Mojo - The Music Magazine

The "Henry Kissinger" of The Specials retraces the long dark road to reunification...

LYNVAL GOLDING SAYS HE WAS drawn to his current home in Seattle by "the ghost of Jimi Hendrix", but the late Strat magus isn't the only shade playing a role in the events that have recently overtaken him. There's the memory of Specials superfan Keith, terminally ill when Golding promised him, in 2008, that by hook or by crook he would bring the Specials back together on stage. And the shadow of Jerry Dammers, whose own vision of a reunited Specials was so at odds with that shared by the other six band-members that he has been excluded - or has excluded himself (it's a grey area). Golding, the ebullient, Jamaican-born rhythm guitarist who helped define the Specials' groundbreaking ethnic mix (and - in dark days he hopes are not returning - suffered a life-threatening racist attack), will admit to moments of despair en route, and yet all legal, logistical and emotional minefields have somehow been negotiated. In this transcript of the interview he gave Danny Eccleston for MOJO's Specials feature, he reveals the mantra that brought him safely through the storm: "It's not about us, it's about the fans..."

The Specials reunion: everyone says it couldn't have happened without you...
It's been six years of absolute... If there's a hell, I've been through it and back. For me it started [in 2003] just before the 25th anniversary. I just thought it would be nice to get together and play some music. But it needed more time to get over all the obstacles that were in the way.

Obstacles including Jerry Dammers?
At one stage I was the only one that Jerry was talking to. But it made no sense for us to go forward and do a Specials reunion date with two members of the band. That didn't make any sense to me. So I pushed and pushed, travelled between London and Seattle, visited Jerry a lot and spent time with him in his home studio and pushed for more communication, not just with me but with the rest of the guys. That was the key to everything. I tried until I couldn't get any further with him. Horace [Panter, bass] calls me the Henry Kissinger of the band.

And there were issues to resolve with Terry too? After Fun Boy Three?
I hadn't talked to Terry in years, and we had a chat. There's history where we're coming from. But Terry was the youngest one in the band. He was an 18-year-old youth, and the difference between an 18-year-old youth and a grown man... it's a totally different phase. We were able to say, Well, shit happened then, but that was then. Let's move on, and celebrate what we've achieved. So we talked and talked and built up a relationship.

It's your tenacity and positivity that's kept it alive...
I think it was everyone's. Without the other five members, we could not have done this. I bent over backwards to get Jerry. I worked hours and hours and did everything possible. But some of Jerry's demands... his criticisms, I think the audience have answered, y'know? They want to hear the music the way it was recorded... But the audience also feel let down by Jerry not being there. It's sad that he couldn't put the differences behind him and put the family first.

But Jerry doesn't seem to believe you ever wanted him back in the band...
We wanted to play the songs that we recorded. Those were the records that our audience bought, and that's what they wanted to hear. But Jerry had slightly different ideas from the majority of guys in the band.

Was it your job to tell him he couldn't be in on his terms?
It was a trauma time for me. When we did the Bestival, for the first 20 seconds I was so sad because he wasn't there. He should have been there.

Jerry said you compared him with Bill Wyman, presumably meaning that if the Stones could continue without Wyman, The Specials could continue without Jerry Dammers. Wasn't that a bit harsh?
He must have wrote that quote himself because I don't talk like that. I tried to ask him, Where did you get that from, Jerry? That is not the tone I use. It's nothing at all to do with me. Where would I have got that from? I love the man dearly. But there's a lot of things he's saying that I don't understand, like saying that Neol Davies was the first guitarist in the band and that I came along later. But that's totally totally nonsense. It was never like that. It was me and Jerry and Silverton [Hutchinson, drums], and we grew from there. Neol Davies never played with us. There's some rewriting the history of 2 Tone. Just think about it. Where did the ska and reggae come from? I was the one born in Jamaica. I was the one who brought [Dandy Livingstone's] Rudy, A Message To You to Jerry. It came from my father's record collection.

How does it feel, being onstage with The Specials again?
I never realised how much John Bradbury puts into the Specials' sound. He is the backbone of the Specials, the reason it sounds so good every night. I've played these songs live with other drummers and always wondered why it never sounded the same. Hello, it's the drumming! It's like the Who before and after Keith Moon. No comparison. You learn these things later on in life. We were young back then and never bothered to break it down and see why it worked. Silverton was a lovely guy and a good drummer, but it was Brad who made the Specials sound, made the riddim danceable.

What do you get out of it emotionally?
When I met Lily Allen in Seattle, and I played Blank Expression with her, it struck me that the last time I had played that song, that girl wasn't even born yet. I saw a guy in Sheffield, a 45-year-old guy in tears because he never thought he'd see it. That's when it comes home to me what we've done.

You see, where I live in Seattle is out in a suburb on the way to Olympia. I'm surrounded by trees. I'm out in the woods, and I've been cut off, not realising the impact of our music on other people. A little girl told me, she couldn't have been much older than 9, she said her favourite song was Why? That was my song about being attacked by racists. That kind of thing makes me realise that the Specials wasn't just for yesterday's youth. It says something to today's youth as well.

Back in 2004, Neville rang the MOJO office, quite positive about a reunion. There must have been a fair amount of optimism around that time...
It was when [football entrepreneur] Simon Jordan got in the picture. Simon tried to organise a meeting with all of us. He rang me at my home in Seattle and he booked me a flight over, and I thought I was coming over for a big meeting and we'd all talk about letting bygones be bygones and move on. I was on my way to the airport when Jerry rang to say that he hadn't been invited to the meeting. I thought that was crazy. Jerry *had to be in the meeting. I thought, Well if that's the case I'm not going either. So I went to my mate Andy's house for a couple of bottles of beer and a jam in his studio. As far as I was concerned if Jerry wasn't there it wasn't a meeting.

I did eventually meet up with Simon and we got on. And later, I had a meeting with Jerry and Brad in a London museum - among all them ancient relics we fitted in just right. We were a little back room because Jerry didn't want no-one to see us meeting. We talked and things got quiet again. I would keep pushing and keep pushing, but Jerry just wasn't being accommodating at all. We were happy to meet halfway but Jerry wasn't.

Then we had one more meeting, at King's Cross [in October, 2007]. Where we all got together for the first time. Jerry said that if we reformed the band without him in it then he was going to sue all of us. I just thought, Great way to start a meeting! I left that meeting and just went straight to Jamaica thinking, Do I ever want to see these guys again, let alone play in a band with them? This is just too painful... We were just so depressed.

After the King's Cross meeting you had some rehearsals, a couple with Jerry, so there was still a hope, even then, that a deal could be struck...
There was one I went to with Jerry. Horace and Roddy turned up very late because there was this huge traffic jam coming from Coventry. Neville came for half an hour and then had to disappear, he had a gig in Brighton. We just had a little jam basically.

Then there was another rehearsal. I wasn't at it, because I was in America. That was in Coventry and it was Jerry and Terry, Horace and Roddy. Roddy was quite depressed about that. Roddy says he wasn't very comfortable with the tempos Jerry wanted.

Read Part 2: the Bestival crisis, the Terry Hall revival, the tragedy of Keith... and Jerry