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Tales Of Ordinary Madness

Madness

Article from International Musician & Recording World, August 1985

The Camden Cowboys are back with a fresh outlook and a new IP on the way. Jonathan James investigates


Over the years they've shed their wacky Two-Tone image and gained a reputation as maverick musicians, video pioneers and would-be record label messiahs. Now they're back with another off-centre masterpiece and Madness reigns once more.


Madness. Remember them, Britain's finest (no contest) Pop band? They seemed to have disappeared over the last year or so, following the departure of keyboard player Mike Larson for a life of domestic bliss. Admittedly, there was the Feargal Sharkey single, which they all played on, then there was the less than megapopular Mutants In Mega City One from Carl (aka Chas Smash) and Suggs masquerading as the Fink Brothers. And Mark played bass on Shipbuilding by Robert Wyatt, and he and Woody provided the rhythm section on Strawberry Switchblade's first single; and Chrissy's been playing guitar with Tom Morley, once of Scritti Politti, and now signed to Zarjazz. And of course there was leaving Stiff, turning Zarjazz into a proper label, signing with Virgin, listening to demo tapes sent in by new bands, signing Charmschool...

So naturally, the first question that occurred to me when I met Woody, Mark, and Chris in their Caledonian Road offices was this: just what have you been doing since we last heard from Madness?

Chris: "Well, we went rowing yesterday..."

Mark: "We've been making our album, doing demos and stuff. We've really prepared ourselves for this. We started off in AIR, then went to Clive Langer's studio in Shepherds Bush — Westside. That's where we're finishing it."

Woody: "It needs a few more overdubs."

IM: Do you enjoy recording?

W: "I love it meself."

M: "Me 'n' him are the only two who really play together in the studio — all the others record separately — so it is more enjoyable for us."

C: "What we used to do is record Mark, Woody and Mike, then Mike would take a break — and I'd start doing the guitars. This time we did it differently, as we've done lots of the vocals first instead of leaving them till last — me and Lee are the last (but Lee's sax is always last)."

W: "Old Suggs is able to see more of what the song's really about; because the lyrics can often change the whole way you play the songs, it's better not to slap them on last."

IM: Do you demo the songs before going into do the record?

M: "If we're making an album, we book a lot of rehearsal time, and everyone will come in with their ideas on tapes. We all rehearse together, the whole band, to slog it out. Usually you've quite a bit of the fundamental part of the song already on the tape."

IM: How do you decide which songs are Madness songs?

M: "It's not a question of style, there are no barriers like that — it's whether they sound as good as the others."

C: "I think Clive Langer has quite a big say in that — if he doesn't like it, he won't produce it. I think we've probably not recorded 18 songs... some of the ones we did in the studio here, like that Robert Blink one, we never did that again..."

M: "Shame that."



Chris: "I play guitar — six strings"
Mick: "Red guitar — four strings"
Woody: "I've just changed my 20" Gretch bass drum for a 22"


W: "One of the songs I did, which Mark helped me with — that only didn't pass the test because none of us could come up with lyrics for it."

M: "We play every tape we do — have a crack at every song."

C: "We usually drop the ones that aren't any good at the rehearsal stage; we record everything we've rehearsed, to see how they come out."

W: "We have to see how they feel."

M: "Our House went through so many changes..."

M: "...we played it about four different ways, until in the studio we changed it again."

W: "Once you find it, it's there; but it can be a long struggle."

C: "When we used to tour a lot, we could shove in a couple of new numbers to test audience reaction. Now we don't tour at all we can't."

W: "We did do a wee gig — a tester — at the Bull & Gate, for the songs on the new album. If they don't stand up live, you can learn a lot."

IM: Why don't you tour anymore?

C: "When Mike left... We need a keyboard player, and we still need one now. We had Paul Carrack, but he's got his own career. He would have been ideal. And we've spent a lot of time negotiating our deal with Virgin, things like that."

W: "It got to be a routine of demo/album/tour/press/tour..."

M: "We made the first LP, then went on tour for 18 months; we worked for ¾ of those first two years. We had to slot making records in. We wrote the second LP in four weeks. It is quite an exciting thing to do, and the records do sound very 'rough diamond'. They were good for their time, because that's what we were like then."

W: "But if you work solidly to earn enough bread to do the things you want to do in life, and you don't have enough time to do the things you want, then it gets a bit pointless."

M: "We tried to change for the third album — we went to Nassau to record. But because we don't write in the studio, we just flew out there, and cracked the songs down — a real working holiday."

IM: Has not having a keyboard player changed the way you rehearse and record?

W: "Strangely enough, not a great deal."

M: "When Mike was with us, we'd have the idea on a tape, and we'd all stand around the keyboard working it out, and we'd knock up an idea that way. All we do now is take it to the other keyboard player."

W: "When we finally settled in with a new keyboard player, we'd go from vague ideas into a fully-fledged song quite easily, just like we used to."

IM: Who else has been playing with you, apart from Paul Carrack?

C: "James Mackie from the Selector did some TVs, and Saturday Night Live. Mick Weaver played on the Feargal Sharkey single. Roy Davis — he plays Jazz or something — when we were writing the songs for this album, he was there all the time, and he played on the record. And Steve Naive came in at the end — he's really good. Mike was influenced by him, so some of the stuff sounds almost as if it is Mike."

IM: Do you miss Mike?

C: "I don't know..."

W: "There's got to be a side of Mike as a character... and his musical style, obviously we miss that — but I expected it to be a lot more so. It's strange it's not."

IM: What home recording stuff do you use for preparing song demos?

C: "Woody Woody Woody!!!"

M: "Give him a couple of hours..." In fact, Woody had to much to say about his home recording set-up, enough to fill a future Home Taping feature — should follow in next months' issue. In the meantime Chris had a thing or two to say about his home recording experiences.

C: "First thing I did was really hard. I had two tape recorders, and I'd record on one, then play it back on the other one through the speakers, and play along with it. It was difficult because they both ran at different speeds. Frustrating. Then Dave Robinson (Stiff Records' boss) gave us these little Tensai boxes..."

W: "They started me off."

C: "...like a cassette radio, and it had a little drum machine in it with different rhythms. And you could record two tracks on it. A great idea, but they didn't market them right.

"I had that for a while, then it broke and I got a Portastudio — the one that records on all four tracks at once — which was really useful. I had that for a long time, until we did a deal with Fostex, and I got an eight-track. I have been thinking of getting a 16-track... I think that whatever you pay for it, if you write a song you can use on it, and it earns you enough money to pay for the machine, then it's worth it.

"I've got a little mixing desk..."

W: "He's got a Fostex 350."

C: "The funny thing is, after Mike left, we all started buying keyboards; me, Mark, Carl, we've all got JX3Ps, and I've got a Yamaha MK100, which is really good, as you can record chords and melodies on it. I've started playing keyboards all the time — I hardly ever play guitar — and all the songs I've written lately have been on keyboards. I was getting quite good at the guitar, but I'm not... er... very good anymore. Thing is, when you're playing keyboards, you can hear all the different notes and inversions, whereas on guitar, it's all C, F, and G. I finally decided I like piano best, so I've bought a Yamaha upright piano."

M: "I've got a DX7, but nothing to record it on. I keep the ideas in my head. I'm not the biggest writer in the band, though if Suggs has got some lyrics, I might go round and play guitar to him. I like that bit of tension you get between two people.

C: "We've all got Yammy RX11 drum boxes. I had a Roland TR808, but I sold it, and I wish I hadn't. It's got some good sounds on it — those claps!"

W: "Have you heard the TR909?"

C & M in unison: "We're off!"

IM: Who picks your singles?

C: "Up until now, Dave Robinson. When we started with Stiff, he said One Step Beyond, and we all said 'nah, never'. We always disagreed with him, but after a while, it was obvious he was always right.

"The last one — he was going for Victoria Gardens so we edited it, did different bits, and then he said One Better Day. But usually, once he'd decided, he'd get pretty positive about it, get everyone vibed up, and then start thinking of ideas for the video. I suppose now we see what Virgin say."



Chris: "The funny thing is, 
after Mike left, we all started buying keyboards"


IM: Does Clive Langer have a say, as your producer?

Chris & Mark, simultaneously:

C: "No."

M: "Yes. Well, yes and no: there are always a few tracks that stick out."

C: "Once the decision's been made, we all get behind it. There's no moaning to the press about how we didn't like it, or it was the record company's fault."

IM: Let's get technical again for a moment — what do you play?

C: "I play guitar — six strings."

M: "Red guitar — four strings..."

C: "I used to use a Tele, then I bought a Strat from Woody's brother when we did the second album, and I liked the old wanger bar; then I bought a Fender The Strat, which is about the best guitar I've got. I've used that on this LP, and a Dobro.

"Clive and Allan (Langer & Winstanley) are always whinging at me to use a Marshall and a Gibson, so I did use a Les Paul on a couple of songs. I've bought a Gretsch, but I don't use that much, and I've got two Teles now. And a Vox Les Paul copy which cost £30 on tour, and won't stay in tune. As for amps, I've got a Boogie, a Fender Twin, and an HH, which Woody's probably got. I bought that HH cheap while we were doing the first LP, and I had it in the studio — they kept saying to me 'use the Fender, not that old HH', but when they went back into the control room where they couldn't see me, I used to plug back into the HH — they never knew...



Mark: "I've got a DX7 but nothing to record it on... I'm not the biggest writer in the band"


"And I had this Burns amp which looked like an electric fire. It was so old; the speakers were all torn, and when we took it to be mended once, they found mouse droppings inside it. But it sounded brilliant. Every now and then a resistor would go, and the replacements they gave me wouldn't fit because they were a quarter of the size — technology has advanced so far since it was made."

Mark?

M: "I've got a red Fender Precision, 1960, which is a year older than me. I love those flat necks. I've also got a black 1963 Precision, a Telecaster, a Gretsch Tennessean, and a WAL I use in the studio occasionally. I don't really get on with that, as there are too many ways of fiddling with the tone on it — too many complicated knobs. The Precision's so simple to use.

"For amps, I used to use Ampeg SVTs — I had the Reggae one, the V4, with the reflex cabinet. Really heavy, so much bass."

W: "You wrote Great Day on that."

M: "The main problem with the Ampegs, and Fenders, which I also like, is that by the end of the show, all the heat makes the valves begin to lose quality (top mainly), which is incredibly annoying, particularly if you play like Woody and I play, when I'm on the bass drum all the time; you need it to be punchy.

"So I've had this amp built by Bill Kelsey — he'd built one for Norman Watt-Roy that I'd tried. It's a Grown amp, Ashley pre-amp, and a parametric, all racked up with a compressor built in. I had 2 x 15" cabinets made up, two of them, with full range JBL speakers — E120s? — which I think are brilliant. We use JBLs in the studio, in the office, everywhere. I've also got a Boogie bass amp with a 1 x 15" JBL which is good in the studio."



Woody: "My next acquisition will be a Yamaha bass drum. The new ones are phenomenal, just like a piano."


IM: Tell us about your drums Woody?

W: "I've just changed my 20" Gretsch bass drum for a 22"; it's weightier, more poke, plus the fact that my pedal's quite high and never used to land in the middle of the drum. Er... my toms are double-headed, and one of them sits on a Tama snare stand. I like the quick release action on the Sonor stands, and I prefer the ordinary mechanism on the copper-shelled Black Beauty. The Ludwig Acrolite snare is really light, but it's got a mean crack to it, and the Slingerland pedals I had to wait six months for as the firm is no more. As for the cymbals, I don't know if those Zildjian's qualify as New Beats anymore, as they're the first proper cymbals I ever bought — 11 years ago!

W: "I do have an alternative kit — a Simmons V, but I only use two toms in with my real kit. The thing is, you can go on tour with real toms, and spend every single day tuning them up, changing their heads, and they can be a pain in the bottom; but in the long run, they sound a whole lot better. The Simmons is good, but I'm a bit tired of their sounds. My next acquisition for studio work will be a Yamaha bass drum. The new ones are just phenomenal, just like a piano; a 22" one for me, I think. The Gretsch is lovely, but it's really noisy in the studio — unless they've been meticulously padded out they ring. The Yamaha sounds as accurate as an RX11 bass drum. Isn't talking about drums boring? I'd rather just play them..."

IM: Which Madness songs do you enjoy playing most? Name one:

C: "Give Me A Reason, I like that one."

M: "Kitchen sink, that one..."

W: "I think Tomorrow's Dream; I enjoyed playing it live very much... because it took me long enough to learn the bastard."

M: And I liked It Must Be Love, because we really pulled that Labi Siffre song apart, and we did it well."

C: "I remember when I did the solo on that: that was well spontaneous — what a cracker! I hate doing solos."

IM: Have you got any plans to release a Complete Madness II?

W: "One of the things that really upset me from that LP was the way they varispeeded it — speeding all the songs up..."

IM: Hmmm... but I was referring to the video compilation. Who used to direct your promos?

C: "Dave Robinson used to direct them, but he got a bit more credit than his due, because really he just used to shout at everyone.

"Usually when we get in front of a camera, it comes out pretty good. I think the last two — Michael Caine, and One Better Day were a bit serious..."

M: "But we thought the videos were getting a bit formula."

W: "It came to the crunch in It Must Be Love when he got Lee in the old bee's outfit. He had all kinds of other ideas..."

M: "It was just an easy option, wasn't it, just to get the costumes on and fill it out. I'm not knocking it because we felt it was really good, just it was getting a bit stale."

Although a lot of people expected Mike Barson's departure to ruin Madness, preliminary reports of their new (at the time of writing) unmixed LP are favourable — more strong songs and intelligent lyrics. It's obvious from Mark, Woody and Chris' conversation that his absence has left a musical deficit which has yet to be made good, but it seems these difficulties might just be the spur the band needed to help them on to higher things. They're not sane yet.


More with this artist



Previous Article in this issue

Tona De Brett's Vocal Points

Next article in this issue

Musical Micro


Publisher: International Musician & Recording World - Cover Publications Ltd, Northern & Shell Ltd.

The current copyright owner/s of this content may differ from the originally published copyright notice.
More details on copyright ownership...

 

International Musician - Aug 1985

Donated by: James Perrett

Artist:

Madness


Role:

Band/Group

Interview by Jonathan James

Previous article in this issue:

> Tona De Brett's Vocal Points...

Next article in this issue:

> Musical Micro


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