Ahead of two anniversary shows taking place at Manchester’s 02 Apollo and London’s Royal Albert Hall, we caught up with Jimmy Brown, the original drummer from UB40 to talk about old times, new times, new records and performing at Spanish water parks, read on to see how we got on…..
Jimmy, UB40 formed in 1978 meaning that this year, you’re celebrating 45 years in the industry, does it feel like it’s been 45 years?
Of course it doesn’t, where did all the years go? Everyone at our age feels like that I think! It has been an incredible journey and occasionally, we all have to pinch ourselves to make sure it’s not a dream. I think it’s great that we’re still able to play and getting some very healthy audiences and great responses from them at our shows
I wanted to run through some incredible stats just so I can get my head around your success as a band;
Nearly half a century as a band
More than 50 UK chart singles
20 recorded albums released
100 million records sold
That’s quite a track record so far and there’s still more to come….
And to add to these stats, we’re still recording new material, many would see UB40 as a ‘heritage’ band but we (the band) don’t see ourselves as one at all, people often ask what my favourite track is out of the 500 odd tunes we have recorded and I always say that it’s the latest one that we have done. To be honest, we have never really stopped and taken stock so it’s hard to reflect on past successes. Many bands that used to be around in the day did very well back in the 80’s and after this success, they split up and some were never to be seen again but we carried on and it’s more of a continuation of the very first gig we did back in 1979. I’m a firm believer that this is because of the style of music that we play, many of the ‘80s’ bands sound very 80’s because that’s when the music was put out but we have managed to stay relevant throughout the decades because of our classic reggae sound which just doesn’t age and there are still loads of reggae bands doing there thing after many years.
Let’s take it back to mid-1978 when guitarist Ali Campbell got together with yourself and bassist Earl Falconer to rehearse reggae numbers as well as your own compositions, what do you remember about these early sessions?
From the start, Ali wasn’t much of a guitarist, we had to nail a neck onto a guitar body that someone found somewhere, managed to string it and tune it to ‘open E’ and managed to get a few chords together, we really didn’t have a clue what we were doing in the early days! At the time, many bands approached things in the same way, you have to remember that we were just coming out of the punk scene which basically said that as long as you had a few chords and bashed the drums, you had a band!
We have got a little more sophisticated as the years have gone by!
I remember my first drum kit came from a fire sale, I paid £100 for it and after a bit of cleaning, it was good to go. £100 back in those days was a lot of money and thanks to the welfare state, we picked up £13 a week each so I had to save before I could even afford that! I’m a firm believer in having a generous welfare state but the way that the Tories are going, they’ve pretty much managed to deplete everything that they’ve touched….. (we agreed not to go down this avenue as I wanted to remain impartial but I 100% agreed with what Jimmy said….LOL)
Your first gig took place on 9 February 1979 at The Hare & Hounds Pub in Kings Heath, Birmingham where you performed at a friend's birthday party. This was commemorated in October 2011 by the unveiling of a plaque at the venue, I want to ask have you ever played there again?
We have, a few times. Fairly recently as a launch party, we know the guy who owns it and it is the BEST music venue in Birmingham by far. It’s well laid out and we have used it to launch singles and albums in the past, somewhere we like to get to as often as we can!
Fast forward to 2023, UB40 are celebrating with two special shows in the UK at Manchester’s O2 Apollo on 1st June and London’s iconic Royal Albert Hall on 2nd June with tickets going on sale from 10am on Friday 17th March, both are classic venues, have you played either of them before?
We have, Manchester Apollo for sure, we first played there in 1980 and have appeared there many times since. We also played a 40th birthday party (for the band) at The Royal Albert Hall so neither are new venues to us. We also took part in a benefit gig at The Royal Albert Hall and Eric Clapton joined us on stage for a song which was incredible. Despite what people say, the venue isn’t ideal for bands, its acoustics are far better laid out for an orchestra which is what it was built for back in the day. You have to have a certain amount of experience to get through a show at the venue. It’s a tall venue as well and if you’re sat at the top, it’s quite daunting for people who don’t like heights (me….)
Have you thought about who you’d like to invite to support you on the two dates?
To be honest, I cannot say yet as we’re not 100% sure on who it will be, there will be support acts at both venues but keep your eyes on the socials for more news.
These unmissable anniversary dates will see you perform some of your most loved classic hits and fan favourites including Kingston Town, Red Red Wine and I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You, along with new material from your forthcoming ‘UB45’ album, what are you most looking forward to about the shows?
We all enjoy shows a lot more nowadays, in the early days, we used to be terrified when we had to go on stage, we were all so inexperienced and it probably took us a couple of years for us to feel comfortable doing so. These days, we just get up and get involved, We enjoy ourselves more these days than we did when we were youngsters.
You have to remember that we became quite big very quickly, Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders) caught us live in London at The Rock Garden one night (tiny show) and asked us if we’d like to go on tour with them…..who were we to turn down the chance of supporting a band who had just got to number 1 with both an album and a single? Towards the end of the tour, UB40 released their own single ‘Food for Thought’ with ‘King’ on the B-Side and it became a real hit whilst we were on the road with The Pretenders which meant that we were able to book another tour straight afterwards with us as the headline act but playing the same venues that we had just played!
None of us were really ready for it at the ages we were and nobody had ever told us what to do or how to act so we had to find our own feet which took a while. We’re proper rock n’ rollers in that respect, we adopted the punk ethic in the mid to late 70s to get up and have a go and with the success of the single behind us and the tour with The Pretenders, we felt it was the right time.
Your new record due out later this year is called ‘UB45’, is this the name of the revised UB40 form? I did try and search it up but struggled to find anything!
I have no idea what the new form is these days, the name UB40 was a name suggested by a friend of the band and this was the name of the form that you would use to draw your dole money. There was a show called ‘Rock Against Racism’ that took place in 1978 and at the bottom, there was something that said ‘UB40 - Half Price’ to help anyone on the dole so they could still attend. So the term ‘UB40’ was a familiar thing at the time with so many people being on the dole (circa 3-4 million) and as it turned out, we did quite well with the name!
The name of the new record ‘UB45’ is a way of saying that 2023 is the 45th anniversary of the band and we wanted to celebrate this with a record.
I want to talk about the demographic that come to your show, I’ve seen you a couple of times over the years and what surprises me is that it’s not just an older audience but quite a few youngsters too, what is it about your music that appeals to such a wide range of people?
Reggae is inclusive music, it appeals to so many and allows anyone of any generation to enjoy. I’m always amazed at the amount of young people that come to our shows. We are a good live band who re-produces the music very closely to the record with the added benefit of injecting some excitement into our live shows as well, youngsters appreciate a band that can get up there and play well. Anyone can make a record these days but how many can get up and reproduce that record live on stage?
Having played live for 45 years, which songs do you most like performing?
Like I mentioned before, many people see us as a ‘heritage’ band but we’re not, we love nothing more than performing new material when we can and I would say that about a third of the set is made up of new material that people may not be familiar with and it may sound daft but we’d rather do that than just rely on tracks that were around back in the 80s and 90s and behave like a cabaret band. If we were just playing the classics, we’d get bored, as it is, we’re still being creative, writing and recording new songs and that allows you to be able to be current as well as drop the classics in during the show which pleases everyone.
If you could hop in a time machine and go back to 1978 and chat to your younger self, what words of advice would you offer?
It’s hard to say because we have been incredibly successful over the years, I wouldn’t suggest doing anything differently. We have fulfilled our dreams over the years, we saw Bob Marley in 1976 at The Odeon and he inspired us to create a band and here we are 45 years later, the biggest reggae bands in the world today! I guess I’d say to my younger self, “carry on doing what you’re doing”…..
You have a busy year with gigs, I see you’re playing in Mexico on March 18th followed by the anniversary dates in Manchester and London in June, followed by a show at a Spanish aqua park in July (hope you’re packing your speedos) and then The Homecoming show in Moseley Park at the end of August are there still more UK festival appearances to be released?
I don’t think I’ll be packing my Speedos! We’ve played in Mexico a few times, this is our 4th trip over there, the fans there are already having a good time so we just turn up and add to it! We have just come back from a SOLD OUT tour in Australia and New Zealand and they are a massively appreciative audience as not many bands from the UK actually travel that far to play.
Lastly, what would you like to say to your fans that have supported you over the past 45 years?
You know what? We’ve actually become good friends with a lot of fans from the early days who call themselves ‘UB Loonies’ and we’ve got to know them very well. We get new fans all the time and we’re accessible to our fans, we’re online all the time and anyone can reach out to us. We really do appreciate our fans and despite the various ups and downs we’ve had over the years, it’s the fans that have remained a constant and stuck with us throughout. We’re so lucky and I know it sounds a bit corny but we genuinely love our fans as they are the people that have kept us going over the years!
WE’d like to thank Jimmy Brown for sparing the time to chat to us and wish him and the rest of UB40 every success with the anniversary shows and other festivals that they are playing this year.
Tickets for the Manchester and London anniversary shows can be purchased HERE from 10am on Friday 17th March.
Their new album ‘UB45’ is set to land later this year, for more info on this, keep an eye on their socials below.
