Madness have spoken to NME about their new ‘Hit Parade’ compilation and UK tour, while sharing stories from their “unique” lengthy career and explaining why they’re not going anywhere yet.
The legendary North London group will release the huge 45-track collection on November 21 via West Village Music Management (pre-order here). It’ll capture every era of their story so far, from the early days of 1979 up to 2024. ‘Hit Parade’ boasts 27 top 40 hits from Madness, including ‘It Must Be Love’, ‘Baggy Trousers’, ‘Lovestruck’ and their classic 1982 Number One single ‘House Of Fun’.
“It’s 45 years of the band and 45 singles,” frontman Suggs told NME. “The ‘Hit Parade’ is a joke; it’s what they used to call it in the ’50s. We were just trying to think of something other than ‘Greatest Hits’ [Laughs]. We’ve just been having such a great time the last few years. We had a Number One album [‘Theatre Of The Absurd Presents C’est La Vie’], and we decided we’d have a big celebration of the whole thing.”
Reflecting on Madness’ early days, he added: “There was a parade of serious people going on one side of the pavement, and we were on the other side with a popped balloon and a kazoo. But I can’t complain, because what we do and what we did transcends whatever trends there happen to be.”
Check out the full interview with Suggs below, where he talked about “parading the hits” on their Christmas 2025 UK tour,
NME: Hello, Suggs. What ‘Hit Parade’ track most represents a pivotal or important moment in Madness’ history?
Suggs: “Obviously [1979 debut single] ‘The Prince’. We put that out, barely able to play our instruments. I bumped into Jerry Dammers when he came on with The Specials at the Hope & Anchor. And of course, the story is true that he had nowhere to stay that night. Given his teeth, he wasn’t gonna pull a girl, so he ended up staying at my mum’s flat.
“In the middle of the night, he suddenly announced that he was gonna start his own record label, and it’s gonna be a British Motown. I said, ‘That’s a smidge optimistic, seeing you play to 35 people in a pub basement’. About three months later he got in touch and said, ‘I’ve done it’. He said, ‘Do you wanna make a record?’. Fortunately, we’d been in this eight-track studio in Stoke Newington called ‘Pathway’ where Elvis Costello had recorded ‘Watching The Detectives’. We’d done three songs: ‘Madness’, ‘My Girl’ and ‘The Prince’.
“We sent [Dammers] ‘The Prince’ and he said, ‘Yeah, I wanna put that out as the second single on 2 Tone’. That got in the charts and it got to Number 18 or something, and we were off. So I suppose that is a pivotal single, for sure.”
Were you surprised at any of the songs becoming hits or fan favourites?
“‘Embarrassment’ [1980], I think. It’s a very strange song because it’s got no chorus, and it’s a really odd mixture of Motown – which we were really into – but then the British kind of Elvis Costello, again. The great thing about British music is trying to approximate Black music, and getting it slightly wrong.
“We were being investigated for being racist, because we were the only white band on that Ska tip. That song was about [founder/saxophonist] Lee Thompson’s sister having a baby with a Black guy. It was sort of a kitchen sink drama version – The Specials were political with a capital ‘P’, and we were political with a small ‘p’. But I think we’d been trying to explain to certain members of the audience that we were playing music of Black origin. How the fuck could we be racist? Anyway, that song spelt it out a bit.”
How do you think a new, rising band like Madness would fare in today’s climate?
“I don’t know, it’s hard to say. There are so many factors. We were unique – I think we are unique. All those singles, whatever they were – calypso, jazz, ska, British pop – they all sound like Madness. I remember seeing the Buena Vista Social Club, and thinking they could’ve only come from Cuba. We could’ve only come from where we came from. There’s a unique quality to that.
“It’s so hard for bands now. When we started – ‘the good-old-fucking-days’ and all that… I wish they were! – there were probably 15 pubs in Camden Town, where you could get a gig. Now there’s probably one or two. So for a band of our size – six or seven people – I think it’d be very difficult. We certainly wouldn’t have got very far on X Factor or Britain’s Got Talent. We wouldn’t have got past the first round. I can’t think of any other band like us.”
What did it mean to be honoured with a stone on the Camden’s Music Walk Of Fame in 2020?
“It was very nice. To get recognised for what you’ve done in a sort of charming fashion. It’s right outside the tube station. So if you don’t like us, you can spit on it as soon as you come out of the tube. We took it very gratefully, and a lot of people came to see us. A couple of The Specials came, some of UB40, and people we’ve respected over the years. And a few modern kids – Tinie Tempah and what have you. A great day.”
You contributed to Dua Lipa’s Camden documentary, and we’ve seen local band Wolf Alice blow up as an arena-level act. What do you know about the current scene?
“I go there regularly; I’ve still got friends there. Henry [Conlon] who runs the Dublin Castle, whose dad [Alo] gave us our first gig. That’s still sort of the epicentre of what was my time in Camden. The tourist thing exploded out of all imagination. People are doing good and making a living, but it’s pretty unrecognisable from the dreary, grey old place it was when I was a kid. It was the perfect place to be a skint teenager, because you had Guinness at very reasonable prices and lock-ins. It was a great place to start a band.”
How was it returning to KOKO for an intimate gig in 2023?
“Yeah, great. With arenas, you don’t get the same feeling as you do in small venues. It’s a different thing. Smaller venues are always a sentimental, romantic remembrance of how great it is to see people up close. We did five nights at the Dublin Castle a little while before that. We decided we were gonna do a night there. We enjoyed it so much, we paid the other four bands who were supposed to be playing that week not to turn up. We just kept doing a surprise gig. There was sweat pouring off the ceiling. I remember saying to Henry, ‘Can we turn up the air conditioning?’ He said, ‘I’ve turned up the heating, to sell more beer’. But playing smaller venues, it’s a reminder of why you did it in the first place.”
You took aim at Boris Johnson on ‘Bullingdon Boys’. What do you make of Keir Starmer’s Labour, and his promise to “protect” grassroots venues?
“Hopefully, it will turn into something. We’ve been very involved in the smaller venues thing, and Henry, I think, is a chairman of music pubs in north London. The whole pub thing in general seems so lopsided. You can see with your own eyes how many music venues are left, and how difficult it is to keep them going. I see a lot of co-operatives now starting up, and young bands getting together and trying to do co-operatives themselves – which I think is great. Any help [Starmer] could give would be marvellous.
“Henry once went to see the Minister Of Culture – it might have been Theresa May or somebody. He went in her office and she had posters of U2, Coldplay and all that, [saying] what great revenue it brings in. He said, ‘Where the fuck do you think these bands started?’ They started in pubs. You can have the chicken without the egg. It’s that whole notion that the creative arts are deemed to be a privilege. There’s no encouragement. Ballet, opera and all that get subsidised, but the most popular art forms don’t. Going to art college and stuff – it’s turning into a situation where only the well-to-do can afford to be involved. It’s really tragic.”
You put out the Before We Was documentary a few years back, and spoke about a potential follow-up exploring Madness’ evolution into pop. Is this something you can see happening soon?
“Sure. It was fun. It’s like any memory of a party – everyone has a completely different memory. But it’s nice everyone got a chance to speak – some that don’t often, like Mark [Bedford] the bass player, or Woody the drummer. It’s not just me going on about my feelings. It’s talking about the slightly more nefarious way we were as kids, to explain [how music] was a great way out of what was gonna be a life of crime, for some of us. For all kids, it would be a great thing if they had the opportunity to experience what we did.”
Do you think the doc changed people’s perception of Madness?
“I don’t know. The perception of the band changes as the years go by. I remember when we did the album ‘…Norton Folgate’ [2009], suddenly we were getting really good reviews in the broadsheets – which we never had before. We were always looked at as a bit of a novelty act. We were kind of foolish, but we weren’t fools. We put a lot of effort into the music. I suppose because the videos were so theatrical, sometimes they got more publicity than the records. Because the singles were all so successful, the albums kind of got overlooked. [They] possibly had some more depth.
“I don’t know where it’s at now. I think people like the band, and I think people like the backstory. I found a really good documentary [Madness, Prince du Ska, Roi de la Pop] by some French guy [director Christophe Conte] – it’s really great. The way the French are so serious about everything. It’s about the impact the band had at various stages of our career.”
You scored your first Number One album with ‘Theatre Of The Absurd…’. Why do you think the album captured people’s imagination?
“We hadn’t played together for a while. Like everyone else, we’d been through the lockdown, and we had all the same problems that everyone else did – arguing about what was right and wrong, the vaccine, and this and that. But then we got into the rehearsal room and started playing songs. There’s always been a great tolerance in the band, and there were these perspectives that people are talking about now. It was just beginning then, this sort of polarisation of opinion. Because we’ve known each other so long, we allowed everyone to have an opinion. So on that album, there’s a lot of different opinions about what’s right and wrong with the world. I think that resonates with people. We weren’t banging on [about] who’s right or wrong.”
What can fans expect from the tour? Warwick Davis joined you for an onstage skit to beat up Lee “Thommo” Thompson in Cornwall this summer…
“Yeah, we’re always coming up with stupid things. It’s sort of a cheesy ’60s pop show that you used to get – the set being a bit like that. And maybe having some sort of quiz ideas of particular songs, and getting the audience a bit involved. I don’t know how involved – ultimately, people want to see the songs and sing along. But we might have a bit more theatre to it.
“Elvis Costello’s popped up for a third time: he did a show once where he had a great big wheel of all his hits on it, and people come out of the audience and spun the wheel. I’m sure there was someone behind the wheel making sure it stopped on the right song [Laughs]. But he had things like ‘I Should Be So Lucky’ by Kylie Minogue, and all sorts of incongruous songs that the wheel might stop on. Of course, it never did.
“There will be some sort of audience participation, yeah.”
You played Victorious Festival this summer, on the same day The Mary Wallopers had their set cut short for speaking out in support of Palestine. Is it important for artists to use their platform in this way?
“We’d already gone by the time we heard about it. There was all this bullshit about, ‘Oh, it was the sound man who did it’, well who’s he been told to do it by? ‘Oh, it was the promoter’, well who’s he been told by? ‘Oh, it’s the agent.’ It’s this weird chain of commands. It’s these barely-starting-out bands that are so important.
“It’s like Bob Vylan and Kneecap. I wasn’t at Glastonbury, but pretty much every fucking band was saying something about Palestine. So you pick on people you can hopefully squash, but you can’t squash ideas. We talked about Palestine at some concert or other – and I dare a promoter to fucking pull us off. You’ve got 50,000 people who are gonna smash the place to pieces. It’s such a hypocrisy – to pick on small bands, take them to court and all that. But you’re forgetting about the bigger bands who are saying exactly the same things.”
Madness famously stepped in for Oasis at Rock En Seine when they broke up. How important is their reunion for music and British culture?
“It’s great songwriting, great energy. It’s funny what goes around. I went to see them at Wembley – I thought it was great. [Rock En Seine] was a bizarre night. I saw [the promoter] recently. The guy came in the hotel and said, ‘Remember me?’ I said, ‘No’. He said, ‘I’m the promoter who asked you to go back on stage the Oasis night’. I said, ‘What happened?’ He said, ‘I couldn’t get a gig for 10 years after that! I’ve just come back. I’ve booked you in gratitude, to headline this festival’.”
You’ve said Madness aren’t “allowed” to retire? What does the future have in store?
“The Eagles [said], ‘You can check out anytime you like/ But you can never leave‘. It just keeps going! It’s fantastic. There’s a great spirit in the band, and people like it. I can’t complain. If you’d asked me 45 years ago, I wouldn’t have had a clue that this would still be going. We went through a lot of fallow periods, and a lot of my contemporaries aren’t around for one reason or another. I go on stage and I say, ‘We’re still alive – never mind anything else – and you turned up to see us’.
“We never got a BRIT Award. We closed the Sky Arts Awards [last month], and Bob Geldof got an award, and we never. I was like, ‘Hang on a minute! We’re closing this fucking show!’ What about the ‘Why are they still here?’ award? We’d win that.”
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