Interview: Suggs
ARCHIMEDES is said to have had his “Eureka” moment in the bath and so, too, did Suggs.
But while the Greek scholar’s experience was a revelatory one, the Madness frontman’s was tinged with sadness, as he explains.
“I was lying in the bath when I heard this almighty crash. I jumped out of the water and found my cat had fallen through a glass shelf I’d put up and he was dead. He was my favourite cat, called Mamba, and I remember thinking, ‘What’s God up to, why’s he doing this?’ I had just turned 50, my kids had moved out and now my cat was dead.”
It prompted him to consider his own mortality, but out of this despondency came the idea of doing a show exploring his past. “I sat down and started writing quite frankly about my life,” he says. He spent the next three months piecing it together and the finished product – Suggs, My Life Story in words and music – has just started a UK tour that calls in at York, Leeds and Hull in the coming weeks.
“It has good bits and the darker moments and there’s humour too, although it isn’t stand-up. It’s got a narrative and it’s theatrical to a point with some songs along the way. But I’m not doing this as some kind of vanity act, everything in it is true,” he says.
Suggs isn’t known for a lack of self-confidence but he admits he found it “nerve racking” when he first performed the show in front of his family. “Life with my mum was tough when I was younger and it was just the two of us and I didn’t want to upset her, but she was fine,” he says.
Born Graham McPherson, he is the only child of a jazz singer called Edith and a father who left the family home when Suggs was just three-years-old. He spent his formative years travelling up and down the country with his mother as she followed the work, moving first to Liverpool and then London.
He admits he felt “disconnected” from the world as a youngster. “I didn’t have a father figure and later on I suppose Madness became like my dysfunctional surrogate family and they still are. You realise as you get older that the most important part of life is the people around you.”
It was when he was at school that he acquired his nickname.
“I was looking though one of my mum’s books about jazz musicians and I took a pin, closed my eyes, and stuck it into a page at random and it landed on the name Peter. That didn’t sound very interesting but I looked at the second name ‘Suggs’ and that sounded a bit different and it’s stuck ever since.”
His mother sometimes took him along to the jazz clubs where she was playing but despite this early exposure to music, he didn’t think about following in her footsteps.
“I never considered that I could be a singer, but I remember me and some mates went to watch American Graffiti and when I came out my head was spinning. We started talking about starting a band and someone suggested I could be the singer. I was quite a charismatic kid and when I found out that I could actually sing it was a bit of a revelation.”
Madness was formed in 1976, just as the Punk movement was about to shake up the British music scene. “I think that helped us because it meant that bands like us, who couldn’t play that well but had a lot of energy, could get gigs,” he explains.
Success came pretty quickly. My Girl reached number three in the charts in 1979, when Suggs was still a teenager, and they went on to become one of Britain’s most popular bands with a string of top 10 hits including House of Fun, Night Boat to Cairo, It Must Be Love (an earlier hit for Labi Siffre) and Baggy Trousers.
After more than 30 years in the entertainment business, the band are still very much in demand.
“I think if you’re playing with your friends, like we do, that makes a difference,” explains Suggs. “The music still resonates with people and I think they appreciate we were doing our own thing, we weren’t trying to appeal to a particular audience. We were making songs to enliven our days, songs with lots of energy and fun.”
Suggs – My Life Story, Grand Opera House, York, January 26. City Varieties, Leeds, February 16. New Theatre, Hull, February 18.
Suggs – A lifetime welcome to the house of fun
He was born Graham McPherson in Hastings in January 1961.
An only child, he was brought up by his mother, a jazz singer.
He became known as Suggs after randomly picking a name from a book about jazz musicians.
He formed Madness with friends in Camden in 1976.
The band has more than 20 hits, including My Girl, Our House, Night Boat to Cairo, It Must be Love and Baggy Trousers.
As well as singing with Madness, Suggs has worked as a TV presenter, actor and radio DJ.
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