Speaking from his home in Coventry, Neville Staple is battling a very sore throat, having picked up a cold while performing at two outdoor festivals over the weekend.
Being the British summer, of course it rained, but Staple was determined as ever to give his audience a quality show. It’s this workman-like attitude that has helped to sustain the Jamaican-born singer through a 44-year career, both as a solo artist and with 2 Tone ska pioneers The Specials.
“I didn’t think I was going to be in bands, all I was doing was DJing – what they call rap now,” says Staple of getting his start in ‘toasting’ – the Jamaican style of rhythmical singing – over records as a teenager. Having moved to Britain at the age of five, he credits joining The Specials and the top ten success of their first single, ‘Gangsters’, with keeping him out of trouble.
“You gotta remember I’m straight off the street, meaning I didn’t go to college, I wasn’t on no higher education. So when that happened it was like, ‘This is beautiful, I used to see it on TV, now I’m doing it.’ It was a great feeling – I was 17.”
The band got a big leg-up when Joe Strummer personally selected them as a support act for The Clash On Parole UK tour of 1978. Besides the massive exposure this afforded the young group, The Specials were also briefly taken on by The Clash’s svengali manager, Bernie Rhodes. This union didn’t last long, with Staple’s line “Bernie Rhodes knows: don’t argue” at the start of ‘Gangsters’ appearing to comment on the relationship.
“He was quite strict and we weren’t used to it at the time,” says Staple. “He was used to it ’cause he’d been in it a long time. That’s what ya gotta do: Bernie Rhodes knows, so don’t argue.”
The Specials went on to have several charting singles including ‘A Message To You, Rudy’, ‘Too Much Too Young’ and ‘Ghost Town’, but folded shortly after Staple, singer Terry Hall and guitarist Lynval Golding left to form Fun Boy Three in 1981.
However, the ska revival of the ’90s prompted renewed interest in The Specials, eventually leading to a reunion in 2008. The band has continued to tour ever since, a situation that Staple says was enjoyable for the first two years until old tensions arose.
“There’s that camp, that camp and that camp. You can’t run a band like that. One thinks he’s higher than the rest of ’em, next one’s the next one down, then there was me and Roddy [Radiation, guitar], who was like scum of the earth. We were from the streets and we didn’t like people saying, ‘Oh, you gotta do this, you gotta do that,’ especially one person. And it started to not get enjoyable. You need to enjoy what you’re doing. I got a good earning being in the band, but pointless isn’t it? Staying in just to make money and not enjoying myself? C’mon.”
The press release announcing Staple’s departure in 2013 cited health issues, referring to a 2011 car crash and a subsequent series of strokes that affected his movements onstage. However, Staple claims this was untrue. “I got sacked,” he says definitively. “That’s just what they say – ‘Oh, the door’s open for Neville anytime’ – of course it wasn’t. I used to jump around off speakers, off monitors, that’s how I got bad knees over the years. So basically it was that [and] I had a four-car pile-up, that didn’t help. I’m alright, it just took a little bit of time to get over my illness of my knee.”
Although he still maintains relations with Radiation, who left The Specials in 2014, and their former leader, songwriter, producer and keyboardist Jerry Dammers, who was never invited to be part of the reunion, Staple has no time for the other members of The Specials today.
“The rest don’t talk to me, I don’t talk to them [and] I’m not losing sleep over it. But fair enough, let them do what they’re doing. Good luck to them.”
Despite The Specials’ claims that his health was restrictive, Staple has remained highly active with his own act, The Neville Staple Band. “The energy’s not the same – I’m old, for God’s sake,” he laughs. “I don’t jump around [but] I’ve always been an entertainer. The energy’s still there.”
After years of playing a basically identical setlist of songs, each delivered exactly as they were recorded in the late ’70s, the 61-year-old is enjoying the freedom of being able to vary his live shows. “If the crowd’s into it we let them sing a verse [and] we keep going,” he says. “It’s like a party thing. It’s not like, three-and-a-half minutes, finished. Next song. Three-and-a-half minutes, finished. We get the crowd involved.”
Arriving to tour the east coast next week, Staple is grateful that his music continues to appeal across different generations of fans. “The parents bring their kids [and] they’ve grown up listening to their mother’s and father’s music,” he says. “They look on YouTube and they see ‘Gangsters’ or ‘Ghost Town’ and when I go over [to Australia] they wanna hear that. And what better than one of The Specials coming and doing those classics, if I say so meself?”
[Neville Staple photo by Vic May Photography]
Neville Staple is supported byRocksteady Ratpack and DJ Wally when he performs at Newtown Social Club on Sunday July 31.
