Official T Shirt The Beat Ska Band Album I Just Can't Stop It

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M: That would complicate things a little. Although, last year, the US Beat and the English Beat toured America together, billing it; ‘Two Beats Hearting As One’. M: One thing I thought was interesting; you and drummer Everett Morton are the two remaining original members in this version of The Beat while original vocalist/guitarist and songwriter Dave Wakeling fronts another version of the band in America, where you were instead known as The English Beat (there was already a new wave power-pop band called The Beat in the US). Can both bands coexist without there being any messy legal issues? It seems a unique situation that you’re each playing in different continents under different names. Yeah – not forgetting The Police and Talking Heads – and just to let people know that REM used to open up for The Beat. They had three or four tours with us before we made our record company sign them up. Obviously I’m glad that they became massive in the end. U2 opened up for us once – but you know – you meet people along the way and some of them are nice and some of them are horrible – the nice ones you end up working with again. If you’re a diva I don’t want to know, but if you’re grounded and down to earth like a lot of bands around then seemed to be – it still seems to be the way to be.

RR: Well first I must reveal to you that Everett and I are no longer working together, Everett’s retired. However, any member of The Beat is entitled to use the name, it belongs to all of us. We have a partnership from 30 years ago, ‘The Beat Brothers Ltd’, so we’ve never had any qualms over the name. The only qualm would be if we wanted to go over to America to play or Dave Wakeling intended to come over here. What do we call it? Do we rename it? Then me and Dave Wakeling spoke and he said we’d like you to do more with us. At the time I was living in a hostel, believe it or not. He’s says right you’re not staying there any more, you can come and stay at my flat. So I stayed at his place for the best part of five months, we got on and I joined the band. But it was difficult because we had to come up with tunes, so what we were doing on tour was we had a notepad each and we’d keep them for two or three days and then pass them on to the next person. GENERAL ON SALE 10am Friday 27 Jan http://www.roundhouse.org.uk/whats-on/2017/the-selecter-and-the-beat/

Interview – Ranking Roger of The Beat

The late Ranking Roger talking about his memoir I Just Can’t Stop It which will be published on June 13 th by Omnibus Press Yeah I think so but maybe we changed it too radically y’know. I call the first album a classic, the band were hungry, we were young, there’s major notes against minor notes in there & stuff. It’s all in there. It’s only after we recorded them that we really got to play them properly. I’ve got this thing out at the moment on Pledge, a double CD compilation of collaborations with people like Sly & Robbie and Death In Vegas and that will be followed by Return Of The Jedi, which will feature some of what would’ve been The Beat album. As a DJ when you’re spinning discs, that in itself is an art. You have to be good with rhythm and timing and with the flow of what goes with that tune. Not every tune works together. M: You always get dubbed a ‘ska’ band, probably just because your debut single came out on 2-Tone (The Beat formed their own Go-Feet label after that)

Everybody would write onto somebody else’s thing and a lot of the lyrics from the second album and the third album came in that way. It was a great way to get stuff together and say well that’s a band effort. Cause even like the smallest line from the drummer could get into the song. We used a lot of bits from headlines and stuff like that. It all came together and made sense. So that took a while to record and get right but when it did come out in England it was met with mixed reactions. A lot of people were like well it’s not Ska is it? You’ve done like The Specials and mellowed out or whatever it is. But in California all of a sudden all the surfers and beach bums, the mods out there, we’d go out there and they’d be lapping it up. That’s when I realised how brilliant this band was at merging in such a subtle, sophisticated way and not in a pushing it in your face way. At the moment it’s definitely David Cameron (British Prime Minister). But I also think that Nigel Farage, leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (U.K.I.P.) is potentially very dangerous. Many people’s memory of “Wha’ppen?” will be the hit single it gave you in to form of “Too Nice To Talk To”– what is your favourite memory of the album? Ranking Roger: It’s not really much of a summer anymore is it? We’ll find out whether there really is a summer in the next couple of weeks but so far it’s been good. Plenty of gigs.

The Beat T-Shirts & Merchandise

M: In the past, you toured with David Bowie, The Clash, REM, Police, Pretenders, Talking Heads… Who treated you the nicest? On the eve of the re-release of The Beat’s Wha’appen on Demon Records Vinyl Louder than War’s Martin Copland-Gray had a chat with the band’s front-man (and fellow Brummie) Ranking Roger. M: Suppose you’re a fairly cool dad to have and you’ve obviously taught him well. Did he have to learn all the songs or was he always a Beat fan, ever since he learnt his dad sang in a band? It seems you spent a lot of time touring around 81-82 with artists including The Clash, The Specials and even Bowie. Which gigs stand out in your memory today?

RR: heard about that. It sounded like a really good thing. We met them years ago and I thought ‘They’re really nice guys… for Americans!’ Very into their music, they loved our music and their music was OK. M: Was it just a happy accident that just a handful of similar bands all released debut singles in 1979 that had this unique new sound? It wasn’t like you all convened beforehand and plan to change the world. Do you remember when you last spoke with Dave Wakeling (from the original incarnation of ‘The Beat’ and now front man with the U.S.-based ‘The English Beat’)? At the moment I’ve got an album coming out on pledge.com and that’s going to contain some of my first solo album and my second solo album, and some collaborations with people like Pato Banton, Death in Vegas – people like that. That’s happening now so people can go out there and pledge now. Then later this year or early next year I want to do a new project with my son called “Return Of The Dread-I” and that will run along side with The Beat. It’s going to be an interesting time to be prolific and be inventive and try and bring new music out – with all the rubbish that’s out there. So we took some time off after touring with The Pretenders and starting jamming again. Within it all we’d been reading our fan club letters and we got this one from a lady in America saying I’ve tried to use your music for my keep fit lessons and it’s too fast. It was a lovely written letter so we decided to tone it down a bit in the way that The Beat became what we call ‘one-drop’, where the rim shot and the snare hits at the same time and that’s the main emphasis. So we did Doors of your Heart and Monkey Murders and along with a few others and that was the kind of style for that album in the end.

PLEASE NOTE: In some European countries you may be asked to pay a surcharge to receive your parcel. Having thought about it, maybe it’s the fact that I never got married. I should have been married. I’ve 3 kids and was with an Irish girl for 20 years, but we split up about 10 years ago. I regret that. We should have got married, but we didn’t. Maybe if we’d married we wouldn’t have split up later, I don’t know. Saxa had played with some huge names. Is it true he had played with first-wave ska legends such as Prince Buster and Desmond Dekker – and even The Beatles? M: With your son now sharing lead vocals, it creates a nice dynamic onstage, like it’s a family affair but do you get on ok while you’re on the road.

You’ve been involved with so many projects over the years including Big Audio Dynamite, Special Beat and General Public. What’s next? To mark Demon Record’s heavyweight re-issue of seminal 2 Tone album, “Wha’ppen?” we take the opportunity to talk to The Beat’s Ranking Roger about his memories of the album and the 2 tone period, his new project with his son Ranking Junior (pictured above with Ranking Roger) – and – getting REM a record deal!It’s that I’ve got my own design studio at home now. It’s just finished – it’s where all my future albums (incl. collaborations) will come from. It’s designed like a spaceship! So far, for me, that’s the dream realised. RR: Well, I had to re-learn them, it’d been years since I’d sung them but he already knew them all. Whether he liked it or not, it was drummed in, partially in the soul. It must be in his blood. I said “remember that band The Beat that opened for us? They’re playing down this place the Mercat Cross.”