Level 42

Bass legend Mark King says Chaka Khan's presence at Radio Two In The Park this weekend is cause for excitement within Level 42's ranks.

The Isle of Wight-born slap-style exponent is fronting his band at the Stirling extravaganza on Sunday – but says the six-piece are considering heading north early to catch "Queen of Funk" Khan's headline set the night before.

Describing the weekend's line-up as "really amazing", King said: "We might even have to get up there for Saturday night because I'm such a huge Chaka Khan fan.

"She's been there throughout my musical life. Back in the late 70s when Rufus came through it blew me away and I think that all of us in the band would love (to see) Chaka.

"Our drummer Pete Biggin has actually played with her once or twice a few years back – she's amazing. We'll be rehearsing on the Saturday and hopefully we can race up the motorway and catch a bit of her set."

Saturday's line-up at R2ITP also features The Script, ABC, Emeli Sande, Jack Savoretti, Lulu and Texas. Level 42 are joined on Sunday by headliners Simple Minds, plus James Blunt, Blue, Cast, Appleton and Deacon Blue.

King, 67, added: "Simple Minds is going to be huge – I can't think of a bigger Scottish band than them, they're one of those bands that are just timeless.

"There's a very healthy run of festivals that are themed towards the 80s, and so it's been absolutely lovely to bump into those guys. Jim (Kerr) and Charlie (Burchill) have always been so gracious with their time.

"They'll come and say hello and have a little catch-up on what's been going on, the same with the Deacon Blue lads. I've met Sharleen from Texas numerous times, mainly in restaurants in London when she's been out having lunch.

"I know the ABC guys really well. James Blunt as well, just from what I've seen on socials, he seems like a really smart guy so it'll be nice to meet him and say hello.

"The setting is magnificent and the line-up is sensational. If I wasn't playing there I would buy a ticket – it's going to be fantastic."

Level 42 started out in early 1980 and went on to have massive success later in the 80s with the singles Something About You, Lessons In Love and Running In The Family, as well as a string of albums including World Machine and Staring At The Sun.

King formed the band at age 21 with Isle of Wight brothers Phil and Boon Gould, along with keys wiz Mike Lindup, but he already had a decade's worth of live performance under his belt.

He recalled: "Back in the late 70s before I moved to London there was so many places to play on the island because it being a tourist destination we had all the holiday camps like Butlins and Warners, plus countless hotels, guest houses and pubs and clubs that used to put on music.

"I started playing at the age of 11 and I was doing three nights a week in three different pubs and Sunday lunchtime, and I got paid the grand sum of £5 a night.

"My dad was a prison officer at the time and was earning £17 something as it was back then, so that was quite an eye-opener for my parents. They realised you can actually make a living doing this.

"By the time I was 14 I was playing six nights a week, sometimes seven, in the holiday camps and the pubs and clubs. That's how I got to meet the Gould brothers, who were also both Shanklin residents."

A formative experience for the aspiring musician was the staging of the massive Isle of Wight Festival in 1970.

The Level 42 frontman declared: "I was so jealous of my sisters – I was 11 at the time so Mum and Dad drew the line at me going, but I have got memories of hearing Jimi Hendrix wailing out across the island.

"The sound just carried and it was like really quite eerie to just stand out in the back garden and hear it wafting in on the wind, fade away and then come back in again.

"It was really quite magical, so to be able to play the Sunday afternoon at this year's festival in June was wonderful. It was very emotional for me because there was a massive crowd, the place was absolutely rammed and we were in the middle of a heatwave at the time.

"It was strange that The Cure should be headlining that day because back in 1986 we got to play Glastonbury and they were also heading one of the evenings that weekend too, so there's some synergy there somewhere.

"I was bumping into people in the supermarket after the event and people were saying they'd seen me. I'm glad we got to play it."

A collector of vintage guitars, King has stepped back from recording since his songwriting partner Boon's death in 2019, and says he has "no desire" to release another Level 42 album.

He explained: "When he went it was almost like part of the joy of doing that left with him, for me – losing Boon took that want to come up with new stuff away and I'd be fooling myself if I said it'd be as good as the stuff we made.

"I could never write a song like Something About You on my own. That song was a really great example of everybody in the band having input into the song – it's no wonder that it's as good as it was.

"It's probably the best song we ever wrote, but you're going back to 1985. That's a long time ago, but I've got no real desire to be making new music.

"It doesn't matter, because I've always been able to go out with Level 42 on the back of our large back catalogue because fans really do like to hear the songs that they remember you for."

Fans can, however, look forward to a new limited edition double album of early Level 42 instrumentals, including 12" B-sides, which comes out on Coalface Records on September 25.

Speaking about the LP, Forty Two, King said: "The first album that we made was sort of 50-50 instrumentals to songs and the second album was similar, it was about 60-40 songs to instrumentals.

"Of course there was always that old thing about needing something for a B-side. It was often an afterthought, so very often we would sit in the studio and jam and make something up, which was something we found quite easy to do.

"In many ways that harked back to where we came in from in the beginning – just four guys who liked jamming together. People often didn't realise though that if you had a hit single the B-side sold as many copies as the A-side did.

"So if only one or two of the band members had written the A-side, everybody got a slice of the B-side because it was the instrumental, and that way everybody got paid."

* Level 42 will be appearing at BBC Radio 2 in the Park at City Park, Stirling, September 11-13. Tickets are available now, and highlights will be available on BBC Two, BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds.