EXCLUSIVE: Suggs, frontman of ska-pop legends Madness, opens up about falling off stage in front of David Bowie, the joy of grandkids and how he’s doing after a double knee-replacement
Suggs reflects on forty-plus years of crazy gigs, strange encounters and enduring friendships(Image: Getty Images)
At the height of his fame in Madness, frontman Suggs performed and partied with David Bowie – and says he was very different to his stage persona.
Real name Graham McPherson, the ska-pop singer supported the Starman legend on tour in the Eighties, and says he was “really charming” in private.
“The mystique was part of the act, but he was also just a lovely – extremely interesting – bloke,” he tells the Mirror. “There was a club in Soho I used to see him at, in the early 80s, called the White Club. He just used to sneak in the back, totally on his own, sit and have a drink and no one really bothered him.
“I remember him telling me that when you get to his level of success, having a load of security around you only makes things worse. He loved that little bit of anonymity.”
Suggs – a nickname from school after he randomly stuck a pin in an encyclopedia of jazz musicians and hit Peter Suggs – is about to step back on stage with Madness at the Lakeside Festival this August at Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire.
It has been almost 50 years since the band released their debut album, One Step Beyond…, which they recorded and released in under a month.
Their performances today, he laughs, are a far cry from some of their famously rowdy gigs in early days.
“I remember once we were a bit late for a concert in Anaheim once, supporting Bowie. I could hear them striking up One Step Beyond, an instrumental, just as I was coming on the stage. I was so excited. I skidded along the stage and fell straight off the end. It must have been a 20 foot-drop.
“Apart from a bit of bruising around my coccyx, I survived. But I could see Bowie peering down at me from the side of the stage, checking if I was still alive. I think the crowd thought it was all part of the act!”
And there are plenty more fascinating tales from the Baggy Trousers singer, who was born and raised in Hastings, Hertfordshire.
Madness were once forcibly barricaded into their dressing room at a rowdy social club gig in Glasgow back in the day, when all the regulars decided to have a bit of a brawl.
“They’d had a dance and a singalong, then proceeded to do what everybody does when they’ve had a skinload of beer in them”, says the deadpan frontman. “They started throwing punches. Quite soon, it was pandemonium.”
Suggs is famed for his high-energy stage dancing, including the ‘Nutty Stomp’, but the dynamic moves have taken a back seat recently after he underwent a double-knee replacement.
He’s back on his feet now and ready for festival season – but he admits, the recovery was agony. “It was very, very painful. I’m so grateful to the surgeon. Modern medicine is incredible – two days, and I was back up on my feet.
“I mean, it hurt – but I was walking. Funny thing is, with all the drugs after surgery, I hadn’t realised but I’d been ordering all these vinyls. So I kept getting all these records through the post – they just kept coming! I was obviously in a bit of a psychedelic state, but that made me smile.”
“But I’m feeling much better. I’ll be jumping around that stage like I’m James Brown. We’re a lot older now, we don’t go as mad. We’re still as enthusiastic on stage, but the after-partying has reduced quite considerably!”
Yet to this day, Madness gigs still attract different generations of the same family – something Suggs has learned to appreciate over the years.
“We always did appeal to kids and it was kind of annoying at the beginning because we wanted to appeal to cool people, not kids. When Baggy Trousers came out, it was just this phenomenon among school kids.
“I think maybe there was a naive joy to those videos. We were genuinely having a laugh. We were making each other laugh, and there was no style or direction. It was just like, what can we get up to now?!”
At 65, Suggs’ approach to kids has definitely softened. He has been married to singer Bette Bright since 1981, and now has two grown-up daughters and is a proud grandad – and organised for Madness to sponsor one of his grandchildren’s football team kits.
“I love it – with your own kids you were always so busy keeping food on the table and trying not to kill them… but you enjoy your grandkids in a different way.”
Looking back at the last 30-odd years in music, there have been ups, downs and dodgy knees – but the biggest lesson he’s learned is how important friendship is.
“Friendship and love are important. A lot of bands don’t actually get on, you know, they split up…. But friendship’s been the glue for us. We were friends from school, and the success of Madness was sort of… a by-product of our friendship.
“I hear so many times of stars becoming ostracised, living a life by themselves in their own castle, I’ve always made sure to temper my success with a certain amount of failure. I’d never want to become a superstar!”
Madness play Lakeside Festival, at Eastnor Castle, Herefordshire from 5-9 August. See www.lakefest.co.uk.
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