

SUGGS (speaking in 2013): But on the flip side, when we do agree on something, it’s done with great gusto.

WOODY (speaking in 2013): I’m writing more these days…

SUGGS (speaking in 2013): …which is really, really annoying.

CHRIS (speaking in 2013): We’re all writing songs these days. We all benefit from the great strength of Madness, which is that different people write songs; it’s not just one person.

WOODY (speaking in 2013): We all just write about what we see, and then it’s all down to interpretation by the others. The one thing we can all write about is experience. Opinions count for nothing – experience is the truth.

CHRIS (speaking in 2013): And because we don’t make any money from records any more, the real fun is getting together and doing new songs.

WOODY (speaking in 2013): We’re always writing, but the process is very thorough. All of us write, and in the studio we write everyone’s songs on a huge bit of paper, work out all the chords and try to record them all. It’s a process of elimination.

SUGGS (speaking in 2013): And of course we always shout at each other because it’s passion. With every album, there are fights; ranting and raving until the very last minute about what songs to include.

SUGGS (speaking in 2013): We’re getting faster, so we’re actually looking forward to making another album. We’re in a good place at the moment. As ever, we always try and have fun and have a good time, but we also mix in some sadness and depth. We’re not just the happy idiots that people seem to think we are.

LEE: I’d told the management, ‘Look we’ve done the roof, we’ve done the Olympics and done the Christmas tour. After that, I want to get on with a few solo projects of my own.’ I said I’d do the Jonathan Ross show, but then take some time out. So as I was walking out the door, Bedders was walking back in.

MARK DAVIES MARKHAM (writer, speaking in 2013): Suggs, Carl and Mike just bowled up at Broadcasting House and we recorded their scenes. They were brilliant at playing heightened versions of themselves.

LEE: I didn’t do the BBC as I was in France with my two sons, skiing.

BEDDERS: It was a bit surreal that we’d been banned from the BBC on a number of occasions, yet here we were playing the TV centre out. After the Olympics, we seemed to be getting a reputation for closing things!

CHRIS: It was a shame it shut down because we started out there in 1979 and played there many times, so we had a real affection for it.

SUGGS: The weather that night was dreadful; plant pots flying all over the gaff, the presenter’s hair at right angles. On stage it couldn’t have been any colder.

BEDDERS: I had hand-warmers in my pockets but they didn’t help. The strings felt like ice pops.

WOODY: It was absolutely freezing and there was hail and snow, but it was a really enjoyable experience. We were saying goodbye to an old building that we’d grown to love over the years.

CARL: While it was cold, wet and windy the atmosphere was warm, enthusiastic and joyous. As everyone there was braving the elements together it made for a determinedly merry and infectious collective mood. I was looking out at all the faces during the show and imagined all the memories that were being triggered by the songs. That made me thoughtful and it was something else seeing so many happy faces.

BEDDERS: Wilko being there was superb too. It was a pleasure to share the stage with the man because his playing turbo-charges any song.

CHRIS: Before the gig it was mayhem – people just running around in and out of offices, nicking stuff. I came home with this award for some Radio 4 programme. I always say, ‘I got that from the BBC’ which is perfectly true.

CHRIS: After the Olympics, we played a charity gig with Bedders and he also spent some time with us recording two songs for the special edition of the new album. He also came to France with the band and played at the BBC. And there was one thing in common with all these events – he didn’t get paid for any of them. He just came back because he enjoyed playing with us. He’s a man I have the utmost respect for – plus he’s a great bass player of course.

BEDDERS: I certainly had my arm twisted to return – and if you’ve ever been out for a drink with Suggs you’ll know exactly what I mean. He was very sweet and just said, ‘Would you come back? It would be great if you would. We’ve been doing some new songs and we’d like you to play on a couple of them.’ So I came back and it felt very good and natural and it just went from there. And I’ve managed to handle it and juggle it ever since.

MIKE: I used to think there was nothing to bass playing, but when we tried a couple of demos without Bedders it just didn’t work out; it wasn’t swinging. Mark came in and it was just effortless – he got it straight away.

BEDDERS: Bass players are a funny breed because they’re a bridge between the rhythm and the melody. It’s no surprise that they’re the ones who stand quietly in the background. They’re rarely the wild ones because they’ve got a responsibility just to hold it together.

CARL: A proud moment for me was seeing a technical music magazine for bass players, and it was talking about the difficult structures of the Madness basslines. I thought it was interesting, because when you think of Madness you might think that it’s all very light and breezy. But there’s a lot of content there, and a lot of thought goes into the structure and arrangements of the songs.

SUGGS: Certainly, when my accomplished musician friends try to cover Madness songs they suddenly realise it’s a bit more difficult than they thought.

SUGGS (speaking in 2013): The most difficult thing for me is that when you achieve a certain level of fame, it is hard to wander and observe the streets in the way that I like. But 30 years on, I live in the same house and people don’t bother me any more. Ironically, I have gone back to being anonymous. Rod Stewart has only just written his first record for 30 years because he spent most of his life around a swimming pool in Beverly Hills and it’s difficult to connect with the average person if that’s how you exist. Unfortunately, I had the luxury of not having to exist like that but there were times when I got more famous than I wished. I’m not complaining because it facilitated my life, which is one of relative pleasure. My very favourite thing in the world now is to sit in a bar or café, watching the world go by. That’s why I hate winter, because it’s too cold to sit outside doing that. I get recognised, but people don’t really bother me. One in 200 will ask for an autograph.

SUGGS: Ray Davies said his first solo gig was the first time he’d been on stage without having a fight, and it was the same for me. It was weird being up there on my own as I’ve spent virtually all my working life surrounded by six lunatics.

CHRIS: The whole thing was a bit of a mess if you ask me; box set songs on the second disc and all that crap. And of course, loads of mine on the ‘special’ edition. OK, I did hold back Deolali because it wasn’t quite ready but Big Time Sister should definitely have been on the original album. It should have been 14 tracks and not had two versions of the same song on it.

SUGGS: In deference to Peter Blake and his original idea, Carl had the idea of redoing the cover by bringing all the rejected titles to life. So Lee was Circus Freaks, Chris Deolali, Mike Man of Steel, Carl The Rake and Woody Dial ‘M’ for Madness. Peter himself was Moses in The Ten Commandments and I was Zoltar the fortune-teller from the film Big, whose machine prints out tickets which just say ‘yes’.

LEE: 1978 was a fantastic song. It was Suggs’s first completely self-penned effort and was very nostalgic, all about events in the late 70s. I wrote Deolali, which is actually a place in south-west India where they sent the war fatigued. So anyone who was a bit shellshocked was moved down there. I got the inspiration from the TV show, Who Do You Think You Are? It was about Alan Cumming’s granddad who rode motorbikes across the flats of Normandy during the war to deliver letters and mail, and the Germans would take pot-shots at him. After the war he went to Deolali Tip in India to recover and ended up becoming a policeman-cum-mercenary, going out to Asia to take on the rubber plantation terrorists. To pass the time off duty he’d go to clubs and play Russian roulette for pocket money. He was very well respected, but on one occasion he might have had one brandy too many and – kaboom! – he shot himself.

LEE (speaking in 2013): With The Dangermen Sessions, Madness kind of touched on the stuff I wanted to do. But I wanted to do it a certain way, with a certain sound. The Ska Orchestra lets me do that. I approached Bedders first because I know he loves his music, then the rest were a mix of musicians and plumbers and what have you.

BEDDERS (speaking in 2013): Playing all those old ska tunes is a brilliant thing to do, but it’s an absolute organisational nightmare getting 10 or 11 people together. It’s meant to be a bunch of people we enjoy working with, and friends we want to play with. But actually getting them all in the same room a lot of the time proves very difficult.

LEE (speaking in 2013): Doing Madness and the Ska Orchestra can be juggled; it can be done. If it conflicts, the Ska Orchestra comes first. Madness helps me finance it though. Madness and the LTSO are like two carefree ladies of the night. One is young, fresh and vibrant and the other one’s tits have dropped, slow to get in the groove but rocks until the cows come home.

WOODY (speaking in 2013): I think it’s great that Lee is doing something he’s really passionate about. These solo projects are very healthy for the band because they enable us to express ourselves as individuals. They certainly don’t mean you’ll be seeing less of Madness in the future because, collectively, we’re on a roll.

LEE (speaking in 2013): I absolutely thoroughly enjoy Madness, but I’m behind a hat and glasses. It’s Suggs that’s really spinning those plates. I’ve got me sax, I’m climbing all over the place, I’m working that audience and the ship is nice and level. And with the Ska Orchestra, it’s just smooth. I haven’t got to worry, I know I can do anything: click my fingers, take a solo. They all know there’s no set plan. It’s good in a different way.

LEE: The album is a tribute to Sister Mary and the would-be Rude Boy musicians like Rico and Tommy McCook who came out of the Alpha School in Jamaica and went on to write, play and entertain – and will hopefully get some publishing from the disc. The album was recorded at Pellanconi’s Ironworks, a studio that was brought to my attention by our piano player, Louis Vause, who had previously recorded there with Blur’s Graham Coxon. It was perfect for what I wanted to achieve. The album had that spring feel about it; that ‘up’ thing. I wasn’t trying to make it all polished, I wanted a warm and meaty sound and I got that.

LEE: We were asked to try out some different beers and put our name to them, and were then sent a few different ones to try. They set up a whole load in front of us and most of them were shit and not my cup of tea at all, but I did like the one that we eventually used.

WOODY: We worked on it for a long time, doing a lot of tasting to make sure we got it right. After all, it’s a serious business! Mike took it home and drank it over a couple of weeks, just because he said you can really get bored of a beer or lager after a while. He said he genuinely liked it.

SUGGS (speaking in 2013): We’re very proud of our first attempt and now we’ve got a great excuse to spend a bit more time in great British pubs. It’s a great feeling holding a bottle of your own beer, knowing you’re gonna get at least two whole pence back. More importantly it’s what we’re drinking backstage, so we’re saving £30,000 a year – you can’t move for the stuff.

WOODY (speaking in 2013): I’m in charge of the setlist these days, which can be a bit stressful, especially when you get six other members of the band coming to you and trying to get you to add certain songs – usually ones that they’ve written.

SUGGS (speaking in 2013): We will know when the time is right to retire. But at the moment it’s fun, we like what we are doing. It doesn’t seem like it will end.

WOODY (speaking in 2013): Us playing the racecourses means the punters win each way. We either help them drown your sorrows cos they’ve no money left, or we help them celebrate their winnings.

WOODY (speaking in 2013): Over the years we’ve done a lot of festivals for young people and they all seem to love us. I’ve no idea why – we seem to have crossed the generations for whatever reason.

CARL (speaking in 2013): The audience were truly wonderful in Waterford – what an atmosphere! A real sing along and a great crowd who were so into having a great time. I saw loads of young kids enjoying the show down the front and it tickled me to get them all up for the encore to Night Boat.

SUGGS (speaking in 2013): It’s all very well playing to fat, bald middle-aged blokes, which is what our traditional demographic is, but it’s also very rewarding to play to a load of young kids and see them singing along. I don’t really care what audience we get as long as they enjoy it – there’s no ageism involved in what I do.

CARL: Playing in the Roman amphitheatre in Lyon was such a beautiful setting. It really lifts the spirits when you play somewhere special. I’m a big fan of ancient history so loved touching the Roman columns – the tales they could tell!

CHRIS (speaking in 2013): People come to see us and expect to hear all the old songs and have a laugh, but for our own enjoyment we write new ones, so we can put them in too. So it’s not exactly the same songs every time.

SUGGS (speaking in 2013): Each time we play the hits, it’s a joy for us. Those songs mean something to people. But now we play six new songs – which is the Warp Factor to get us into exploring new universes – and then we play the hits. You can have both. What Paul Weller does is great, transforming himself into something new all the time. But by the same token, if I see Stevie Wonder and he doesn’t play Superstition, I’m going to be pissed off.

CHRIS (speaking in 2013): I love AC/DC because they’re the same as us; they have those absolute classics, yet they’re also doing new albums, which are good as well. Yet you go and see them and you know they’re not going to say, ‘Here’s our concept jazz album.’ They’re going to do what you want, which is what we do.

SUGGS (speaking in 2013): We’ve managed to accrue a whole new generation by playing 40 or 50 festivals over the past five years. In England alone there are probably 20 more festivals than there were when we began. You’re playing to audiences who aren’t just there to see you. So it’s been very flattering and marvellous to see so many different age groups enjoying the band.

CHRIS (speaking in 2013): Quite a lot of people give their kids our records and they rediscover us. Walt Disney used to do that with his films, so every seven years he’d re-release them. So young people like us. When we play you get quite a variety. You get the older generation, and the younger, and they both enjoy it.

CLIVE LANGER (speaking in 2013): They are seen as an English treasure now. Playing all these festivals, getting through to the young kids. Everyone just sees them as an evergreen now, as opposed to old Madness. They’ll get their lifetime achievement very soon.

SUGGS (speaking in 2013): It’s not the easiest endeavour to be able to make enough money to keep seven people going, but our workplace is healthy. We’ve got to the point where we’re doing alright. I suppose our rituals are now so ingrained that I don’t notice what the rest of the band are doing. We can change the setlist nightly if we wish. The main thing is to keep it exciting for yourself, that’s the way to ensure the audience is kept excited too.

CHRIS (speaking in 2013): We do very well playing live and get a lot of money from it and we also do albums, which cost a fortune because we’re too self-indulgent. Back when we first started, we made all our money from record sales, because the whole industry was different then. It was the tours that we didn’t used to make any money on. Now it’s all geared towards us being an arena band – not Robbie Williams arenas though. In the early days, 10,000 people was unthinkable. We’d go on tour for six months, now you just do about 12 shows, so we do a UK tour every couple of years and some of the big festivals.

CARL (speaking in 2013): At this present time, many of Madness are engaged in personal projects, like Lee and Mark with the Ska Orchestra, Woody with The Magic Brothers, and Suggs with his one-man show and autobiography. But I think it’s healthy to express our individual voices. Personally, I find there’s a compromise when you’re involved with six others in the pursuit of creativity. So this new venture is an identity to represent a specific cycle of heartfelt songs that deal with relationship issues, falling in love and the pain of separation. The project began when I wrote two songs – Are the Children Happy? and Love Song No7 – in April 2005. I’d just separated from my wife and as the saying goes, I was feeling the feelings. When the words and music came I felt two things: one that I had truly found my voice and the other that I really was an artist. The songs were cathartic, so very personal and came directly from my heart. If songs can contain a moment and can capture the emotions, then these two songs contain how I felt then. I’d left my family home for the last time and saying it hurt doesn’t quite cover the emotional turbulence that consumed my every day. I decided that I would wait five years until I recorded and send them to her. I wanted to give time. Time to allow things to settle.

CARL: It was very moving. After every song my heart was in my throat; I felt ‘why haven’t I done this before? Many of the audience were moved to tears. It gave me the belief to finally pursue a solo career.

ANGELINA WARBURTON (harp player): Working with Carl was certainly fun. He only did six songs but it was very emotional and afterwards he seemed very pleased with how it had gone. The overall vibe I got from him is that he’s very chilled out and definitely doesn’t take himself too seriously. It’s so nice when the people you’re playing for actually make the effort to hang out and talk to you backstage. It doesn’t happen all that often.

SUGGS (speaking in 2013): We’re living in dark times and things are difficult at the moment, and it’s not that we’re idiots, but at the same time we like to think that life is a very special thing. And that’s what we try to talk about; the positivity. And if you come to see Madness live, you’ll leave feeling happier than when you arrived. And hopefully you feel the same when you listen to our records.

SUGGS (speaking in 2013): Playing sports stadiums is always an odd thing, you keep expecting someone to tap you on the back and say: ‘Where’s your ticket son?’ It’s happened to me enough times in my life. It’s great we are playing places that aren’t just major capital cities – it’s what we did in the early days.

NICK WOODGATE (Woody’s brother): The Magic Brothers project began in February 2010, when Woody came over to see me because I’d asked if we could write some songs for Madness together.

WOODY: Nick had been sending me songs for years and we began to get a really good creative relationship going. We were on the phone virtually every day, writing songs, sending stuff backwards and forwards and discussing notes and chords. Before we knew it, we had an album’s worth of demos and we thought, ‘Hang on, this is a really good body of work. What shall we do with it?’

NICK WOODGATE: Woody said, ‘OK, we can do three things: We can do them for Madness, I can put out the songs I like as a solo venture, or we can start a separate project.’ So we thought up a name and that’s what we did.

WOODY: After we made the decision to go in to the studio and record them for real, we decided to go for real musicians because there’s nothing like it. On guitar, we got in an old mate of Nick’s called Mike MacAvoy, who’d played with Stevie Winwood, Soul II Soul and Ian Dury. Then I went, ‘It really needs some brass,’ so I got Mike Kearsey from the Brass Monkeys. Then he heard the strings and woodwind I’d programmed and said, ‘Why don’t you get a quartet?’ So it just grew like that. I asked Simon Hale, who is an amazing pianist, and he said yes and then because I knew a bit about engineering, mixing and recording, we did it all ourselves instead of paying other people. And all of a sudden we’ve got this really brilliant album. Then another close mate said, ‘I can do you a website.’ So I went to see my accountant, because by now I’d spent quite a bit of money, and he said, ‘Woody, you might as well set yourself up as a record company.’ It all sounds very innocent but that’s because it was – all of a sudden I’ve got a record label and a website, I’m flogging the album and talking to press and journalists! Sound-wise, it was always going to be a bit Madness-like because The Magic Brothers have got one seventh of Madness in them. After all, I’ve had almost 35 years in Madness, so they were bound to rub off on me. But at the same time, it’s more kind of Beatles, Suprertramp, ELO, Pink Floyd – a very eclectic mix of music. Tracks like Part 2 are really sentimental and emotional, and then there’s You Don’t Have to Hide Your Love Away, which is all about someone who watches the world go by and has never ever been able to say sorry and pays the price for it by being alone. The one that I’m most proud of is the last track, The Magic Line, which is an orchestral journey and could be like the soundtrack of a Harry Potter film, but with drums and guitars. It’s got loads of soundtracks of 1970’s railways and police sirens and slamming doors; there’s a real atmosphere. We wanted to recreate the journey that Nick and I used to take to school in the morning, so we put all these sounds on it, to try and encapsulate our childhood. I even got my daughter Mary to do a little voiceover at the end. I said to her, ‘Look, this is all about a long journey and all I want you to do is go ‘We’re here’ all enthusiastically.’ She went, ‘Dad, do I have to?’ Then all I got from her was, ‘We’re here’ really sort of monotone and teenage voice. But it fitted perfectly.

NICK WOODGATE: Like a lot of the songs, it has a 70s feel because that’s where we draw most of our influences from and that’s the kind of music we wanted to recreate.

WOODY (speaking in 2013): Nick and I have already started to work on our second album. We’re a little bit torn between what we’re going to put on it and what we’re going to give to Madness because we’ve actually become quite a part of the Madness process now after writing a couple of songs on the last album. Madness will definitely begin recording a new album next year, and so will the Magic Brothers, so I think there’s going to be a bit of a bun fight over who gets what songs. It’s going to be great. So Madness will be in the studio next year doing the new album, and the Magic Brothers will be on the road, in between me being in the studio. It’s quite an exciting future.

SUGGS: Writing songs is very different to writing prose, so it took me a long time. Once I’d started I thought, ‘Fuck me, it’s hard.’ The fun times were easy to get down but trying to remember names and dates and places was quite difficult. That’s why I didn’t write it in any chronological order; I just wrote the things that came into my mind most clearly and then tried to make some sense out of it all. That’s why it does jump round a lot. I also wanted to write it myself as I have my own voice. The celebrity biographies I’ve read, you can tell when they’ve been ghost written, so I didn’t want to do it with a ghost writer. It’s my life and I wanted to be true to it. That’s also why it’s just about my friends and laughing about stupid things and how Graham McPherson become Suggs. It shows how everything that happened in my life was for a reason, and I’m where I am in the world today because of all those things. My upbringing could have been sensationalised as some horror or other, but it really wasn’t. I was as happy as a sandboy most of the time. It was my life passing by. I’ve loved my life, the crazed bohemian bit, the family bit, the band, everything. I’m Celtic. I’m always happy. Except for days when I don’t want to get out of bed.

SUGGS (speaking in 2013): If we just knocked out any old crap then we wouldn’t be held in high regard. Releasing new material adds to the pot of being perceived as a working band again, we aren’t just lolling on the lilo of novelty, we’re actually sailing around a bit on our own steam.

CHRIS (speaking in 2013): Yes, we’re doing Butlin’s again, which sounds horrendous, and is exactly what I thought when we were offered it. But it’s actually really good because we have films on, and DJs like Norman Jay and Don Letts. We have a lot of really good people on and lots of stuff happening. It’s such a good laugh I actually stay there. The first year they got us this hotel which was in this nice little village but you couldn’t get a phone signal and there were no restaurants. So now you just go out with your lovely fans, get blotto, and they see what an idiot you are. Obviously I couldn’t do it for a week, but a three-day thing is OK.

MIKE KEARSEY (trombonist, speaking in 2013): The Friday night gig felt like a homecoming. There had been a lot of rehearsal and preparation before the gig as the album had never been performed live in its entirety before – we’d done most of it for the Hackney shows but had never attempted Africa or Rainbows live. Because of this there was a real sense of occasion and excitement before and during the show and I hope that came across to the amazing audience on the night.

WOODY (speaking in 2013): It’s been very rewarding but there’s a hell of a lot of work that goes in to trying to get one show done. People say to us, ‘Why don’t you do the first two albums?’ which is all very well, but we’ve got to learn them. It takes quite an effort to remember them all, you know, apart from being old and not having very good brain cells anymore, it’s actually tougher than you think. A hell of a lot of effort goes into that one show on the Fri. You would like to take that Fri show on into other shows because you’ve put all that effort into it and then a song you’ve never played for years you might never do again.

SUGGS (speaking in 2013): I have a suspicion that if I don’t have a few tequila shots before I go onstage I won’t be quite as lubricated in the joints. Tequila and orange juice is the secret of keeping those limbs loose.

SUGGS (speaking in December 2013): We’re more excited about what we’re doing now than we were in the 80s. We’re back in the frame and there’s still a chance for us to do pop music without being seen as old fools. The plan now is to make another album next year and then do a really big Christmas tour.

CARL (speaking in 2014): This year is unique in that we have no shows coming up until June, so it’s an opportunity to work on other projects. I’m working on some new songs and, as ever, am looking forward to performing with the band – for me it’s the best aspect of being in Madness. It’s 35 years since One Step Beyond, so I hope to write some new songs with equal energy and spirit for our next album.

SUGGS (speaking in 2014): Pancreatic cancer is very close to my family as my sister-in-law died from it and I’ve met so many great people who suffer from it. It is very underexposed but luckily this fund-raiser has gone from strength to strength.

SUGGS (speaking in 2014): We’re about to start working on our next record. I’ve started writing some songs for the first time in a couple of years, in between doing my one man show. The trouble is, I keep getting caught up in other things when the band are writing albums and I’ve just been throwing in scraps that have had hanging around for years, so I want it to be different this time. I’ve always written about characters and have been trying to think about people in my life; I’ve always written like that. The main thing is we’re doing new stuff and people know we’re doing new stuff; it keeps the whole thing alive and keeps you alive. We’re hoping the new album will be out at the end of the year. Regardless of how it sells – and our albums don’t sell too bad, we still make a bit of money from them – the plan is to then do a big tour around Christmas time.

CARL (speaking in 2014): I’m coming to the completion of the album, which will be finished by mid-May. I might tidy up a vocal here and there and then Alan Winstanley will be mixing the tracks. I’ve worked with Alan over the years and feel very happy to have him mixing. Once in the can, my manager will then take it to various labels and I’m crossing my fingers that someone will believe enough in the music to release it. Some amazingly talented people have participated in the making of it, for which I am eternally grateful. I know it’s taken a while, but I believe the songs are timeless and it’s worth getting it right. I’m extremely pleased with it – it’s been a real labour of love.

DAVE ROBINSON (ex-manager, speaking in 2014): They haven’t changed from the guys who played my wedding and we’ve continued to get on well. They were working class and they’ve kept working class and I’m quite working class which is why everything fitted together nicely.

SUGGS (speaking in 2014): I’m always happy to be categorised as a working-class band. If only because we worked for a living as young people, at pretty menial jobs, and none of us had a particularly good education. And I was brought up in a council flat and all that sort of thing.

MIKE: Somebody wrote that we were all working class boys guilty at losing our roots. That’s a load of crap. We aren’t guilty about anything, I haven’t lost any roots to be guilty about. Maybe Dave has had a hard time in his life and sees himself as someone who has made good.

KERSTIN RODGERS (Mike’s ex-girlfriend): They’re not working class at all. The nearest was Lee. He was the rough side but they needed him to lend authenticity. He was very creative but he didn’t have the advantages that someone like Mike had. He didn’t come from a middle-class background, with the education. They were always on the outskirts, though. Chris lived on a council estate in Kentish Town. Some of them came from Gospel Oak which, in those days, was quite rough. Mark was a bit of an outsider. His parents were quite genteel.

WOODY: It does kind of piss me off that we’re called a working class band.

MIKE: I can’t stand it when people seem to think there’s something special about being working class. There’s nothing special about it and there’s nothing not special. Some people are and some people aren’t. I’m not. l see myself as lower middle class.

SUGGS: The basic demographic of the Madness audience is very working class . But all the way along the line, all we ever tried to say is our songs are about community; about humanity and, with a very small ‘s’, they’re about socialism. It’s about sharing. And that’s all we’ve ever tried to say. Personally, I’ve got nothing against the working class, white van man. I thought my name was ‘Suuugggsssyyy’ for about four years. That’s all I ever heard, white vans going past. I thought it had 14 fucking syllables.

SUGGS (speaking in 2014): The album is a jolly jaunt through the back waters of my musical mind. Although you will find some eclectic stuff that I hope may come as some surprise, it is mostly good solid songs that have got me going down the years.

CARL (speaking in 2015): I don’t think we’re particularly competing in the charts any more. The back catalogue of songs is what the majority of people want to hear; from 1979 to 1983, that was our heyday. So like most bands that have lasted a significant amount of years, you’re not playing a whole new album, you’re just playing the greatest hits and slot in a few new songs.

CARL (speaking in 2014): Madness was a gang thing and I think that my days of being in a gang are over for the moment. Leaving was a bit of a leap of faith, but there was very little discussion. It was a bit like that moment in American Werewolf in London where he’s in a hospital bed and wakes up from a bad dream, then another bit happens and he wakes up again. And that was what was happening – my sleep was slightly arrested and I was all over the place. I said to a friend, ‘I don’t know if I’ve found the plot or lost the plot.’ I just had an epiphany – it made me wonder what I really wanted and I realised I had to make some changes in my life.

CARL (speaking in 2014): We’re not talking and I don’t think they’re very happy with me. I imagine they’re annoyed because I realised I couldn’t do my own music and still be in Madness. Members have left before and come back again, but I was always the sheriff in the band and a control freak, getting things together. I reformed the band, I managed the band and I came up with the tour names, the photographs and the content for the programmes. So I’m quite control issue obsessive. But I had to focus on myself and take a break – whether it’s forever, for a month or for a year. And they probably need a break from me too; I come from a dysfunctional family, I was in a dysfunctional relationship and I know I’m a dysfunctional man.

SUGGS (speaking in 2014): In the old days you made money out of selling records and then you toured, but you didn’t really make any money touring. Now it’s the opposite. You make records that don’t make vast amounts of money, but playing live makes more money because the promoter’s deals are fairer and artistes have more idea about how the money is made. There are also more big festivals now than when we were young, so we make most money by playing live.

SUGGS (speaking in 2014): Doing 20 or 30 concerts a year like this is much more enjoyable than the old days. We used to tour for months and months on end, sitting about in sweaty old suits in the back of a van.

CARL (speaking in 2014): There is no comparing my solo work and being in Madness. One is not the other. I want my shows to be diametrically opposite to Madness so as to avoid all comparison and for them to be judged on their own worth.

CARL (speaking in 2014): I had attended a couple of Hep C events in Ibiza and got more involved and the more that I found out the more I felt that the charity was something of an underdog. Madness always did their bit for charity, like the Teenage Cancer Trust, yet I felt that The Hep C Trust could do with more awareness in our society and I could in some small way concentrate my efforts and be of some assistance.

SUGGS (speaking in 2014): Alf was a really tremendous person. I met him when he used to come down my road. I gave him my old wardrobe and he used to leave me cigars. He was a bright spark, a really inspiring person in this world of blandness.

RHODA DAKAR: It’s always a pleasure to work with old friends. I did like singing Feel So Fine, though it took some effort to sing up there in the gods on that raised stage! The Dangermen track I enjoyed most was You’ll Lose a Good Thing; Lee and I had some nice harmonies going on with that one.

CARL (speaking in 2014): Madness are out playing probably the biggest tour of England they’ve done in years right now and I’m not with them.

LEE (speaking in 2014): I do love Carl and I do miss him.

CARL (speaking in 2014): Many fans have expressed the desire for my return to Madness and I suppose the Magnificent Seven has a better ring to it than The Magnificent Six. Who knows what the future will bring? For the moment, I needed a break and the band thought so too and that’s cool. My dream is to return and we make the best album we’ve ever made. If it’s meant to be then it shall be so.

SUGGS (speaking in 2014): There is always the optimism that if any of us do fall out, that we will be friends again. It’s very hard to make new old friends.

SUGGS (speaking in 2014): It’s not quite an institution playing gigs at Christmas, but it’s heading that way. Christmas holidays, office parties and Madness; it’s a winning combination.

SUGGS (speaking in 2014): Every time you think it’s over, it comes back again, which is a great privilege. I’ve seen a lot of my contemporaries fall by the wayside, but there’s something about the energy and fun we had all those years ago that people still remember and hold fondly.

CHRIS (speaking in 2014): We’re very lucky; we’ve got longevity and we’re still doing arenas. From playing a pub with only one person to this – it’s all been pretty good.

SUGGS (speaking in 2014): We have been very fortunate. It’s a perilous industry and there are pitfalls. Some of us took a skid or two along the way, but nobody fell flat on their backs.

SUGGS (speaking in 2014): I think people were moved by the fact that this funny old band is still going and playing Buckingham Palace; in a way they see us as a group that represents them. But I think a lot of it is to do with our songs too. Each of those songs has been a little time capsule of people’s lives. Making good music is what it’s all about, and I do think we’ve managed to do that.

SUGGS (speaking in 2014): We are heading now towards planets yet uncharted, the main thing for me is that the enthusiasm of going forward is as equal to the nostalgia for what we have achieved. We still have the enthusiasm that we had when we were starting out as school kids; now people can come and see us and stand in awe.

CARL (speaking in 2015): You only really appreciate what you’ve got when you’re not in it. The way I look at it, I popped out for some fags and they all moved house while I was gone. But I’ll track them down eventually.

SUGGS (speaking in 2015): It is difficult and strange without Carl. Every one of us has a hiatus every now and again, and because of the momentum the machine keeps stumbling along. But you never know what’s round the corner with this band, that’s one of the great joys of it.

SUGGS (speaking in 2015): We started doing a few racetracks a few years ago and we’ve now organised our own tour of racetracks, cricket grounds and football pitches. We’ve cut out the middle man and we’re going to all sorts of beautiful places like Rhyl and Barnsley.

LEE (speaking in 2015): We haven’t done anything like it before, and it’s something completely different, which makes it all the more exciting.

SUGGS (speaking in 2015): It’s going to be the greatest tour since Boudacia. We’ll be going across the countryside rampaging and pillaging. We have our people working on designing a chariot even as we speak. It’s like preparing for war, a war of fun y’know? A war of fun and frolics but, unlike the Romans, we are going to unleash heaven.

SUGGS: My daughter was involved with The Pimlico Opera, who put on shows in prisons, and she suddenly announced, unbeknownst to me, that they’d put me up because they said they wanted to do a version of Our House. So I was in this young offenders’ prison for six weeks, working with a lot of kids who have never obviously done anything like this before and have very rarely been encouraged to do anything in their lives. And they’re thinking, ‘A musical? What am I doing here?’ The first couple of weeks we were literally just trying to convince them it was worth even trying, because they felt like they were being shown up in front of their mates. But by the end of it, their families and themselves were really moved by the whole thing, which I thought was the greatest compliment to the show because these are kids who ARE in prison and this story is about making the right and wrong decisions in your life and they were moved by it. And that was the most moving thing, for me, that ever happened to me within the process with this show. Y’know, it’s sad, I’ve read that it costs something like 50 or 60 thousand pounds a year, apparently, to keep one of these young offenders, and they’re not contributing anything. If you paid me fifty grand to hang around with a kid and try and work out what life skills he would have and put him in the right direction, that would be quite a rewarding job. I know that’s a bit utopian, but it seems to me a terrible waste to lock a kid up who’s 18 for three years and do nothing with him and then expect him to reintegrate into society with no life skills whatsoever – in fact worse than when he went in.

MIKE: We hadn’t really planned to start an album, but Chris was saying, ‘We’ve got to rehearse, we’ve got to rehearse.’ So for no particular reason we booked ourselves into a rehearsal room off the Holloway Road, which was about £20 a day, and we just hired the equipment in there and started rehearsing three days a week. It was only a little place, but we just wanted to do something small on our own.

CHRIS: You wouldn’t think Madness would rehearse in such a place, cos usually we’d have road crew and catering and all the usual palaver that goes with it, but we just decided we needed to do something different.

MIKE: In the past, we’d spend £150,000 making a record and then somebody would say, ‘I want to put a brass section on this track’ and the producer would say, ‘We can’t, we’ve got no money left.’ And then you get this sort of fighting at the end which means you can’t really be creative. We didn’t want it to be like that this time. We wanted somewhere where we didn’t have to take all our gear along; we wanted to just turn up, do what we wanted, then finish up and think no more about it.

CHRIS: Right from the start, it felt great – really relaxed and enjoyable. On the first day, we all started bashing around, and everyone was like, ‘Alright, who wants to come tomorrow?’ So we started going there on a regular basis. It was exactly like how we started off in the first place.

MIKE: It was a bit like in the early days. There were no expectations, no outside anything, just us, working on each other’s songs. We shed a lot of the baggage that usually comes with working which made for quite a nice and refreshing atmosphere.

CHRIS: We started to have a really great time because there wasn’t the pressure that comes with spending loads of money. Before, we’d spend a month somewhere and start to feel we’d better start recording. But here, everyone could just go home knowing we could have another bash the next day and get the songs just right.

MIKE: It definitely started to bear fruit because, even though we hadn’t gone in with any particular aim, everyone suddenly started coming in with songs and each one seemed really good. I don’t know if it was just us stuck in that little space with nothing else to do, but everyone seemed to be getting into it.

SUGGS: I think it was because we were collaborating more. Our management had noticed that, during Oui, we were getting more individual. We weren’t collaborating with each other so much to write songs, and we were aware a lot of our classic songs were co-writes. That’s quite abstract, in a way, as songs are just songs. But this time round, we all made a conscious decision to collaborate. So if Woody, Mike or anyone else had a tune, I would try to write lyrics and send them over and see what they came up with. Conversely, Chris would send me a tune and I’d write words to that. It was a different way of doing things because I used to always just write the lyrics first and send them to other people.

MIKE: Often when we’d worked together before, you’d start to think, ‘Oh that song’s not very good, how do I tell him?’ And meanwhile someone else is thinking, ‘I don’t like his song.’ But this time we just had a small bunch of songs that we all liked and thought were really good, and we were all working on closely together.

SUGGS: It was good because sometimes you have an idea that’s lying around and then someone will suggest something else and it reminds you that you had a verse or a chorus that might come in handy, so it was a mixture. There were also a lot more songwriting combinations than usual because we thought it would be nice if we shared it around a bit more. Because we’d all grown as artists, the people who used to write music could now write words and vice versa. So we encouraged that.

MIKE: When I thought we had enough songs, I just said, ‘I’ve had enough, I don’t want to do any more.’ I thought it was important to get a balance – and by that time they were all sounding pretty good.

CHRIS: So we got on with it, kept rehearsing the songs we’d chosen and then decided to play them on rotation on the Grandslam tour later in the year.

MIKE: We often started out like that – in the rehearsal room – then when we got to a certain degree, played the same tracks in front of an audience before we recorded anything. It’s the best way to do it because it takes you a step further. Often, when you make an album first, then you go on the road with it, you realise you could have made it better and start thinking, ‘Oh, it could’ve been this, could’ve been that.’

CARL (speaking in 2015): I realise this record isn’t Madness or ska but it’s something I’ve made for me, telling part of my life story, my way. Madness is very much a group energy, born of a male tribal thing we did 35 years ago, but this is a very personal individual voice and is about proving to myself that I really am a writer and musician in my own right. By doing it, I’m not trying to compete with Madness or the other band members, because I actually think it’s pretty cool that many of us have these side projects. Madness is a most amazing collective of characters, friends and creatives, it’s one of my main passions and has been since I was a teenager; a constant in my life and an evolving reality that continues to stimulate, frustrate, exhilarate and amaze. But going solo like this means that, for the first time, there’s no compromise in what I write, record and play. With six other band members there’s a lot of compromise involved, which is OK, but it also involves conflict. Now I don’t mind a bit of cut and thrust but working on your own material means that you get the final say. It sounds egotistical, but I know I was the spirit of Madness and brought the joy element, but right now I’m enjoying not fighting within the band for my voice. I’ve spent so long doubling Suggs and harmonising, it’s been great to find my own expression.

CARL (speaking in April 2015): The last nine months have been a roller coaster of change and challenge. It’s really weird not being in Madness and stepping outside after so long has felt scary. There have been a lot of deep breaths, but I know I’m doing the right thing. Madness was nothing but an adventure and from teenagers to men we achieved great things and still mean so much to so many people, yet at this point in my life I had to focus on the music and get it out of my system. I’d always written the same sort of stuff – Tomorrow’s (Just Another Day), Our House, Time, Johnny The Horse – which was essentially all in the same vein. It’s just that it got lost in Madness melting pot and this time around it’s more condensed.

SUGGS (speaking in 2015): Touring for years on end is what drains the lifeblood out of a lot of acts that I see, so each tour we do we try and make unique and special. This one’s special as no one has ever done something like this, as big as this, at sporting venues like this. We’ve written about six new songs that we’ll be trying out during the gigs, including one called Grandslam in honour of the tour itself, which we might use to get things started every night.

WOODY (speaking in 2015): We have this little superstition that we do, where we shake hands before every gig. But we only shake the hand of anyone who’s going on stage that night – no one else.

WOODY (speaking in 2015): We’ve trialled a few of the new songs on this tour which is a bit nerve-wracking as we don’t know them that well, but it’s only song per set, so it’s not too bad. And luckily they’ve had quite a good reaction.

LEE (speaking in 2015): Putting in new and different songs at each gig makes it more interesting. It’s great when we do the more obscure, die-hard fan favourites – from the stage you can just see little pockets of people that start bouncing, like a beehive.

SUGGS (speaking in 2015): Touring isn’t as mad as the old days; we ration it a bit. So instead of going crazy every night, it’s maybe one in three we go a bit haywire. Saying that, it’s a bit disappointing when you see your contemporaries and they’ve gone completely straight and they’re touring with their nutritionists.

SUGGS (speaking in 2015): In England alone, there are probably 20 more festivals than there were when we began. You’re playing to audiences who are there not just to see you. So by playing 40 or 50 festivals over the past five years we’ve managed to accrue a whole new generation.

WOODY (speaking in 2015): Magic Brothers was me and Nick, this one is just me making it more my way, so I recorded all the musicians and produced it. Even though he’s not on it, I couldn’t have made this record without Nick. He’s a prolific writer and sends me songs virtually every day, but because I’m a control freak I then change them all. He does come up with come cracking choruses but I have to be brutal and ask, ‘Can I sing it? does it go round In my head?’

DAN SHEARS (vocalist, speaking in 2015): I’ve really enjoyed working with Woody on this album. The album’s title track was a lot of fun to sing and has a real childlike innocence about it which I tried to convey in my vocal. I also really like Come To Me, which is the track where I’m probably most pleased with my vocal. It sits really comfortably in my range and has a nice groove. It’s very spacious and airy, I almost imagine the band playing it sitting on clouds… perhaps the Madness brass section could be the naked cherubs playing the horns?

WOODY (speaking in 2015): Madness always come first, but it would be nice to venture out and try to do a few live gigs with these songs – it could even be The Dublin Castle. I know Carl has done some nice venues and put in a lot of effort, so I’d like to go down that line too.

WOODY (speaking in 2015): It’s a measure of how much fun we’re having on this tour that during any time off, instead of catching up on all the household chores, we’re trying to cram the time with rehearsals. So we’ve been going back into our little studio in Holloway to continue to practise and write the next album. We’re currently writing some cracking songs and I’m really enjoying the rehearsals. Like fine wine and smelly cheese, we get better with age.

SUGGS (speaking in May 2015): We’re not sure when the album will be out, but we will be playing some of the new tracks at Butlin’s later in the year.

CLIVE LANGER (producer, speaking in 2015): They asked me to work on the new album a year ago, but 12 months has gone by and I still don’t know what they’re thinking. They’re very good on their own without a producer so I don’t know if they’ll need me at all. I’ve heard a lot of the new stuff and the one track that sticks out for me is Mumbo Jumbo.

SUGGS (speaking in 2015): Performing is a bit like some funny kind of drug that you can’t get anywhere else. It’s a very high adrenalin thing. And when you see the audience, what they’re getting out of it, it’s a very rewarding place to be.

SUGGS (speaking in 2015): I had a job on Blackheath when I was a kid. A friend of my mum’s had this art installation with inflatable bubbles that you could walk through. I was taking the money on the door and a load of kids came along and stabbed holes in it and the whole thing deflated. There were all these flailing bodes inside, sort of suffocating, and I was desperately trying to get them out.

SUGGS (speaking in 2015): There’s still a kind of Madness within the band. There are some pretty on-the-spectrum characters and that’s what’s made it such an interesting and challenging place – and I’ve got the scars to prove it. I remember hanging around with other bands and thinking, ‘Jesus! It can be like this? It’s not completely chaotic and anarchic and mad all the time?’ Which it pretty much is in Madness.

SUGGS (speaking in 2015): It’s a funny old cliché, but Madness always seem to do better in times of recession, not that we ever wished it upon anybody. Maybe during these periods people need a bit of cheering up and without being trite, our raison d’etre has always been about livening up a dull day. That was the reason for calling our last album Qui Oui Si Si Ja Ja Da Da – basically yes in several languages. Because there seems to be an awful lot of ‘no, no, no’ at the minute and we could do with a lot more ‘yes yes yes’, particularly in the lower orders of society.