Suggs, the lead singer of beloved British band Madness, appeared on the 350th episdoe of 101 Part Time Jobs Podcast this week.
In the episode, Suggs shares stories about his shortlived careers as a butcher/gardener/painter/plasterer, getting kicked out of Madness, realising the band might have a future, on why their music still resonates and much more.
Leaving School at 14/15 to work at a Butchers
“The first one was a butcher's. I used to work there in the summer holidays and then I sort of stopped going to school when I was about 14 or 15. And they offered me a job as an apprentice which I took, but it's a really weird situation - apprenticeship at a butcher's.”
“I was the one fishing hairy hamburgers out of the cabinet at the front and carrying great big carcasses off the lorry. And in fact, there was a thing called ‘butcher slang’, which really aint that sophisticated, it’s basically just words backwards. It took me a while to realise my name was ‘Yzal’. And it was a little while before I realised it was just lazy backwards. But I didn't last very long there, I used to sort of get a bit knackered. I’d sneak upstairs to the upstairs toilet, lock the door and try and have a snooze on the toilet seat but I got caught doing that one too many times!”
“The great thing about that life was that you started about six in the morning, and at midday everyone was in the pub. As an underage drinker, I was slipping in pints with the rest of them. And then I remember the manager of the pub would always have a bottle of port on the counter for the customers at Christmas, but he drank most of it himself before the doors were opened!”
Getting sacked from the band
“We were just a bunch of friends. And then a couple of the band started to take it seriously. But I didn't really, you know, I had no intention of being a singer. It's a complete coincidence that they asked me because it was quite charming or whatever. And then what the biggest day rehearsing was on Saturdays and I used to go to football, I was a big Chelsea fan. I started running out of excuses like ‘oh my Aunt died’ or ‘my cat needs to go to the vet’. And unfortunately, I appeared on that edition of match of the day. You could see me at the front. So the game was up, and I got sacked. I only found out because there was an advert in the back of the Melody Maker, which was a music paper in those days. That said, it said semi professional North London bound seek professionally minded singer. When I looked, I saw it was our keyboard player, Mike's phone number and I thought what's going on here? So I phoned him up. And I put on a posh voice and I said ‘hello yes, I’ just enquiring about the job singer’. I said, ‘just out of interest. What's happened to the old one?’ He said, ‘oh we’ve had to let him go, not taking it seriously enough’ I said, ‘you bastard. It's me.’ And Mike said ‘oh Suggs! Yeah, mate sorry. I meant to tell you. But listen, we could do you with you back in the band.’ I said ‘oh yeah’, he said ‘yeah playing drums’. I said ‘playing drums’. I said ‘what’s happened to John’, he said, ‘oh he’s auditioning for singer’. I said ‘You can stuff it’”
On returning to the band and first realising it was going somewhere
“Anyway, there I am playing drums very badly. But no, that was a real turning point where I realised. I went, they played at a school in Camden and all these girls were screaming down in the front, and I just suddenly realised this is starting to go somewhere and I shouldn't be out there and not down here. And fortunately, the singer they had went away, and I was the only one who knew the song. So they, didn’t want to, but they had to ask me back. And that was the moment when I realised Yeah, I have to turn up to rehearsals and I have to be responsible for my own involvement in this band. Absolutely.”
On doing odd jobs during the bands 5 year break
“We were asked to plant six pine trees outside this mansion in St. John's wood. And as I've said before, do you realise how big a hole you have to dig for the root ball of a tree? Right, really big. And after the first hole, we get that and I thought we can get our skates on, I thought ‘right bollocks to this’. So I took the executive decision just to saw off the root ball and stick the trunk of the tree between two bricks and hope for the best. And we ran for our lives. I remember going past a few weeks later and all the trees were going out or brown and dead or falling over. And that was the end of the gardening career, you know great times you know Happy Days on summer afternoons. You know? Mowing lawns and all that was a nice time again.”
“And for those in the know, sizing a wall is painting it in a certain kind of glue, so I didn't put wallpaper on it. So that was the only time with painting and decorating. Then he says ‘no, no, no’, he says ‘all the money's in plastering’. Loads of money.
Well, after our first day, there was more plaster on my head than there was on the scene. And I have this theory - Conspiracy one that I worked out with Russell Brand, that plastering doesn't actually exist. Has any human being actually seen a plasterer at work. No. All they do was while you're out, paint the walls pink because wet substances do not stick to ceilings. You try trialling jelly on a ceiling and see what happens. Again, that job was over and done within a couple of days, as I say went on and on and on and on.”
On touring as you get older
“If you asked me about any of those early gigs, I couldn't remember things. It was just a lot of heads, flying hats, flying in the air, arms going up and down. And it's just a blur because you're just in this adrenaline. And now when I play a gig, I really, really appreciate it. I've got the space in my mind to look at the audience and still enjoy it and be as energetic as I can. But to actually appreciate, you know, what a great privilege is to be in a band and after all these years, which is again, very rewarding.”
On Madness’ music still resonating after 45 years
“We've been doing concerts now, and I've actually been at one where we've had four generations, you know, granddad, mum, dad, great grandad. And, you know, people ask me, and I have no idea why that music still resonates. But, you know, God bless it. And, again, it's something that I feel is a privilege because it doesn't happen to everybody. Do you know what I mean? I mean, a lot of my contemporaries fell by the wayside, not wishing to beat myself up too much. But we just keep going. And it’s like every year comes around and another massive tour, and our saxophone player said last year, ‘when can I retire?’ I said ‘they won’t let us’.”
“We always had a great sense of entertainment, and, you know, sometimes we were castigated for being a bit too foolish, but on reflection when those songs were analysed, were actually very cleverly, constructed pop songs. But we're also really interested in that, which was a new thing, which was the video, MTV was this whole new thing, and we were just all extroverts, you know, and then the chance to dress up and mess around was totally, you know, impossible to avoid. And I think our first incarnation ended when we ran out of things to dress up as. We've been mushroom flowers, coppers, cowboys, traffic wardens. I think that sort of legacy resonates, you know what I mean, in terms of people thinking, do I want to, you know, we know, we're gonna be entertained. You know, some bands are really good musicians. Some bands are really good entertainers. And we've kind of sort of got into the middle of those two art forms.”
