Promises & Lies: The Story of UB40


Promises & Lies: The Story of UB40

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Transcript


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I started UB40 to promote reggae...

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and they're punching off that name at the moment.

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This programme contains some strong language.

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We've come to a point where we've got to defend ourselves

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from the shit coming out of his mouth.

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Because I was asking questions, they started to demonise me.

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But I couldn't get any information.

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To this day, I still don't know what happened to the money.

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It wouldn't surprise me at all if he believes the things he says now.

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The lies he's told in the last eight years are just disgusting.

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He's a pathological liar.

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You know, saying we've ruined the band's legacy,

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and ruined reggae music.

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Really, we're starting again.

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We're trying to reclaim the name before the legacy's destroyed.

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This is the worst case I've seen, in 45 years in the business.

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He's split the band. He's split a family.

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It's a sad story. A very sad story.

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BAND PLAY INSTRUMENTAL

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BAND END SONG

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Welcome to the Jug O'Punch Folk Song Club in Birmingham.

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This is the Ian Campbell Folk Group and our first song is The Cockfight.

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# Come all ye colliers far and near

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# I'll tell of a cockfight when and where

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# Out on the moor I heard 'em say

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# A queen of black and a bonnie grey... #

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My family ran the biggest folk club in the country,

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for many years, throughout the '60s.

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It was at Digbeth Civic Hall.

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And it was, like, hundreds, every week, huge.

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You know, nothing like your average folk club now.

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It was massive and lots of people played there. You know?

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Many different... Paul Simon... You know, all sorts of people.

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Erm, and half of them ended up sleeping on the settee

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at our house, you know?

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So, we were surrounded by music all of our lives.

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Me and Ali were on stage in me dad's club.

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Ali and I were on stage when he was five,

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so I must have been six, you know,

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and playing penny whistle when I was a kid

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and, you know, we always talked about being Britain's answer

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to the Jackson Five! But, you know, things change.

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Me, Robin, Duncan, we used to sing together, yeah.

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We did three-part harmonies.

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I can remember me mam coming in thinking it was the radio,

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when the three of us were singing, you know? And we got quite tight.

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'Obviously, the influence of our father is great

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'because we grew up surrounded by music and musicians.

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'All of our lives, if you showed any interest at all,

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'he would thrust an instrument in your hands, you know,

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'and say, "I'll get you lessons if you want," you know?'

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But, like most kids, you're diametrically opposed

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to what your parents are into, you know,

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so we were looking for something else.

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The area we grew up in was an immigrant area,

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so, I was hearing Jamaican pop music

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from the age of eight or something, you know, that's what I heard.

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# People get ready to do, do rock-steady... #

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We grew up in South Birmingham, in Balsall Heath.

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The music of the streets was reggae,

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and the music in the youth clubs we went to was reggae.

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So, we thought everybody loved reggae.

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But it was only in our small area of Balsall Heath.

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You know, when we went to secondary school,

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we realised everybody else

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was listening to something entirely different -

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called Gary Glitter and Marc Bolan and David Bowie, you know!

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That all went over my head, you know.

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I didn't get into any of that music.

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Half of our firm, our gang, were West Indian kids.

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Jamaican kids, primarily.

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And they had music coming from Jamaica,

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their mums and dads or elder brothers and sisters.

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And that's where we got our music, and it was reggae.

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If you were to take eight people out of Balsall Heath,

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where we come from, eight kids would have looked like us.

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You didn't choose your friends according to their colour.

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They were just your friends.

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Most of us went to school together, in Balsall Heath,

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right in the centre of Birmingham.

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Proper mates.

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We spoke about starting a band right from 13, 14 years old.

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But you've got to remember, we left school in 1975,

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in Birmingham, and, you know, there was no jobs.

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There truly was no jobs for anybody.

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Mass unemployment.

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And we figured we'd have more chance starting a band

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than we would getting a real job. No kidding.

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There was talk about being musicians,

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without it ever coming to anything.

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And I think that, really, the thing that changed it all,

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that made us serious, was first of all,

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seeing Bob Marley live in '76, I think it was,

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when he came to Birmingham.

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And we went to see him and that made me decide

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that that was what I wanted to do.

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I really wanted to be in a reggae band.

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And I think the same for Ali.

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But we still didn't actually do it.

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# Ain't no rules, ain't no vow we can do it anyhow

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# I and I will see you through... #

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And it wasn't until Ali got compensation for damage to his eye,

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you know, pub fight, that he had the money.

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Because he'd never been employed,

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so he'd never had the money to buy an instrument.

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So when he got compensation, he bought himself a guitar.

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I think he also bought our very first set of drums.

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But that was kind of a catalyst.

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The first rehearsal that we had, we hired a room

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and we all turned up there,

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in fact we got eight of us and all our gear in a minivan.

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And tried to rehearse, but we didn't know how to rehearse.

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Robin knew the chords to House Of The Rising Sun. That was it.

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I was the only one that could play chords,

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and I'm trying to teach people chords and stuff

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and they're not listening, they're...

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It was just total anarchy.

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And I just said, "K, it's never going to happen, is it?"

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And I left.

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So Jimmy, the drummer, Earl, the bass player and myself

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went and rehearsed for six months until we could play.

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And we did that by playing records and copying them.

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And other people started drifting in as it started to sound like music.

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I lived in this bedsit flat in Moseley

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and Earl, the bass player, lived next door in a bedsit.

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And underneath was a big cellar

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that you could get to from the outside of the building.

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You know those big tenement houses, big Victorian houses?

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And we claimed this cellar.

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Nobody used it, it was full of leaves.

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So we made it ours.

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Stole our electricity off a Hells Angel -

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proper badged up Hells Angel -

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who lived upstairs, who was the greatest guy, knew all about it.

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"Don't worry, just stop playing at six o'clock when I get home."

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And we practised every day.

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And then, after a few months,

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I went down with Duncan and listened,

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and Brian was playing there as well.

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And they actually were making... a sound that was close to music!

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And I was impressed enough that they meant it,

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I believed that they meant it enough for me to commit.

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Although Duncan wasn't!

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Duncan just said, "No, it's never going to happen."

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And I just said, "Come on, the three of us singing, you know,

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"it'll be good.

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"Let's do it."

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And of course, he didn't, and I did.

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People think I turned down joining a band.

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But I didn't turn down joining a band,

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I turned down joining a project that was some way off.

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Nobody had any instruments or knew how to play them,

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but they were going to work all that out.

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And there's lots of people who always say,

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well, I was given the chance to be a part of that

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but to be honest, I was busy!

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It didn't seem all that appealing at the time.

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He said - he had a job as a croupier, going to Barbados -

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he went, "Fuck this, I'm going to Barbados!"

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And who can blame him?

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We were in a damp cellar in Moseley, couldn't even play.

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We knew three chords, C, F and G.

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They were all in that band because they knew Ali.

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Most of them were his schoolmates.

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One of them was his brother.

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So he was, undoubtedly, the founder.

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And Ali actually came to see me -

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well, Ali and Robin came to visit me,

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and told me they were starting a band,

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but I couldn't have joined if I wanted to,

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because I was in prison at the time.

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We rehearsed for almost a year,

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playing any tune that we particularly loved at that time.

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You know, a reggae tune that was out and current, we were learning.

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And slowly, learning to write songs.

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We had a lot of instrumentals with no words and melodies on,

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which we always had, traditionally, instrumentals on albums.

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Which was just - we couldn't write words

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to go with that piece of music.

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I think at the time,

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we were nearly going to go out as Geoff Cancer and the Nicotinees.

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That's because at the time, it was post-punk,

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Poly Styrene and X-Ray Spex, you know, they had funny names.

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So we were Geoff Cancer...

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I was Geoff Cancer! And the band were the Nicotinees for a while.

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We didn't really care what it was going to be called.

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What we was interested in was actually playing music -

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and the name come from the suggestion from a friend of ours.

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He said, "Why don't you call yourselves UB40?"

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"You know, you're all on the dole, you've all got a UB40 card,

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"it makes sense."

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It gives us three million card-carrying fans instantly.

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We'd start playing gigs - but we'd only play in Birmingham

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once every four weeks, five weeks.

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So it didn't look like we were desperate.

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We didn't want it to look like that was the only gigs we had,

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we wanted to make out like we were precious.

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And we put posters up in the street, with just our name on, UB40.

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And then people would tell us, have you seen that band?

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And they hadn't seen us, because we haven't played at these places.

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Hype, you know, we were hyping.

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# Give me all you have

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-# Come over

-All you got to give

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# Come over... #

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We shirt-tailed the 2-Tone movement.

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Wouldn't have got a lot of gigs

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if it hadn't been for the 2-Tone movement.

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We were never a part of it, but we sort of got a lot of gigs,

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we got gigs with The Beat and Madness and Selecter and stuff

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and we did those, but we didn't go down too well.

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We were spat at and sieg-heiled, basically, by the skinheads

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in the audience, because we weren't fast enough.

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But it got us gigs and got us exposure and eventually...

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we took off.

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# Appeal to the governor of Louisiana

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# You may get an answer the process is slow

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# Federal government don't do much to help him

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# It's been nearly five years And they won't let him go

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# Tyler is guilty the white judge has said so

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# What right do we have to say it's not so... #

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Chrissie Hynde, from The Pretenders,

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saw us playing in a little gig in Covent Garden

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called the Rock Garden.

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She came to see us play and she was number one at the time.

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And we were going, "Oh, that's that girl off the telly!

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"You know, with the number one record."

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We didn't know her name, really. Do you know what I'm saying?

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And they asked us to go on tour with them.

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# I got brass

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# In pocket... #

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I just had got The Pretenders together,

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we had our first album out,

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and I think we had our first and last number one which was...

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had just come out,

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and we were looking for a band to tour with,

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and my bass player, Pete Farndon, said there is a great reggae band.

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You know, we were all big fans of reggae, of course,

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because in the punk scene, that was all anyone listened to.

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And he said, "Go down to the Rock Garden in Covent Garden,

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"see this band. This little band."

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So I went down and there they were.

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They weren't signed or anything, but it wasn't a little band,

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the whole place was full of them.

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And so I sort of went backstage, to very sheepishly, I might add,

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ask if they would want to support my band.

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I felt that was kind of a pompous thing to do,

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but I zeroed in on Brian

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because he was clearly the most accessible, friendly one.

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Unfortunately, I couldn't understand a word he said!

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You know, I had to use the others to interpret what he said.

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But, I mean, they were just a great band.

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And we toured with them. They came on our first tour.

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# Must we go on ignoring... #

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It was terrifying, because it was so quick.

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We had literally been playing our instruments

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about eight or nine months,

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and suddenly we're on stage supporting The Pretenders

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in front of 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 people.

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And we were absolutely terrified.

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# I'm a British subject and I'm proud of it

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# But I carry the burden of shame... #

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When we started, 1979, in them days, if you weren't political,

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you weren't worth listening to.

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If you weren't on an independent label, you weren't worth...

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You were pretend.

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You were being hyped by one of the big multinationals.

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Everybody was left wing in the band, but varying degrees of left wing.

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You had to write a lyric everyone felt comfortable with.

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And that was the only rule, really.

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We didn't set out to write political songs,

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we didn't set out to change the world politically,

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it's just that when you write your own songs,

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you're going to write about things that are important to you,

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or things that you get emotional about, you know?

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So we wrote political lyrics.

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We weren't very good at writing love songs, actually.

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When we started, we were a bit embarrassed about it.

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Well, we were kind of political, politicised.

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Disenfranchised, you know?

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We had been unemployed for three years since we left school,

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at 15, 16 years old.

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And we were part of the Thatcher era,

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and if we were going to write our own stuff,

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we wanted it to be able to say something...

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-Relatable.

-Relevant or sensible, or whatever.

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The UB40 thing was supposed to be a positive thing,

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the fact that you really were at the bottom of the ladder

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if you were on a UB40 - the only way was up.

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So...

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That's why we called our first album Signing Off.

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MUSIC: Food for Thought by UB40

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# Ivory Madonna

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# Dying in the dust

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# Waiting for the manna

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# Coming from the West... #

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I mean, I can remember walking through Moseley, I think,

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when they'd only been going for a little while,

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and hearing the record out of somebody's house

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and that was... Brilliant!

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Couldn't believe it! That's me brother's, did you hear that?

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But of course, within no time at all, they were all over the telly.

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# ..Bells are ringing... #

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I suppose there must have been sometimes

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when I must have had pangs of regret, but not jealousy.

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I mean, I was always chuffed to bits.

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And proud to be the brother - and it wasn't a bad position to be in.

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# Politicians argue...#

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I watched their first appearance on Top Of The Pops.

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Top Of The Pops was the one thing that everybody watched in prison.

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Which, I think, was not because everyone was very keen on music,

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I think it was because of Legs & Co,

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or Pan's People, or whatever they were called at the time.

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HE CHUCKLES

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So I saw UB40 there when they first appeared.

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# ..Coming from the West... #

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-We always thought...

-It was going to be successful.

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Yeah! We were quite sure of that, you know.

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And I think you have to have that when you start out.

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You've got to be a little bit arrogant.

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And we had no reason for being arrogant, we were awful, really.

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What you heard with the first album

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was what we had learned to play so far, you know.

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And I can't actually listen to that album.

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I was proud of what it did for us, but it's all out of tune!

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We weren't musicians, so we didn't know how to tune our instruments.

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They're great tunes on the album, it's just that we didn't know

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technically how to make the music that we wanted.

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So the saxophone that Brian was using was the wrong type of sax,

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tuned wrong, the bass wasn't tuned properly.

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I was tuned to an open E chord.

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So we learned as we went along,

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how to tune our instruments,

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but we were three albums in before we got it right!

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-# The Earth dies screaming

-The Earth dies screaming

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-# The Earth dies screaming

-The Earth dies screaming

0:17:180:17:22

# Your country needs you let's strike up the band... #

0:17:220:17:26

We were very much like a gang.

0:17:280:17:30

We decided from day one that we would share everything,

0:17:300:17:34

all royalties, eight ways.

0:17:340:17:36

Eight equal ways.

0:17:360:17:38

And that was an influence of my father's.

0:17:380:17:40

Because he had told us about the business,

0:17:400:17:42

how cut-throat it was and how you should never trust a publisher, etc.

0:17:420:17:46

So it just got rid of all those arguments that you hear.

0:17:460:17:50

"Musical differences", "creative differences", you know,

0:17:500:17:54

that tear other bands apart,

0:17:540:17:56

because they feel like they're doing as much work

0:17:560:17:59

but the next guy who is writing all the songs

0:17:590:18:02

is the guy earning the money.

0:18:020:18:04

So we just wiped those arguments out, we just never had those rows.

0:18:040:18:09

I think that is one of the reasons why we carried on for so long,

0:18:090:18:12

because there weren't any infighting,

0:18:120:18:15

people getting more than somebody else.

0:18:150:18:18

I think that's why we lasted so long. You know?

0:18:180:18:21

I think a lot of our fans bought into that concept, as well -

0:18:210:18:25

the fact that we weren't like all the other bands which ended up

0:18:250:18:29

arguing about money and stuff.

0:18:290:18:31

We didn't make good money for a long time.

0:18:370:18:40

We were being offered big advances, you know, of 150 grand,

0:18:400:18:44

by certain major record labels, and we refused those

0:18:440:18:47

because we wanted to go for the points.

0:18:470:18:49

We wanted the artistic control.

0:18:490:18:51

Yeah. And luckily, we sold eight million of the first album,

0:18:510:18:54

so we were on great points, you know,

0:18:540:18:57

and we didn't look back from there.

0:18:570:18:59

And then we started our own record label.

0:18:590:19:01

We had plans to dominate the music world, of course.

0:19:020:19:05

Before we had any money ourselves, we got a little studio together.

0:19:050:19:11

We bought this old abattoir,

0:19:110:19:13

disgusting old place in the middle of Birmingham,

0:19:130:19:15

and cleaned it up ourselves.

0:19:150:19:17

It was all big refrigerators, with giant thick walls,

0:19:170:19:20

so they were instantly soundproof.

0:19:200:19:22

And we started a studio.

0:19:220:19:24

We had that place for 25 years.

0:19:240:19:26

Spent millions on it, in the end, you know?

0:19:260:19:29

The building cost 33 grand,

0:19:290:19:30

and I think the last mixing desk we bought cost 275 grand.

0:19:300:19:34

# My arms enfold the dole queue Malnutrition dulls my hair

0:19:410:19:45

# My eyes are black and lifeless With an underprivileged stare

0:19:450:19:49

# I'm the beggar on the corner Will no-one spare a dime?

0:19:490:19:52

# I'm the child that never learns to read

0:19:520:19:55

# Cos no-one spared the time

0:19:550:19:57

# I am the one in ten

0:19:570:19:59

-# A number on a list

-I am the one in ten

0:19:590:20:02

# Even though I don't exist

0:20:020:20:05

-# Nobody knows me

-But I'm always there

0:20:050:20:08

# A statistic, a reminder Of a world that doesn't care... #

0:20:080:20:13

People wanted to hear what we were saying, obviously.

0:20:130:20:17

One In Ten has become almost an iconic song from that time,

0:20:170:20:21

that mid-'80s Thatcher period.

0:20:210:20:23

And I think we did turn people on to reggae

0:20:230:20:26

in ways that they would never have been turned on to it otherwise.

0:20:260:20:29

Our mission was to popularise reggae around the world,

0:20:290:20:32

because we'd been listening to it and grown up on it.

0:20:320:20:35

And loved it.

0:20:350:20:37

We were bit evangelistic about it.

0:20:370:20:40

But we just wanted to show people

0:20:400:20:42

these great pop songs that we knew and loved.

0:20:420:20:45

That's the reason for the Labour Of Love series.

0:20:450:20:48

-# I've got many rivers to cross

-Many rivers to cross

0:20:480:20:52

# But just where to begin

0:20:520:20:55

# I'm playing for time... #

0:20:550:20:58

We wanted to do Labour Of Love as the first album,

0:20:580:21:01

but we were talked out of it by the record company.

0:21:010:21:04

"Commercial suicide."

0:21:040:21:06

Yeah, it'd be commercial suicide,

0:21:060:21:07

because you're known as the dole queue band,

0:21:070:21:09

and you've got to write your own stuff,

0:21:090:21:11

you're not a covers band, and all that.

0:21:110:21:12

You'll be perceived as a cabaret act.

0:21:120:21:15

That's because record company people don't really know

0:21:150:21:17

what they're talking about, usually! To tell the truth.

0:21:170:21:20

And when we said we wanted to do Cherry Oh Baby and all these others,

0:21:210:21:25

they said, you can't, you can't,

0:21:250:21:27

you're known for writing your own material.

0:21:270:21:30

# Oh, Cherry, oh, Cherry, oh, baby don't you know I'm in love with you?

0:21:300:21:36

# If you don't believe that's true

0:21:360:21:39

# Then, why don't you try me?

0:21:390:21:42

# I will never let you down

0:21:420:21:45

# I will never make you wear no frown

0:21:450:21:48

# When you say that you love me madly

0:21:480:21:51

# Well, then, I'll accept you gladly

0:21:510:21:55

# Oh, oh, oh, oh... #

0:21:550:21:56

Well, we knew it would do well

0:21:560:21:57

because they were all sure-fire hits,

0:21:570:21:59

as far as we were concerned, you know?

0:21:590:22:01

And we just knew that if the mainstream public got to hear

0:22:010:22:03

these records, they'd fall in love with them just like we did.

0:22:030:22:07

We were always going to be covering our favourite reggae tunes,

0:22:070:22:10

and when we realised, moving out of Birmingham,

0:22:100:22:12

that, actually, most people hadn't heard these tunes,

0:22:120:22:15

then that was a bonus,

0:22:150:22:17

because most people know Red Red Wine from our version,

0:22:170:22:21

not from anybody else's version.

0:22:210:22:22

# Red, red wine

0:22:220:22:26

# Stay close to me

0:22:280:22:32

# Don't let me be alone

0:22:330:22:38

# It's tearing apart

0:22:380:22:43

# My blue, blue heart... #

0:22:430:22:47

We were broke, completely broke,

0:22:470:22:49

and I think we had a month's wages left,

0:22:490:22:51

or even a week's wages, it might have been,

0:22:510:22:53

when Red Red Wine went to number one,

0:22:530:22:56

and we were saved,

0:22:560:22:58

and it was a big sigh of relief.

0:22:580:23:00

-HE LAUGHS

-Thank God for that, you know?

0:23:000:23:02

It's not our last wages, then, you know?

0:23:020:23:04

So, it was peaks and troughs all the way through our career.

0:23:040:23:06

# I was wrong

0:23:060:23:09

# Now I find

0:23:090:23:12

# Just one thing makes me forget

0:23:120:23:16

# Red, red wine... #

0:23:160:23:21

Well, it was a boon to many of us. There was eight of us in the band,

0:23:210:23:24

and a manager, you know, and the road crew.

0:23:240:23:27

The road crew guys were our mates who didn't get an instrument.

0:23:270:23:30

If they had have done, it could have been a 12-piece band.

0:23:300:23:33

I mean, when the money came in, it had to go a lot of ways.

0:23:330:23:36

We weren't really living like, erm...

0:23:360:23:38

We weren't like The Who or The Beatles...

0:23:380:23:41

until a few years after that.

0:23:410:23:43

To run DEP, it was, kind of, 90 grand a month,

0:23:430:23:46

you know, and we ran that for 28 years,

0:23:460:23:48

so, if you add that up just on its own, that's a lot of dough.

0:23:480:23:52

Touring, you know, is very expensive.

0:23:520:23:54

You've got all your airfares, your hotels,

0:23:540:23:57

your PDs, your wages, you know.

0:23:570:23:59

-It's...

-The rider.

0:23:590:24:00

When there's...

0:24:000:24:01

Where there was 40 of you on the road,

0:24:010:24:03

which there was in the early days, you know,

0:24:030:24:05

it's an expensive business.

0:24:050:24:06

MUSIC: I Got You Babe by UB40 & Chrissie Hynde

0:24:060:24:09

# They say our love won't pay the rent

0:24:140:24:17

# Before it's earned our money's always spent... #

0:24:170:24:22

Chrissie Hynde had said, with her looks and my voice,

0:24:220:24:25

we should do something together,

0:24:250:24:27

and that was while we were on tour with her,

0:24:270:24:29

so I went, "Go on, then."

0:24:290:24:30

And then she said it was her idea to do I Got You Babe,

0:24:300:24:34

which is nonsense, of course.

0:24:340:24:35

Well, of course Ali will lie and say it was his idea

0:24:350:24:38

to do I Got You Babe, but they wouldn't have known that song.

0:24:380:24:41

And, you know, it was... Obviously, it was my idea.

0:24:410:24:44

They would have never acted on it, either,

0:24:440:24:46

cos they can't get anything done, but I knew it would work

0:24:460:24:48

with his voice and, you know, and that song.

0:24:480:24:52

We did I Got You Babe and then Breakfast In Bed -

0:24:520:24:55

there were two big hits with her.

0:24:550:24:56

They were great songs.

0:24:560:24:59

# Babe

0:24:590:25:01

# I've got you, babe... #

0:25:010:25:02

Well, I recorded two songs with them,

0:25:020:25:04

and then we, you know, over the years,

0:25:040:25:06

I've got on stage with them and done things.

0:25:060:25:09

I couldn't even understand what they were fucking talking about

0:25:090:25:11

most of the time. Erm...

0:25:110:25:13

But a real fun band,

0:25:130:25:15

and I think that's the thing about them is they were such a band.

0:25:150:25:18

# Whoa, whoa, whoa, yeah... #

0:25:210:25:24

When we released a record,

0:25:240:25:26

it'd literally come out everywhere in the world -

0:25:260:25:28

and not all bands could do that,

0:25:280:25:30

and I think this was down to reggae, not UB40.

0:25:300:25:32

I think everywhere you went,

0:25:320:25:34

indigenous people adopted reggae as the rebel music.

0:25:340:25:37

That was their music.

0:25:370:25:38

It represented them and their concerns and their...

0:25:380:25:42

their politics, which were very similar, you know.

0:25:420:25:44

Anybody who's got under the boot, you know,

0:25:440:25:47

can get their politics from rebel music and reggae.

0:25:470:25:52

So we'd put a record out and go everywhere in the world.

0:25:520:25:55

We'd go on tour and we'd go everywhere.

0:25:550:25:56

You know, we'd go to Russia.

0:25:560:25:58

All of the South Pacific Islands - Tonga, Tahiti, the Hawaiian Islands.

0:25:580:26:02

Many, many times, you know. Africa, everywhere.

0:26:020:26:05

We'd be on the road, sometimes, for nine or ten months at a time.

0:26:050:26:08

# Yeah, yeah

0:26:080:26:09

# There's a rat in my kitchen

0:26:090:26:10

# What am I gonna do?

0:26:100:26:11

# There's a rat in my kitchen What am I gonna do?

0:26:110:26:14

# I'm going to fix that rat

0:26:140:26:15

# That's what I'm gonna do

0:26:150:26:16

# I'm going to fix that rat... #

0:26:160:26:18

There were definitely a lot of people that were hearing the music

0:26:180:26:21

for the first time when they heard us,

0:26:210:26:22

and were encouraged to maybe go and find out more about the music.

0:26:220:26:26

I think we were part of building that recognition of reggae

0:26:260:26:30

as a unique style of music.

0:26:300:26:32

# There's a rat in my kitchen What am I gonna do?

0:26:320:26:35

# I'm gonna fix that rat That's what I'm gonna do

0:26:350:26:38

# I'm gonna fix that rat... #

0:26:380:26:39

It's a beautiful thing, you know.

0:26:390:26:41

There's been so many highlights over the years -

0:26:410:26:43

playing Madison Square Garden, sold-out gigs,

0:26:430:26:46

number one in America, album and single.

0:26:460:26:51

An amazing... You know, you've reached the top.

0:26:510:26:54

And then, of course, there was South Africa,

0:26:540:26:56

where we were one of the first bands there

0:26:560:26:58

after the ending of the boycott,

0:26:580:26:59

singing Sing Our Own Song.

0:26:590:27:01

# And we will fight for the right to be free

0:27:010:27:06

# And we will build our own society

0:27:060:27:10

# And we will sing We will sing

0:27:100:27:14

# We will sing our own song... #

0:27:140:27:17

Playing that song in South Africa,

0:27:170:27:19

with Mandela out of prison and president and apartheid over and...

0:27:190:27:24

after having observed the cultural boycott for, you know,

0:27:240:27:27

the first, whatever it was, 15 years...

0:27:270:27:30

to then go and play South Africa and sing that song

0:27:300:27:33

to 70,000 people a night for three nights was...

0:27:330:27:38

Well, we still hold the live record in South Africa, you know?

0:27:380:27:41

There's no other artist who's played to 210,000 people in three days.

0:27:410:27:46

So, that was an amazing time,

0:27:460:27:47

and it was a hair up on the back of your neck moment, you know?

0:27:470:27:51

# Amandla Awethu

0:27:510:27:55

# Amandla Awethu... #

0:27:550:27:59

We were going round the world.

0:27:590:28:00

You know, we were selling millions of CDs,

0:28:000:28:03

which enabled us to do great big tours

0:28:030:28:05

and fantastic lightshows and things like that.

0:28:050:28:07

You know, it was like a dream come true.

0:28:070:28:10

Of course, a lot of money got wasted because, you know,

0:28:100:28:13

we were smoking weed and doing coke, you know, and drinking.

0:28:130:28:17

But that happened all the way through our career, you know -

0:28:170:28:19

we'd make a lot of money and we'd spend it.

0:28:190:28:23

# Wise men say

0:28:230:28:28

# Only fools rush in

0:28:280:28:32

# But I can't help falling in love

0:28:340:28:41

# With you... #

0:28:410:28:43

My dad was incredibly proud of us -

0:28:450:28:48

he just didn't like to say too much.

0:28:480:28:50

In fact, he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award,

0:28:500:28:54

and he gave a speech, and most of it was taken up with talking about

0:28:540:28:58

what a fabulous job we'd done and how proud of us he was,

0:28:580:29:01

so, you know, that was quite a surprise to me.

0:29:010:29:03

He was, really, for the first time publicly acknowledging

0:29:030:29:07

his sons' success, which was really nice.

0:29:070:29:10

# Some things were made to be... #

0:29:100:29:15

We were doing really well.

0:29:150:29:17

We'd just had our biggest-selling album.

0:29:170:29:19

We'd just sold 10 million copies of Promises And Lies in America

0:29:190:29:22

and we'd just toured for two years solidly,

0:29:220:29:25

so it was the most money we'd made

0:29:250:29:27

up till then in our careers, you know...

0:29:270:29:30

# Falling in love with you... #

0:29:300:29:35

..and it just went missing.

0:29:350:29:37

When we came back off tour,

0:29:420:29:43

that was when we discovered that we were penniless -

0:29:430:29:46

and not only penniless, but we were overdrawn,

0:29:460:29:48

mortgaged to the hilt and in deep shtuck.

0:29:480:29:52

CHEERING Suddenly the studios closed down

0:29:520:29:55

and there wasn't money for wages and stuff,

0:29:550:29:58

and we were all really surprised.

0:29:580:30:00

"What? How did that happen?"

0:30:000:30:03

It turned out that there were tens of millions of pounds

0:30:030:30:08

that we'd never even been paid,

0:30:080:30:10

that we should have had over the previous 20 years

0:30:100:30:13

for record royalties. We never got them.

0:30:130:30:15

For, you know, radio play and stuff like that,

0:30:150:30:17

we never got paid for any of that, and we were...

0:30:170:30:20

Throughout the '80s and '90s,

0:30:200:30:22

we were probably the third most-played band

0:30:220:30:25

in the world on the radio.

0:30:250:30:27

So, there we were - the bank were about to foreclose on the studio

0:30:280:30:32

because we'd borrowed money on the strength of it,

0:30:320:30:35

without knowing it.

0:30:350:30:37

So, then we had to borrow £300,000 to stop the bank taking the studio,

0:30:370:30:42

and we then spent the next seven, eight years

0:30:420:30:45

constantly in a cycle of borrowing money,

0:30:450:30:47

recording, going on the road and paying that money back.

0:30:470:30:51

I started asking questions.

0:30:530:30:54

They were just normal questions about,

0:30:540:30:56

"How much are we paying our staff?"

0:30:560:30:58

"How come we were getting so little when we were playing sold-out gigs?"

0:30:580:31:02

We were selling out the Wembley Arenas and stuff,

0:31:020:31:06

and we were getting peanuts for it, and I started saying,

0:31:060:31:08

you know, "What's going on?"

0:31:080:31:10

You know....

0:31:100:31:11

So I brought in Bill Curbishley,

0:31:110:31:13

who's a famous manager in the business,

0:31:130:31:15

to find out where the black hole was.

0:31:150:31:17

Initially I'd thought everything was being handled

0:31:170:31:19

really professionally and in a good way.

0:31:190:31:23

It was only after a period of time

0:31:250:31:27

I started realising that in order to survive,

0:31:270:31:31

they were juggling lots of different balls here.

0:31:310:31:34

Having been up to Birmingham a couple of times,

0:31:340:31:38

and trying to sit them all down,

0:31:380:31:40

and trying to get the eight of them to focus on all of those things

0:31:400:31:43

was virtually impossible.

0:31:430:31:45

They were so stoned, all of them.

0:31:450:31:47

All they did was smoke dope all the way through the meeting,

0:31:470:31:50

and I'm trying to get them to pay any attention to the questions

0:31:500:31:54

that we were asking, because we weren't their business managers,

0:31:540:31:56

we were their music managers.

0:31:560:31:58

There were certain things that came up.

0:31:580:32:01

One was there were debts to certain banks -

0:32:010:32:05

loans they'd had which I was unaware of,

0:32:050:32:07

and had been prior to me joining them.

0:32:070:32:10

There was a loan to an offshore company,

0:32:100:32:12

and they were repaying it at something like 33% interest.

0:32:120:32:16

I asked who was behind this company,

0:32:160:32:19

what was the reason for this loan,

0:32:190:32:21

and didn't get very far.

0:32:210:32:22

It then came out that the collateral for the loan

0:32:220:32:27

was their catalogue rights,

0:32:270:32:29

which I thought was absolutely abhorrent.

0:32:290:32:32

You know, you get used to living a certain way,

0:32:320:32:35

and, you know, for 25 years,

0:32:350:32:37

we've been living like very wealthy people -

0:32:370:32:40

you know, like millionaires, and...

0:32:400:32:42

And that carries on, and if you've got somebody not saying to you,

0:32:420:32:45

"Actually, you haven't paid. You owe half a million quid in tax."

0:32:450:32:48

-CHEERING

-So you have to trust people,

0:32:480:32:50

and it seems traditional in the music business.

0:32:500:32:53

You don't get ripped off when you're a kid

0:32:530:32:54

because you haven't made enough money to get ripped off,

0:32:540:32:57

or to not be noticed for a while,

0:32:570:32:59

but, when you get a certain way in,

0:32:590:33:02

then there's enough money to...

0:33:020:33:03

for somebody to go at.

0:33:030:33:04

The revenues that they must have made,

0:33:060:33:08

particularly in that period in the '90s when it was arenas...

0:33:080:33:11

And they were a hard-working band, you know? They toured all the time.

0:33:110:33:16

When you're playing multiple arenas in America,

0:33:160:33:18

that's when you're making big money,

0:33:180:33:20

and selling the sort of numbers of records that they were selling,

0:33:200:33:23

so it would have been awash with money at one stage.

0:33:230:33:26

But the trail of where the money went,

0:33:280:33:31

we could never find, you know,

0:33:310:33:33

and that was a real problem.

0:33:330:33:35

Of course, we carried on living as we had been living,

0:33:350:33:39

so we were living beyond our means,

0:33:390:33:40

and so we were getting into further debt.

0:33:400:33:43

We carried on trying to finance our business and our lifestyle

0:33:430:33:47

and, you know, we were employing, I don't know,

0:33:470:33:50

up to 30 people full-time.

0:33:500:33:52

What we should have done was just closed everything down

0:33:520:33:54

and started again, but we soldiered on, you know,

0:33:540:33:58

into ever-decreasing circles.

0:33:580:34:00

By the time we took over,

0:34:000:34:02

they really only had England and Holland as major markets

0:34:020:34:06

where they could still play arenas,

0:34:060:34:08

and everyone else, it was theatres, so...

0:34:080:34:10

But they still toured as if they were an arena band,

0:34:100:34:13

so there'd be six tonnes of freight going everywhere,

0:34:130:34:16

which hammered, you know, the monies that were coming in.

0:34:160:34:19

And we kept saying, "Boys, why...?"

0:34:190:34:21

And they went, "No, no, no, this is how our production people

0:34:210:34:24

"tell us we need to tour."

0:34:240:34:25

So, I think a lot of it was on wasted cost

0:34:250:34:28

and, to be honest, I think they were all very naive,

0:34:280:34:30

and just believed what they were told.

0:34:300:34:32

The band themselves are to a great extent to blame,

0:34:320:34:36

because they would sit at meetings,

0:34:360:34:38

and all they cared about really...

0:34:380:34:41

or the general feeling I got was all they cared about

0:34:410:34:43

was their monthly drawings, their monthly salaries.

0:34:430:34:47

But, even when you look at that,

0:34:470:34:49

it went nowhere near towards the gross income,

0:34:490:34:53

not when you consider they had something like 35 top-30 singles.

0:34:530:34:58

They used to sell out concerts.

0:34:580:35:00

I mean, I can't really tell you what happened to that income.

0:35:000:35:04

There was obviously something that was going on

0:35:040:35:06

that I didn't know about.

0:35:060:35:08

I was asking a lot of questions and I wasn't getting any answers,

0:35:080:35:12

and, even within the band, you know,

0:35:120:35:14

I was asking the band members questions,

0:35:140:35:17

and they were giving me answers that I knew were false,

0:35:170:35:20

and so it was all going a bit weird.

0:35:200:35:22

MUSIC: Here I Am (Come And Take Me) by UB40

0:35:220:35:25

# I can't believe that it's real... #

0:35:250:35:28

Look, ego's a massive part of being a musician.

0:35:280:35:30

If you haven't got any ego, you can't do it.

0:35:300:35:33

Even people who profess, "Oh, I'm not egotistical," they are.

0:35:330:35:35

You can't do it unless you're proud of yourself,

0:35:350:35:37

and you can stand there and look people in the eye

0:35:370:35:39

and say, "Yeah, listen to what I'm going to play now.

0:35:390:35:41

"Look what I'm going to do."

0:35:410:35:43

And it's even more profound in singers,

0:35:430:35:45

and I think he started thinking it was his band,

0:35:450:35:49

he'd manifested his will, and this is who we are, and we could see

0:35:490:35:52

as he stood with his back to us every night of the week.

0:35:520:35:55

Do you know what I mean? On stage.

0:35:550:35:57

# Here I am, baby

0:35:570:36:00

# Come and take me... #

0:36:000:36:02

So, anyway, I think Ali became increasingly unhappy,

0:36:020:36:05

as the music business is dying,

0:36:050:36:07

and this huge amount of money's not coming in,

0:36:070:36:09

and I think he tried to continue living in the same style

0:36:090:36:12

he'd become accustomed to,

0:36:120:36:14

and getting increasingly unhappy,

0:36:140:36:16

and we were getting increasingly unhappy with his behaviour.

0:36:160:36:18

We'd be going to...

0:36:180:36:19

We went to start a tour, and unless we paid a credit card bill

0:36:190:36:22

he couldn't pay, he wasn't doing the tour,

0:36:220:36:24

and that happened a few times.

0:36:240:36:26

We were going, "No, we can't pay your nonsense,

0:36:260:36:28

"because there's less and less money coming in.

0:36:280:36:30

"You know, we've all got our own responsibilities."

0:36:300:36:32

And so, you know, he didn't make us feel the happiest we'd ever felt.

0:36:320:36:35

There was a lot of stuff going down,

0:36:350:36:37

and I never got any answers to any of the questions that I was asking.

0:36:370:36:42

You know, for four years I couldn't get any information.

0:36:420:36:45

To this day, I still don't know what happened to the money.

0:36:450:36:49

And because I was asking questions, they started to demonise me

0:36:490:36:53

as the nutter and, you know,

0:36:530:36:55

I didn't know what I was talking about.

0:36:550:36:57

So, I was singled out, and I ended up having to leave.

0:36:570:37:01

That's not what happened.

0:37:030:37:06

It's...

0:37:060:37:07

It's not really down to how I remember it,

0:37:070:37:09

it's down to exactly what happened,

0:37:090:37:11

which was he told us he'd been offered money to do a solo tour,

0:37:110:37:15

erm, and we...

0:37:150:37:18

having already delayed the release of our album by six months

0:37:180:37:22

so that he could promote his album while we were on tour,

0:37:220:37:26

we then baulked at the idea of him doing a summer tour

0:37:260:37:28

in the middle of our tours.

0:37:280:37:30

We said, "You know, we've got dates. We're already committed."

0:37:300:37:32

And he said, "Well, I've been offered this money.

0:37:320:37:34

"I'm doing this tour."

0:37:340:37:36

And we said, "You can't, cos we've got shows."

0:37:360:37:38

And he said, "I'm leaving, then," and that was as simple as that.

0:37:380:37:41

He's a 50-year-old man.

0:37:410:37:42

You know, who starts a solo career in your 50s? Who's...?

0:37:420:37:45

50-year-old people don't take pop singers that seriously.

0:37:450:37:49

Kids do, teenagers take teenagers seriously -

0:37:490:37:52

they don't take somebody the same age as their grandfather seriously.

0:37:520:37:55

But in him doing that, we had to cancel an American tour,

0:37:550:37:59

a South American tour...

0:37:590:38:00

and he cancelled it all cos he said he'd booked a solo tour.

0:38:000:38:04

And we went, "We've had the advances off this."

0:38:040:38:06

So we had to... That money had to go back.

0:38:060:38:08

The remaining members of UB40 have maintained all along that

0:38:080:38:12

I left to pursue a solo career, which I have said is a lie,

0:38:120:38:17

and this is my resignation letter.

0:38:170:38:19

"I refuse to tour for more years for silly money

0:38:190:38:22

"in order to keep Reflex and its staff employed.

0:38:220:38:25

"Nothing at all has changed since we all decided things had to change.

0:38:250:38:28

"I don't agree with most of the band's recent decisions.

0:38:280:38:31

"I don't even know who makes them any more.

0:38:310:38:33

"In short, I've had enough."

0:38:330:38:35

And that's what happened. I never left to pursue a solo career.

0:38:350:38:40

Why would I? You know, I would have done that, erm,

0:38:400:38:43

with the first solo album I made in 1994,

0:38:430:38:46

when we were at the peak of our careers, you know?

0:38:460:38:48

That's when I would have gone solo if I'd wanted to at all,

0:38:480:38:51

but I never intended to go solo ever.

0:38:510:38:53

It was my band.

0:38:530:38:55

Them saying that, you know,

0:38:550:38:56

that I was going to let them down and we'd been paid for gigs...

0:38:560:38:59

The gigs we'd been paid for and contracted to do, I did.

0:38:590:39:03

He did the Australian tour and one gig in Africa on the way home,

0:39:030:39:06

which I think was Uganda,

0:39:060:39:08

and then he walked off the stage after the Uganda gig

0:39:080:39:12

and we never saw him again.

0:39:120:39:13

# Red, red wi-ne

0:39:140:39:18

# Goes to my he-ad

0:39:200:39:23

# Makes me forget that I

0:39:250:39:28

# Still need her so-oh

0:39:300:39:34

# Red, red wi-ne...#

0:39:360:39:38

No matter how many sell-out shows we did

0:39:400:39:42

and how much money we earned,

0:39:420:39:43

there was never any money at the end of the tour.

0:39:430:39:46

You have to remember,

0:39:460:39:47

Ali had been asking for years to look at the books.

0:39:470:39:50

Four years.

0:39:520:39:53

Just being told, "Oh, we forgot to bring you...

0:39:530:39:55

"We'll bring you in, next week."

0:39:550:39:57

And just the same thing, over and over again.

0:39:570:39:59

I knew they were committing commercial suicide,

0:40:050:40:08

if they were willing to let Ali go.

0:40:080:40:10

When he left the band,

0:40:130:40:14

he seems to think that they were going to go away.

0:40:140:40:17

They were all going to go into retirement somewhere.

0:40:170:40:20

But they're not going to, you know?

0:40:200:40:22

They were going to get another singer, whatever happened.

0:40:220:40:25

They were going to continue, I'm quite sure of that.

0:40:250:40:28

When Ali left, I then went to Duncan and offered him the job

0:40:280:40:31

as our new vocalist and he had just said to me,

0:40:310:40:35

that, yes, he'd love the job

0:40:350:40:37

but he wouldn't do it without Ali's blessing,

0:40:370:40:40

which infuriated me, actually, because I was saying,

0:40:400:40:44

"Ali's just walked out on us. Why have you got to ask Ali?"

0:40:440:40:46

And he said, "Because he's my kid brother and I won't do it."

0:40:460:40:50

"I want to do it but I won't do it unless he's OK with it."

0:40:500:40:53

Duncan phones me up, drunk,

0:40:530:40:55

and says, "I've joined the band, Ali."

0:40:550:40:59

And I went, "You are kidding!"

0:40:590:41:01

And he went, "No, I'm not kidding."

0:41:010:41:04

And I said, "Well, I'm very disappointed in you,

0:41:040:41:07

"but I can't tell you not to." You know.

0:41:070:41:09

"But I'm seriously disappointed in you, Dunc."

0:41:090:41:13

I immediately rang Ali and told him that I'd been offered the...

0:41:130:41:17

..the chance to do it and if he didn't want me to, I wouldn't do it.

0:41:190:41:22

But, he says, "Well, I can't..."

0:41:220:41:24

"Well, I can't say I'm pleased about it,

0:41:240:41:26

"but, of course, I wouldn't ask you not to."

0:41:260:41:29

And I said, "OK, fine."

0:41:290:41:31

Unfortunately, he's never spoken to me since that day.

0:41:310:41:33

I don't really...

0:41:330:41:36

I don't see how that's a betrayal.

0:41:360:41:38

All he did was accept Ali's job when it was offered to him.

0:41:380:41:42

And he's broken-hearted,

0:41:440:41:46

because he and Ali were the closest of all of us

0:41:460:41:50

because they are less than a year apart in age.

0:41:500:41:52

And Duncan is very, very unhappy to have lost his little brother.

0:41:520:41:58

When Ali left, that kind of reinvigorated us, you know,

0:42:000:42:03

because it had to.

0:42:030:42:06

You know, we were in shock.

0:42:060:42:08

You know, and traumatised - and, yeah, we had something to prove

0:42:090:42:13

but, also, the fans' reaction to Duncan was so good

0:42:130:42:16

that it just gave us a new lease of life, you know.

0:42:160:42:20

We knew that we could carry on.

0:42:200:42:21

We knew that we'd got somewhere to go.

0:42:210:42:24

To be honest, I thought it was only something I could fail at.

0:42:240:42:27

It's just a matter of how badly I did!

0:42:270:42:30

You know, I thought it was a sort of...

0:42:320:42:34

I don't know, a cleaning up process, a fizzling out type thing, you know.

0:42:340:42:37

Ali certainly didn't think there was much hope for us.

0:42:370:42:41

It seemed an obvious choice to see if I could do it

0:42:410:42:45

because it'll keep the brother blend with Rob and all the rest of it

0:42:450:42:50

and I'm able to do it.

0:42:500:42:52

And it's worked.

0:42:520:42:54

He was very highly strung about it for a long time

0:42:540:42:58

because he had big shoes to fill, you know,

0:42:580:43:00

and he went from, you know, playing small folk clubs with his dad,

0:43:000:43:05

you know, sometimes,

0:43:050:43:07

to suddenly playing to thousands in arenas, you know

0:43:070:43:12

and travelling all over the world.

0:43:120:43:14

And, yeah, it was terrifying for him

0:43:140:43:16

but, as he became instantly accepted,

0:43:160:43:20

then he learned to accept the idea himself.

0:43:200:43:23

# If you say that you love me madly

0:43:230:43:25

# Babe, I'll accept you gladly

0:43:250:43:28

# Oh-oh-oh... #

0:43:290:43:31

I stayed on with the others.

0:43:560:43:58

Whether you like it or not, I found myself constantly,

0:43:580:44:00

constantly phoning the office to find out what's happening.

0:44:000:44:03

"Are we getting paid this week?"

0:44:030:44:06

And then, when I've got certain members going,

0:44:060:44:08

"Well, the trustees aren't after my house." "I'm OK, Jack." You know.

0:44:080:44:14

And I'm supposed to sit there, you know,

0:44:140:44:17

after selling my house to pay off debts, consequently,

0:44:170:44:21

I've paid my share of the debt

0:44:210:44:23

but I've also paid other members of the band's debts,

0:44:230:44:26

who are still sitting pretty in their houses,

0:44:260:44:30

haven't been disrupted one iota, just made my blood boil.

0:44:300:44:34

There's no way I could actually physically go out on the road,

0:44:340:44:37

and be in that person's company

0:44:370:44:39

without wanting to smack them in the face.

0:44:390:44:41

And so, I thought, best thing to do, leave.

0:44:420:44:45

It was terribly painful, really,

0:44:480:44:50

because we felt like he'd been a complete Judas.

0:44:500:44:53

He came to us and he said, "I'm so skint, I've got no money."

0:44:530:44:56

We gave him all the money we had in the bank account.

0:44:560:44:58

He said, "I'm leaving if I can't get any money."

0:44:580:45:00

"We can't give you the money you want

0:45:000:45:02

"because it isn't there, but have this."

0:45:020:45:04

It was everything we had in the company accounts

0:45:040:45:06

and he left the next morning.

0:45:060:45:08

Well, you didn't want to stay around

0:45:080:45:10

to continue with the country vibe, as well, did you?

0:45:100:45:13

Well, that was totally...

0:45:130:45:15

That was the last straw, that really was.

0:45:150:45:18

And this Getting Over The Storm album,

0:45:180:45:21

I found myself trying to convince my mates

0:45:210:45:24

that it could work and they're just looking at me, like,

0:45:240:45:27

"Don't know where your head's at, mate.

0:45:270:45:29

"But, you know, that ain't reggae."

0:45:290:45:31

# Blue eyes crying in the rain...#

0:45:320:45:34

Well, the whole decision was ridiculous, to make a country album.

0:45:350:45:38

They're the biggest selling reggae band in the world, you know.

0:45:380:45:42

And they decided to make a country album.

0:45:420:45:44

It's a slap in the face to the fans who, you know,

0:45:440:45:47

bought all our records all along.

0:45:470:45:49

It's a slap in the face to Astro

0:45:490:45:51

and it's certainly a slap in the face to me,

0:45:510:45:54

as I'd started UB40 to promote reggae, you know.

0:45:540:45:58

And for them to do a country album is still jaw-dropping stuff, for me.

0:45:580:46:02

We released an album with, like,

0:46:060:46:07

a country influence album and he attacked it furiously,

0:46:070:46:10

saying we'd ruined the band's legacy and ruined reggae music.

0:46:100:46:14

It's fucking ridiculous.

0:46:140:46:16

We're musicians.

0:46:160:46:18

We're just trying other stuff and it's a very successful record.

0:46:180:46:21

All around the world we go and people know the songs

0:46:210:46:24

and it paid for itself.

0:46:240:46:25

The worst review we've ever had for it is Ali Campbell.

0:46:270:46:30

He's made it his mission in life to run us down, now

0:46:300:46:32

and he's given us a terrible hard time in the press.

0:46:320:46:36

# I've got to run

0:46:360:46:38

# To keep from hiding... #

0:46:380:46:40

Whereas, as a band, UB40, we've stayed away from it

0:46:400:46:43

because it's just...

0:46:430:46:44

It's just not very sophisticated.

0:46:440:46:47

It's just a bit wanky, innit?

0:46:470:46:49

To run people down and talk about people

0:46:490:46:50

when they're not there to defend themselves.

0:46:500:46:53

I would take anything Brian says with a pinch of salt, you know,

0:46:530:46:56

because they've launched this...

0:46:560:46:58

-Hate campaign.

-Yeah!

0:46:580:47:01

A campaign to discredit me, you know.

0:47:010:47:03

Well, it's absolutely true because, when Ali left,

0:47:030:47:05

I can remember the band saying,

0:47:050:47:07

"Right, we'll take the moral high ground. We say nothing."

0:47:070:47:10

And I'm in total agreement with that.

0:47:100:47:13

Because, as far as I'm concerned, this just involves the band,

0:47:130:47:16

it doesn't concern anybody else outside.

0:47:160:47:19

Within four hours of Ali leaving,

0:47:190:47:22

poor little Brian's little fingers were tapping away,

0:47:220:47:26

just assassinating Ali by the second.

0:47:260:47:29

And then Jimmy Brown, the drummer,

0:47:290:47:31

he jumped in and they haven't stopped since.

0:47:310:47:34

They just haven't stopped. It's just been relentless.

0:47:340:47:37

And the same thing's happened with me.

0:47:400:47:42

When I left, there's that beautiful quote from fans, you know,

0:47:420:47:47

"Sorry to see you go." "Thanks for the memories", etc, etc.

0:47:470:47:50

Five hours later, Jimmy Brown, straightaway, you know.

0:47:500:47:53

"He's been caught with his hands in the till."

0:47:550:47:57

Which is what he said about me.

0:47:570:47:59

"Don't let him fool you, this is all about money."

0:47:590:48:01

"He wanted more than everybody else." You know.

0:48:010:48:04

This is the man who hasn't spent a penny on repaying the loans.

0:48:040:48:08

You know, so, let them get on with it.

0:48:080:48:12

It's a difficult one for me, this,

0:48:120:48:14

because Ali was my best friend when we were children.

0:48:140:48:17

He was the best man at my wedding. We were best mates.

0:48:170:48:20

We lived next door to each other in Jamaica.

0:48:200:48:22

We went on holiday together, always, with our families and kids.

0:48:220:48:26

So it's very painful. He's not the guy I grew up with and knew,

0:48:260:48:30

and we've come to a point where we've got to defend ourselves.

0:48:300:48:34

Not for egotistical reasons, not for personal reasons

0:48:340:48:38

but I've got to defend my friends, his brothers

0:48:380:48:42

and I've got to defend my partners here

0:48:420:48:45

from the shit that gets written about them, coming out of his mouth.

0:48:450:48:48

-I take it that there's no chance of you getting back together again.

-No.

0:48:530:48:57

It will. About 10 minutes after hell has frozen over.

0:48:570:49:00

No. I don't care what he does. Really. You know, he's...

0:49:030:49:07

The vitriol he's heaped on me and, you know,

0:49:090:49:13

fellow band members and Duncan.

0:49:130:49:16

The lies he's told in the last eight years are just disgusting.

0:49:160:49:19

You know, I've lost all feeling, really.

0:49:190:49:23

I've become numb to the whole thing, to be honest.

0:49:230:49:27

I'd rather not get back together with him.

0:49:270:49:30

It got... I love him but,

0:49:300:49:32

as I say, but he hasn't spoken to me since that day.

0:49:320:49:34

He doesn't keep in touch with the family.

0:49:340:49:36

I mean, he doesn't live in Birmingham any more,

0:49:360:49:38

as we all still do.

0:49:380:49:40

And Dad passed away and Ali didn't come to the funeral,

0:49:410:49:44

or couldn't come to the funeral, whatever.

0:49:440:49:46

You know, we haven't seen him.

0:49:460:49:48

It's, er...

0:49:480:49:50

It's unfortunate.

0:49:500:49:51

What has happened is our family has been ripped asunder.

0:49:530:49:58

You know, it's been ripped apart, you know.

0:49:580:50:01

My father, before he died,

0:50:010:50:03

refused to talk to me because he took Duncan's side and Robin's side.

0:50:030:50:07

You know, and to say I didn't make Dad's funeral -

0:50:070:50:10

I was in New Zealand at the time. You know what I mean?

0:50:100:50:14

That's just a nasty, silly thing to say.

0:50:140:50:17

It's very disappointing that Ali's behaved the way he has,

0:50:170:50:21

you know, but not altogether surprising

0:50:210:50:24

when you've lived with him as long as I have.

0:50:240:50:27

My mum refuses to take sides. You know, we're all her boys

0:50:270:50:31

and she loves us equally and treats us the same

0:50:310:50:34

and refuses to become embroiled.

0:50:340:50:37

It's just become so poisonous, the whole situation.

0:50:370:50:41

It's particularly sad for our mother,

0:50:410:50:45

who has said to me that she's always taken comfort

0:50:450:50:50

from the knowledge that her four lads were there for each other.

0:50:500:50:55

And she's had to accept that that simply isn't the case now.

0:50:560:50:59

They're trying to sue us and we've got to defend ourselves.

0:51:150:51:18

Their argument is that we're passing off as UB40.

0:51:180:51:24

Our argument is that they're passing off because they've never said

0:51:240:51:27

that it's not the original line-up

0:51:270:51:29

and they've never said UB40 featuring Duncan Campbell,

0:51:290:51:33

or featuring Duncan, Robin, and Brian.

0:51:330:51:36

We always make it very clear who comes to see us,

0:51:360:51:39

it's UB40 featuring Ali, Astro and Mickey.

0:51:390:51:42

They know that if they have to go out

0:51:440:51:47

with "UB40 featuring Duncan Campbell"

0:51:470:51:49

that they'll never get a booking

0:51:490:51:51

and we're playing the O2, selling it out.

0:51:510:51:54

The guys that left the band, left the band of their own accord,

0:51:550:51:58

you know. Leaving us, the remaining members of the band,

0:51:580:52:02

to carry on as UB40.

0:52:020:52:03

Until they used the name, Ali's career hadn't happened

0:52:050:52:10

and then it dawned on him that...

0:52:100:52:12

When he went to Africa and places like that

0:52:120:52:15

and he sold himself as UB40, then he suddenly thought,

0:52:150:52:18

"Aye, aye, I can...I can do this...everywhere!"

0:52:180:52:21

And that was what he did.

0:52:210:52:23

I don't see why this couldn't be resolved very easily.

0:52:230:52:26

But of course, once emotions get involved

0:52:260:52:29

and bad feeling from the past and accusations -

0:52:290:52:34

it gets very muddy and nobody has any rationale or common sense.

0:52:340:52:39

But this could have been resolved a long time ago.

0:52:390:52:42

Both parties are in for a quarter of a million quid already

0:52:420:52:45

and as soon as you start the ball rolling like this,

0:52:450:52:48

it's very difficult to stop it, you know, because...

0:52:480:52:51

If they walk away with their hands down, they have to pay our costs.

0:52:510:52:55

And if we do the same, then we have to pay their costs.

0:52:550:52:58

So it just has to keep going and the only people that win

0:52:580:53:01

are the lawyers, obviously.

0:53:010:53:03

We're prepared to go as far as we have to go. We've already...

0:53:030:53:07

Again, you know, broken ourselves spending money

0:53:070:53:11

for two years on lawyers.

0:53:110:53:15

Very expensive lawyers, you know. We're prepared to go

0:53:150:53:18

as far as we have to go to...be able to use our name.

0:53:180:53:24

I've never seen a whole band suffer to this degree.

0:53:270:53:33

They've been cleaved down the middle in terms of family members.

0:53:330:53:37

They're all at odds with each other. They've all lost their houses

0:53:370:53:41

and they've all been bankrupt. It doesn't get much worse than that.

0:53:410:53:46

It's quite stunning, in a way, cos when I first joined them,

0:53:460:53:49

I really thought they were a bunch of happy-go-lucky guys

0:53:490:53:53

and for them, none of them, to be seen to have the rewards

0:53:530:53:57

from their previous hard work -

0:53:570:53:59

it just doesn't make sense.

0:53:590:54:02

I'd love to think that somewhere there's this

0:54:100:54:13

big pot of money that the eight boys who made up this fantastic band,

0:54:130:54:17

would be able to get hold of. But I don't think it exists,

0:54:170:54:21

I think it's just been frittered away or been skimmed off

0:54:210:54:24

over the years.

0:54:240:54:26

It's quite fitting, as well, that they had an album called

0:54:260:54:29

Promises And Lies. Because it seems to me that's what's been

0:54:290:54:33

the motto of their career -

0:54:330:54:35

promises and lies.

0:54:350:54:37

And, erm...it's a sad story, a very sad story.

0:54:380:54:43

MUSIC: Dream A Lie by UB40

0:54:430:54:45

# We're still together just the same

0:54:460:54:48

# The morning sun I raise my head

0:54:480:54:50

# A lonely room an empty bed

0:54:500:54:52

# Always seems that way

0:54:590:55:02

# Yes, it always seems that way... #

0:55:020:55:06

Really, it's starting again.

0:55:070:55:09

We're trying to reclaim the name before the legacy is destroyed.

0:55:090:55:13

As soon as Astro came back and played with us, the fans have just -

0:55:130:55:17

they're loving it, you know,

0:55:170:55:18

and really it seems they feel it's a solution

0:55:180:55:22

that finally, you know... We've reunited again

0:55:220:55:25

and we're back flying the flag for reggae!

0:55:250:55:28

So, yeah, it's looking good for us. And I think it was inevitable...

0:55:280:55:32

Fans, you know, will vote with their feet.

0:55:320:55:34

No, we'll never get back together again -

0:55:360:55:38

there's been too much skulduggery, you know.

0:55:380:55:40

And musically, I wouldn't want to play with those guys again

0:55:400:55:44

because the band I've got now is...is

0:55:440:55:46

a lot better. There's no egos involved in...in our UB40,

0:55:460:55:50

you know. Er, and the music's better.

0:55:500:55:53

Since Ali left eight years ago, we've been recording,

0:55:540:55:58

performing as UB40. And I still love my life, you know.

0:55:580:56:04

I still pinch myself every day that I've had the life I've had,

0:56:040:56:07

so, I'm not about to be twisted and bitter and...

0:56:070:56:11

I'm not about to let that kind of thing consume me, you know.

0:56:110:56:15

It's not worth it. That time's gone. I had a wonderful time living...

0:56:150:56:20

while it was going on. I still enjoy my life.

0:56:200:56:23

It's not as comfortable as it should be but, you know,

0:56:230:56:26

it's a lot more comfortable than it would have been

0:56:260:56:29

if I had never been in UB40.

0:56:290:56:31

And we'll keep going until we drop, you know.

0:56:320:56:35

# Never was a better time

0:56:370:56:38

# To try to set the words to rhyme

0:56:380:56:40

# Of when a golden love turns blue

0:56:400:56:42

# And dreams of dreams that won't come true

0:56:420:56:45

# Every night I call your name We're still together just the same

0:56:450:56:48

# The morning sun I raise my head

0:56:480:56:50

# A lonely room an empty bed

0:56:500:56:52

# Always seems that way

0:56:520:56:55

# Always seems that way

0:56:550:56:58

# Always seems that way

0:56:580:57:02

# Yes, it always seems the way

0:57:020:57:05

# Always seems that way

0:57:070:57:09

# Always seems that way

0:57:140:57:18

# Always seems that way

0:57:180:57:24

# Yes, it always seems that way... #

0:57:240:57:28

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