Suggs on hitting the road with Madness and The Ladykillers Tour

Virgin Radio

17 May 2021, 09:37

Madness are back with a new 14-date arena tour. Singer Suggs joined the Chris Evans Breakfast Show with Sky to talk about forgetting how to play their infamous tunes after 40 years post lockdown and looking forward to getting back into his favourite Soho pub. 

Kicking off on Monday 29th November, he said: "It’s an arena tour, so we're going be starting in Dublin and it goes around the country ending up at The O2 hopefully so we’re very much looking forward to that.

“We were rehearsing for this thing we did at The Palladium and my daughter's involved in charitable work. She said, can we come down to film a couple of numbers for this charity auction that we're doing today?

“I said, guys you don't mind - we were working on some new stuff - can we just do a couple of the old ones for my daughter and we launched into it and we were completely all over the gaff. No one could remember a single thing. After 40 years!

"It was the first time of course because we’d been playing those songs every year since dawn but it was interesting and fun that challenge of actually re-learning the songs that we haven't played for a year and a half or so.

“I was hearing them like they'd been written the first time. Suddenly I was hearing the lyrics and the melody because if you play songs over and over for too long they do become a little bit abstract.

"You’re just thinking about your washing and what you’re having for dinner. When you're nervous about what's coming next you really hear it again. Mindfulness and all that…"

On his ever-excitable fans, he said: "Places like Glasgow right, we get to the hotel about three o'clock and there's already crowds of people singing Madness songs going down the street… they've still got five hours to go."

So where’s he looking forward to having a drink? "The French House in Dean Street. They’ve really struggled because it's tiny inside, there's barely enough room for two or three people nevermind a packed bar so I'm looking forward to that very much.”