Madness singer Suggs looks back on ‘Our House,’ their wacky music videos, and the TV pilot that almost was
Madness singer Suggs recently spoke to Yahoo Entertainment about the band's new compilation album, Our House: The Very Best of Madness, and looked back at the band's trajectory. While they're known for their wacky music videos, the visuals often masked a "deeper hidden meaning."
Suggs used their song "Embarassment" as an example.
"[It's] just a song about you think a relationship, but in fact it was about Lee [Thompson], our saxophone player," Suggs said. "His sister had a baby with a Black guy, and in those days in this country, it was kind of frowned upon."
Watch more from Suggs in the video above.
Video Transcript
- So your house looks very nice, and the greatest hits collection that just came out called Our House: The Very Best Of Madness. And I thought it'd be fun to just sort of since it's a retrospective, to like talk about certain tracks from it. But the obvious starting point would be, because it is the title track of the compilation and because it was your biggest hit here in America, where I'm at is Our House.
- We thought we might do a concept album about that and then Carl wrote Our House and then nobody else wrote another song in that [INAUDIBLE]. So the concept went out the window.
- It's not too late, you could still do it write a few more House songs. You did have another House song, House of Fun. And I'm kind of embarrassed to say this that I only realized it now. The double entendre of this song completely went over my head. If I'm understanding it now correctly, many years later, it is about a teenager who is trying to buy condoms at a drugstore.
- We were playing in Ireland and I remember it got banned because, what they call it Durex and all that was not allowed in Ireland at that time. I mean, it's not that long ago. It's hard to imagine. But prophylactics. We were on stage with Chris de Burgh who was doing My Lady In Bed or something very nice and they started throwing out our branded condoms in the audience.
And all of a sudden the concert got stopped. And it was like no you can't do that. Anyway that was a bit of a revelation to us. But having said that, you know a lot of our songs have that sort of hidden deeper meaning. I think it was Nile Rodgers that was once said that, HDM, hidden deeper meaning. And we didn't even know at the time often what we were saying. But we were saying something more than just-- a lot of the times we were doing songs that started happy but I have a sadness. And equally we'd do songs that sounded sad but they would have like upbeat music. So it was a funny old combination
- Well what other songs had, what was it deeper, DHM, deeper hidden meaning.
- Embarrassment, you know which is just a song about you think of a relationship. In fact, it was about Lee, our saxophone player's sister had a baby with a black guy. In those days in this country, you know it was kind of frowned upon. And you thinking about Black Lives Matter and all that now, but they called her an embarrassment. You know, some of his relations, his aunties and uncles. Again you know, just sounds like an upbeat pop song but in fact, it's about the struggles that she was going through bringing up a Black child in a community where it was still kind of frowned upon.
- What was the reaction to that song at the time that it came out. Did people get what it was about. Was that controversial.
- Not really controversial but it took people a little time. But we had the great privilege-- we were working with bands like The Specials and The Selector who were very know political with a capital P. And the whole thing of racism was really becoming very potent in England at that time. And then bit by bit people started to understand what that song was about but it took a little time.
It wasn't controversial but it was-- just we were trying to explain that we came from somewhere where it was still a struggle. You know, it wasn't just like we were you know in this beautiful liberal utopia. You know it's really hard around where we were. People were very on each others cases about where you were from, who you were, whether we were Latin or Irish or Scottish or Black you know there was a lot of that going on of course, which there still is.
- Yeah.
- So it was just a small gesture in that direction, you know.
- Has that song or other songs from not just you guys but from the two tone era, from that ska era do you feel like they've taken on new meaning or renewed meaning. Some kind of revival in you know the current age, the Brexit age as you mentioned. This stuff is still very much going on in England and here.
- I'd certainly say we were two toned, you know. That was the first time I can remember black and white kids being in the same bands. I mean you know we were kind of like a bit , out because we didn't have any Black people in our band. But we were playing music of a black origin for sure. We were playing reggae and ska. And that was the kind of music we liked. But up to that point in England there weren't very many Black and white kids playing together and all of a sudden it seemed like there could be a little bit more communication between those two communities. And I think that they did have some resonance. And I think it is today, you know. I have great optimism. I mean, you've got this big case coming up.
- George Floyd, George Floyd case yeah.
- And the next generation don't see any of that, you know what I mean. And I hope that we had some part to play in the doing away of all that, you know.
- Do you think people took you seriously at the time. Do you think because your videos were so wacky that there may be people who didn't take you as seriously as they should have.
- I think that's a good point. I think that's true. Yeah I do. Two years later I mean, we did an album called The Liberty of Norton Folgate and all of a sudden, its called a broadsheet in this country like serious papers, talking about us in a way that they didn't back then. No, they kind of did see us as a joke, you know. We did put a lot of work into all of it. And I think, yeah, there might have been a bit of these videos or so funny and hilarious. That maybe the music isn't that important. But I think equally now, I think you know I can see those videos ending up in the Vietnam museum as works of art. I do. I think they're unbelievable.
- Weren't Madness supposed to have their own TV series at one time. I've read that.
- Funny enough, it was the guys who wrote the young ones, Richard Kurtis and Ben Elton wrote a TV show for us. We were supposed to be the parliament. I was going to be the prime minister. And we did a couple of pilots which were very funny. But the BBC said it's going to cost too much money and it couldn't-- we were too much trouble, I can't remember one or the other.
But it was a shame. Yeah, because it was going to turn out that Margaret Thatcher was a martian and she got flown back to Mars. And they were going to take over the parliament. And we had a lot of funny stories to tell. We were kind of in that mold you know, people who had charisma, whatever, apart from just being musicians. When you see the videos.
Then you had the Monkeys of course, which was the other derivation of that. But I think in one way it was kind of good because if we had gone down that path, we would have possibly ended up like the Monkeys, doing TV shows. When we were actually much more interested in doing music and being ourselves, yeah. But Yeah there's some pilot out there. I think it's on YouTube somewhere of us.
- Note to self, check YouTube immediately after this interview because that's I mean, I understand why maybe you think that wouldn't have been the best long term career move for Madness but oh my God.
I would have watched the hell out of that. When you guys were starting out I mean, obviously no one knew what MTV was going to be, I don't think people knew what music video was going to be, but you know you were very much at the forefront making these videos that were very iconic. And very fun to watch. Like did you kind of embrace the medium on. Did you kind of know early on. Did you know like, oh this is something we really need to like, pay attention to.
- Well it was two things. One was we were all extroverts, you know. A lot of bands aren't. I remember talking to Paul Weller and people going they find it a real struggle because it wasn't their thing. And it was for us, dressing up and messing around was like just-- we really liked it. But it coincided with the fact that there was this very serious, theatrical, costuming in Camden Town called Berman and Nathans and they were doing Laurence Olivier movies.
And so we get the real gear like when we dressed up as policemen. That we had the real gear, can you imagine. For two days we were wandering about the streets dressed as policemen, driving everybody mad. And yeah, we really, we really got into it. We really enjoyed it, you know. Dressing as flowers, bumblebees, cowboys, you name it. We dressed up. But we really enjoyed it.
