Mojo - The Music Magazine

Do you sense the renewed appreciation of what The Specials meant, and continue to mean, to people?
Well, I start clamming up when I hear 'we named our children after you' and all that stuff. Listen, last year I was a school teacher. I still live in this grim Midlands town with the firm intention of keeping my feet on the ground. You're the journalist. You can tell me how influential I am. I just get up there and I play the bass. The context scares me in that respect. I still want to be the mild mannered guy who turns into someone else when he straps a guitar on. Nobody stops me in the street for an autograph. People ask Terry, Roddy, Lynval especially, but I can just walk through, and I like it that way.

If anyone has changed, it's Terry I suppose...
Well he grew up in public. He was 18, 19. We were older than Terry. Although it was only four or five years, musically it was a generation. He was brought up on The Clash and the Sex Pistols, where I was brought up on The Small Faces and The Spencer Davis Group.

Was it a shock when you first dealt with him again after all those years, the illness and the medication...?
It was like meeting Terry for the first time. He was very shy and introverted back then. And I don't think I ever knew him.

Not when you were in the band?
No, not the first time. That was the thing about having a big band like that. You could miss people. Now that wasn't always a bad thing, because if you've had a tiff with someone you can talk to five other people let that stuff cool down, or in our case you can let it fester [laughs]. We never fought physically, we just seethed an awful lot. There was a lot of passive aggression.

Is it very different this time?
I think the difference between then and now is this. Back then we all had the one agenda, or if we had other agendas they grated against the general, but now we've all got other agendas and it doesn't matter. Like Roddy's got his band The Skabilly Rebels, and they've just finished an album, wants to get that going. Neville's got his own solo band career. Terry does his own stuff. That's taken as something people do as well. It's not like this is the great mission it was 30 years ago.

Your take is quite pragmatic. I get the impression that Jerry still feels The Specials is a mission, but he's not in a position to define what that is anymore. At the very least, he thinks the Specials should be doing new music...
I don't. But I still believe in the songs. The songs still mean something and that makes me proud. We're not Spandau Ballet.

And as Terry pointed out at Glastonbury, it's all coming round again. For the NF read the BNP. The Specials' message is more relevant than ever.
Well, justice is timeless. Roddy and I played, not together, at a Love Music Hate Racism festival in Coventry. It was great. Lots of people there, just to support that.

Was it hard to get the band back to being a tight live unit?
It was like falling off a log! Because Lynval, Roddy and I played those songs in the Mark 2s and Special Beat. Every time Roddy goes on stage he plays Concrete Jungle and Skinhead Girl. Neville's been doing the songs. So it's not like we had to do a lot of wood-shedding to get our chops back. And after a couple of days Brad turns round and goes, 'It sounds just like The Specials!' Extraordinary.

You tour rather differently now. How does it work?
We travelled by train when we did our last reunion gigs! It was great, because he can sit over there, I can sit over there. And I do keep myself to myself when I'm touring and that isn't because I dislike everyone. It's because I know how I work and you can wear your welcome out very soon.

The space you're giving each other seems to be working...
These people are my friends again. But I know how easily it can break down by spending too much time, unnecessary time, in too close a proximity. With that in mind it's worked really well. But Brad is a different person, and Terry... he's a delight. When he's telling his jokes, he's really very dry, very funny. And Lynval is a lovely man. He's worked really hard to get this thing going. It is a joy to see him after a show and he's like, 'Oh wow, look at all those people and all the fun they've had!'

As far as you're concerned, why is this happening now, rather than, say, five or ten years ago?
Like you said earlier, the time is right. The Specials Mk 2 never worked because it was rave culture. Popular culture has turned around and people come to see us. You know, that first gig we did in Newcastle was probably one of the high points of my life. We had the hardcore of the hardcore who had waited all their lives to see this. And they were there and shouting and screaming. My life flashed before my eyes. Twice I think. And then we're off. We'd rehearsed, done soundchecks, but not in front of the people, but too late now, and the drums started and we were off. And it was amazing.

You mentioned the manager issue. Rick Rogers and Warren Middleton and Terry's man, Steve Blackwell: it could have been a bit of a clusterfuck. Terry said to me, 'Perhaps we need a manager for all the managers...'
We kept our distance originally. Neville was suspicious of people's intentions. He hasn't had a very good experience of managers, and Warren has done very well for him. It was very difficult for him to swap allegiances. But we stressed that we weren't taking Neville away from his band; we're just borrowing him. And Roddy has spent time and energy over the past three years getting his band together to release an album. This is not exactly an intrusion, but it's kind of difficult to have two separate heads on: a band leader over there, and a band member over here. That's one of the things - everyone's used to singing the songs differently, so they've all got to get together and learn to sing in one way.

What do you feel could be next?
I like the idea of the Specials rhythm section on other people's records. That might be quite interesting. If you're a singer-songwriter or solo act and you wanted to do a ska or reggae tune... a bit like Sly & Robbie. That'd be a nice thing to do. Brad and I have got our chops together now, we could do that. I'd like to try it anyway.

And The Specials could tour every couple of years?
Madness do it. They do their month on, eleven months off [laughs]. They've just had a new album out. Then again, they've got seven or eight albums worth of material. Our repertoire is limited to about 28 songs, some of which we don't particularly like. I don't think we'll be doing Maggie's Farm I the near future...

So after Christmas, are there any plans?
The plan is to leave England alone next year, unless something wonderful comes up. And I think there are loads of festivals in Europe. We could just work weekends. There was talk about going to America. Though our first attempt wasn't particularly successful - and the work the "Number 2s" did over there devalued our stock. But there's loads of places we could go. I understand South America is a burgeoning market. We spent the latter part of July in Australia and did three cities. It's amazing the amount of people who used to live in Coventry who now live in Australia, and they all came to the show. So I suppose we could go back there and play a few more cities.

Can you envisage any recording?
No, not at present. It's not a thing we've talked about. Give the people what they want, and people want to hear A Message to You, Rudy, Too Much Too Young and Rat Race.

But there's a DVD on the way...?
The Brixton shows we recorded, and there's talk of filming one of the shows Wolverhampton which will be released as a live DVD next year. Lynval's daughter has been following us around with a camera - she's a film maker - so she's been doing everything from the earliest rehearsals to the shows in Japan, backstage stuff as well. I'm looking forward to seeing it. Lots of arguing about set lists!

Interview by Danny Eccleston

Horace Panter was interviewed for Enjoy Yourself... It's Later Than You Think, the Specials feature in the latest issue of MOJO magazine.

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