Legends of the second wave of ska, Madness, are making a film that is part live concert, part documentary and part theatrical piece.
The film is still in the making and will be directed by Julian Temple (‘The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle’, ‘Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten’).“We’re supposed to make a really great film with Julian Temple,” Madness front man Suggs told Undercover. “He’s been working with us and it’s coming along I think.”
“We did three nights at the Hackney Empire. We did some acting for that as well, we went down by the river and we did some stuff, and we did some shows with Luke Cresswell, the guy who did Stomp, so it’s a combination of all three, it’s a live concert, a documentary and some theatrical pieces.”
“It’s going to be done in the next couple of weeks. The album is coming out in May, so we have to get the pieces of the jigsaw, I mean we’re doing this all by ourselves, so it’s hard to work out what comes first and how we promote the album and simple things like whether we should even make a single for radio and what about this film and how do we get this film shown?”
The album that he’s speaking of is the band’s first album of new material in ten years, ‘The Liberty of Norton Folgate’, which was written to celebrate the band’s thirtieth anniversary.
“The album ten years ago was supposed to be the beginning of us doing it all again,” Suggs said. “But we just didn’t follow it through. We had a huge burst of activity in the 80s and everyone got really tired, so we stopped, then we did some Madstock concerts in the early 90s and an album and now because this is our thirtieth year we decided to do an album and get back to it.”
The good thing about Madness’ sudden burst of activity is that they’ll head back to Australia for the first time in nearly two decades. But are they as mad as they once were?
“Unfortunately so,” Suggs laughed. “In fact, I think it’s getting worse as it goes on, but I’m a good person, I look after them all.”
You can catch Madness on their first Australian tour in sixteen years at the following dates:
MARCH
26 - The Big Top @ Luna Park, Sydney (Headline Show)
28 - Centennial Park, Sydney (V Festival)
29 - Avica Resort, Gold Coast (V Festival)
31 - The Palace Theatre, Melbourne (Headline Show)
APRIL
1 - Thebarton Theatre, Adelaide (Headline Show)
3 - Moorilla Estate Winery, Hobart (Headline Show)
4 - Showgrounds, Melbourne (V Festival)
5 - Claremont Showgrounds, Perth (V Festival)
