Welcome to A Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy Kaye. Hi, hope you’re super well. You’ll have to excuse my nasally voice, full of a virus right now.
What a mess the world’s in at the moment, isn’t it? I’m so glad we get to escape for at least 52 minutes a week as we get into revisiting some of the great musical artists from the 60s, 70s and 80s. As you’d know if you’re a regular listener, this show is all about their lives, their stories and their music told in their voices. This week as the British band UB40 celebrate their 45th anniversary with a tour and a new album, I’m chatting with drummer Jimmy Brown, who co-founded the band back in 1978.
Jimmy’s given his entire life to the music, born of his working class community. That music initially appealed to dissatisfied youth, but as you’ll hear, it’s come a long way since then. I started off by asking Jimmy to tell me about where he grew up.
Well, like the rest of the band, we come from inner city Birmingham, which is a highly multicultural area where a lot of immigrants came in the 50s and 60s. We grew up in that area, which is why in the end we chose reggae as the music we wanted to play because it was just around us all the time, because a lot of people from the Caribbean came there. It was a motor town.
Most of our families worked in the car industry. Dad was a factory worker, kind of a normal upbringing and brought up in that working class environment. Was it a very vibrant music scene then? Yeah, absolutely.
Well, what happened was that because you didn’t really get reggae played on the radio, it wasn’t in the mainstream media, which meant that the culture of sound systems, which was imported from Jamaica, all the sound systems used to play local dances, youth clubs, school dances, just local discotheques. And it was all to be a sound system playing the latest tunes from Jamaica. That’s what we were brought up listening to.
We thought everybody was exposed to it. When we got out of Birmingham, we realised actually a lot of people weren’t exposed to it. That was just our unique upbringing.
Where he sat down And there he went When he remembered Zion Cause the wicked carried us away Captivity required from all sazons How can we sing King Alpha’s song In a straight line Cause the wicked carried us away Captivity required from all sazons How can we sing King Alpha’s song In a straight line Most of us went to school together in the band. We knew each other from about the age of 11. We went to a special art school from the age of 11.
So we were very creative people. We were kind of the best artists in our lower school. And then we all ended up going to this famous art school.
And when you’re creative, you can put your hand to anything. School finished, and then a couple of years later, we all found ourselves congregating back together as like a gang with not much to do really. And we decided to make a band.
I’m really glad we did. We’re all very glad you did too. Had you all been friends at school? Or you were just brought together? You were friends? Yeah, we hung out at school.
We tended to be like the smokers that hid round the back of the bike shed and all that. We were mates from when we were actually at school. Mostly, I remember seeing the saxophone player every Monday morning sitting outside the headmaster’s office waiting for some punishment of some kind, a cane or whatever.
And it would always be the same people. And that’s how we kind of got to know each other. We were all the bad boys.
Girls like me like bad boys. Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely, yes.
Although my wife probably is glad my bad boy days are behind me, I think. It happens as you get older, doesn’t it? It does, yes. You kind of turn into your parents.
Now, how did you each select your instrument of choice? I was always, when I was younger, kind of tapping rhythms on desks and teachers used to hit me over the knuckles with a ruler and say, stop. And my mum used to say, will you stop tapping? And I’d just be constantly tapping and doing things. So, yeah, that was me until I ended up playing the drums.
But everybody kind of fitted with their personality, like Earl, our bass player. He was always going to be a bass player. He didn’t really want to play anything else.
And of course, Ali was always going to be the singer. So kind of the instruments chose themselves. We did know how to play, but we decided to lock ourselves away and every day work together and then eventually we created something that sounded musical and we were on our way.
So you actually never had any formal music lessons? You’re all self-taught? All self-taught, yeah, yeah. We just learned from listening to records and picking them apart and looking at the different parts that are played and, you know, just generally, especially like with reggae, because it’s a certain attitude towards the music that you need to have. And that was just something that we learned to do very early on.
We’ve been learning in public ever since, you know. We can always get better and even now we like to do. Did all of your parents support your decision to make this your career choice? They did, yeah.
They didn’t like it much, you know. It was at a time when I suppose you could think about having a career, well it’s not a career, but a job in a factory. But it would be a reliable job and it would be decent pay.
My old man, he raised a family of three kids and we always had a holiday every year. We never wanted for anything. And that was just on one factory wage.
And yeah, I think my dad must have thought, well, it’s a big pie in the sky thinking you can be a musician that really maybe should think about having a sensible job, you know. But in the end, they did support me. They helped me buy my first drum kit.
The rest is history. It took off for us very quickly. So they were very happy about that.
I bet they were. So you started gigging around the place in Birmingham. How did you catch your first break? It happened really quick, you know.
We played about 30 shows in local pubs and just small venues. We did a residency at one pub, an upstairs room at a pub. We thought, well, we’ll play once a month, every month in this place.
And the first gig was full, you know. It only held about 250 people. But the second gig, it was really packed.
By the time we played the third time, there were more people locked outside than could get into the venue. And we kind of knew then that we’d already outgrown that pub circuit. But what really made a difference was when Chrissie Hynde came to see us.
We were playing a horrible little venue. It was like a toilet in London called the Rock Garden. Famous venue.
And we played and it was a good gig. And she came backstage afterwards and said, do you guys want to come on tour with me? And she had the number one album, number one single at that time, you know. And we thought, of course we do.
That really launched our careers. I’ve been driving, detour leaning No reason, just seems so crazy Gonna make it, make it, make it Go dance, gonna use my arm, gonna use my base Gonna use my style, gonna use my side shape Gonna use my fingers, gonna use my My, my, my, my, my, my, my Cause I’m gonna make you see Nobody else here, no one like me I’m special, special So special, special I gotta have some of your attention, give it to me You must have been blown away. We were, absolutely.
We couldn’t believe it. Because very often we tour, you know, the record companies will pay for a band to go on tour. But we didn’t have any record company.
We hadn’t released a record. But they said, listen, we’ll pay you if you want to come on tour with us. So it was a beautiful thing, really.
And we love Chrissie. We’ve been friends with Chrissie ever since. And yeah, she’s really responsible for launching our careers.
Because while we were touring with Chrissie over that 30 gig period, 35 gigs we did release a record and it was in the charts by the end of the Pretenders tour. And we did exactly the same tour almost immediately afterwards with ourselves headlining. So that was instrumental.
What Chrissie did, we will be eternally grateful to her. What do you think she saw in you? What did all of those kids who were coming to the gigs immediately see in the band? You know, it’s hard to say when you’re the subject. And for a very long time, you know, when audiences were cheering at us, I’m looking around to see who’s just walked on, you know.
After a while you realise that they’re really cheering for you, you know, for the band and the music that we’re creating. I think we were just completely different to everything else that was going on. Our style of music was very different.
You know, there was a lot of two-tone going on. But we were nothing like two-tone. You know, our music is much more musical in that way, you know, and accessible in that way.
Yeah, you know, I think our first album signing off in England, when we released it, it did really well. And it was in the top 50 for 96 weeks. The only other album that beat that was Bat Out of Hell by Meatloaf.
So our first album was a really, really big album for us. And we really hit the scene quick. We’d done 30 gigs by the time Chrissie had come to see us and asked us to.
So it was nothing really. We were literally an overnight success. When you say there was nothing like you around, are you talking about the music? Well, I guess you’re talking about both the music that you played, as well as the fact that you were a multi-racial band.
There wouldn’t have been too many effects. Yeah, absolutely. You know, obviously most other reggae bands were black.
We were a mixed band because I come from Birmingham, it’s a melting pot. So a gang of kids you’d take off the street would look like us, you know, they’d be Arab, they’d be Caribbean, they’d be Asian. That was the mix of Birmingham.
Yeah, I think we represented, without having to say anything, although we were also political as well. Our first songs from the first album tended to be quite political songs. One in Ten, I don’t know if you know that song.
That was an early hit for us, which was quite a political song. And I think just people responded to it. We knew from the first couple of gigs in Little Pubs that there was a vibe going on because of the reaction we were getting and the interest we were getting from people.
People used to come down and sit outside and listen to us rehearse. It used to be like a little party going on in the garden outside, you know, where we rehearsed because people wanted to hear what we were doing. And we just knew that there was just something, you know, you can’t put your finger on it.
You could put it in a bottle and sell it and become a billionaire. We knew there was a vibe happening, so it was great. And you went with it.
You say you were political. You were a bunch of really young guys. What were you so political about? Well, the Campbells who, you know, Ali and Rob, the two brothers, their parents were communists.
They would go on the old Amaston anti-nuclear marches and a lot of demonstrations. We used to go on kind of anti- National Front demonstrations. National Front were like a racist party who wanted to repatriate all the immigrants, which included our friends, you know, our mates.
So we were vehement against that, you know. It was a time of, they had Rock Against Racism which was a big thing back then. They promoted gigs and we did quite a few gigs for Rock Against Racism and Paul Weller, people like that were involved as well.
You know, we’re political animals. We’re all socialists. We share everything that we do equally between ourselves and we’ve lived by that.
Ever since? Yeah, we believe in equality and believe in redistribution of wealth and all those things. I think a lot of young people do now as well. As well as having a reputation as the UK’s most culturally diverse city, Birmingham is said to be the home of heavy metal, with the likes of Black Sabbath led by Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest, Wizard and Duran Duran all hailing from there.
This is a Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy Kaye. It’s a beautiful day. People talk about the 70s as being a time of overt racism, and it was in many ways, but then it was also a time when we were being brought up with the first generation of black British or non-white British because their parents came over on the Windrush convoy in the late 50s and they had kids in England when they settled and these were the people that are in our band who we were at school with and that’s why we’re a multicultural band.
It wasn’t something we decided to be, it was just circumstances made it that way. The way it was, yeah. Jimmy, how did you get the name UB40? Where’d that come from? Well, we were all unemployed and UB means Unemployment Benefit.
That’s what it stands for. It was Form 40. It was the form you would take to the Dole office as we used to call it and you’d get that signed and you’d get your check and we lived on that for the time that we needed to rehearse, to learn how to play and we were drawing the Dole over those couple of years.
It was suggested by a friend and it turns out that people related to it because there was 3 million people unemployed at the time. It was a time of high unemployment, the early Thatcher period and they’ve gone, yeah, UB40. What’s in a name, you know? Well, it was pretty catchy and the record company obviously was really happy with it too.
Yeah, well, we’ve always insisted when we do a deal, because the first album was an independent deal. We always insist, even though we’ve done sort of mainstream deals we were on CBS, we were on Virgin, we always insist that we make the music, we call the shots, we design the album covers, we do everything. All they do is distribute it and market it and they’ve been happy to do that all over the years that we’ve released an album.
I think our latest album’s our 25th studio album. You certainly had the street smarts at the time. You got all the publishing rights and everything else for it too, so you really held that record company in its place.
We had a fantastic deal on the first record. It was like a 50-50 deal and that’s unknown in the record business. Even today you’re lucky to get 20%, you know, it’s that.
We were quite savvy when it comes to the business side. When did you pull management in? We were approached really early on by somebody who’d heard this noise going on and was living in the same area that we were. A guy called Simon Woods and he just said, you guys are going to be big big big.
And he did a good job, he worked very hard and did all the right deals and really helped us to launch our career. We’ve had several managers over time. The band always pretty much stays the same but the managers come and go.
One of the earliest albums that you did that you were so well known for was 1983’s Labour of Love. It was predominantly because of that incredible cover version you did of Neil Diamond’s Red Red Wine. Who was choosing the songs? Was it a group decision too? Yeah, well actually Robbie, our guitarist and vocalist, he’s a couple of years older than us, so he got into reggae first.
When he was 15 we were like 12, 11. We didn’t really care that much at that age, you know what I mean? And he was buying all kinds of reggae tunes and introducing them to us. He put a list together of songs from a particular period, which is 1968 to 1972.
And these were a time where we thought these songs, everybody knew them. But it turns out they didn’t. We knew them because of the area we lived in.
We heard them coming out of people’s houses or out of cars. That was the environment we were living in. But most people hadn’t heard it and we knew that they were great songs.
So we decided we were going to…this whole list, he did about a list of 200 and we’ve been working through that list ever since. We’ve done four, I think, Labour of Love albums over the years. It was really the popular song, popular Jamaican songs of the period with the most popular singers.
And we decided to show people what our influences were and where we were coming from by covering those tunes. And it did phenomenally well for us. It was such a success.
That version of Red Red Wine stayed on the UK singles charts for over a hundred weeks. That’s unheard of. Yeah, it’s such a popular record.
Personally not my favourite, but there you go. It just caught fire. You can’t predict that, really.
We’ve released plenty of tunes where we think, oh, it’s going to be a hit and it doesn’t turn out to be one. So it was just the luck of the draw, really. I think being number one in America is really what made the difference.
Because they released it five years after we’d released it in the west of the world. America didn’t want to release it, but they were forced to release it because the demand was there and they were playing it on radio stations and it was being picked up by more and more stations. And the record company were forced to release it.
They’d gone, yeah, of course we’re going to release it. And then it became number one in America. It’s up to you All I can do I bet Memories won’t go Memories won’t go I just want that we die Thoughts of you leave my head Just one thing Makes me forget Red red wine Stay close to me Don’t let me be in love Been staring Upon My blue Heart We’ve had several top five hits since.
It was a phenomenal record. I don’t knock it. Great record for us.
But like I said, we’ve done over 500, recorded over 500 songs. So out of all that, that’s not one of my favourites. Which one would you say is your very top favourite? You know, it’s hard to say.
The one you’re working on is always the favourite. I’ve heard that said before. The last one that you’ve made, yeah.
That’s exactly right, yeah. And I’m very proud of the new album, You’ll Be 45, celebrating 45 years in the business. Yeah, there’s some really nice tunes on it.
Back in those days in the 70s and early 80s, would you ever have thought that you’d be here in 2024 talking about the band and celebrating 45 years of making music? Never in a million years, no. I mean, really, the attitude we had then, of course, was the success came really quickly and we, it’s like a whirlwind, you know, and we just had to hang on and you don’t get time to think because it just snowballs and you’ve got to do this, you’ve got to tour here, you’ve got to make another record there, you’ve got to keep touring, you’ve got to do interviews, you’ve got to, and it was just constant, you know, and really it wasn’t until maybe 10 years after we started and had our first hits that we were able to sit down and go, ooh, that was quite a journey, you know, and then it took off again, you know, so. Yeah, I’ve heard a few people say that you kind of lose decades at a time because you’re caught up in that whirlwind and you don’t have time to breathe and you can’t remember a thing about them because it’s moving so fast.
Is that what it was like for you? It’s absolutely what it was like, yeah, because, you know, one thing leads to another leads to another, you know, one minute you’ve got a hit record, next minute you’re doing stadiums or doing arenas and, you know, and then you’re touring constantly and, you know, we did a two-year tour back in the late 1980s, early 90s, you know, we literally toured for two years without coming home, you know. When you take stock now, it’s a phenomenal story. We’re a bunch of lads that, you know, inner-city boys without much prospects who dreamed of being in a reggae band and became the biggest reggae band in the world.
It’s a real rags-to-riches story, you know. I got you, babe They say our love won’t pay the rent Before it’s earned, our money’s always spent I guess that’s so we don’t have a lot At least I’m sure of all the things we’ve got Yeah, baby I got you, babe I got you, babe I got flowers in the spring I got you To wear my ring And when I’m sad, you’re scared Where did you find the time to meet a woman, make her your wife, start a family? We were together before the band started. Lucky for you, because otherwise you probably wouldn’t have had the time, right? Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, yeah. But it’s worked for us. Obviously, you know, we’ve been together about 47, 48 years.
It’s good to go away, and it’s great to come home, you know. And you don’t really look forward to going home if you don’t go away. You know, it’s a catch-22 situation there.
Going away maybe is not great when you’re leaving your kids behind. But then you so look forward to coming home. Even now, you know, if I’m home too long, the wife will go, haven’t you got a tour to go to? Because I’m just hanging around the house too much, you know.
During those hectic years of touring, you were really one of the first bands to tour Russia in 1986, and that was before they raised the Iron Curtain. What was that like for you? It was an experience, you know. I mean, it was bloody cold, freezing cold, and it was very Spartan, you know.
It was basic, the way people lived there. But, you know, that said, there was nobody homeless, and there was nobody that couldn’t afford their heating. So, in a way, it was so different to being in America, you know, and it was such a contrast.
It was way before the wall had come down in Russia. It was fascinating, and we lived on bald eggs and pilchards. That was about all we could get.
And we were driving down the road one day, and we were going to a venue, and there was just a massive queue, and this queue was snaking around all over the place, and we were going, wow, this queue’s really long, what’s it for? And the guys, our interpreter has gone, it’s cabbage day. Everyone was queuing up for their cabbages. It was also the year of Chernobyl, which was 1986, but of course, nobody knew anything about that in Russia, you know.
You never got any news about it at all. It’s only now we realised, wow. We will seize the control from you We will fan the flame Of our anger and pain You’ll feel ashamed of what you do in God’s name We Fight for the right to be free We build our own society We will sing, we will sing We will sing our own song With all the countries that you’ve been to on tour, did you get any time to play tourist? Yeah, I mean, we’re lucky enough to have gone back repeatedly, so you get to know a place, and you get to make friends with people.
One of the things we have done is touring the Polynesian Islands, Tonga, Fiji, Tahiti, you know, all those beautiful islands. And we’re really popular in that Samoa, that’s another one, you know. 10,000, 20,000 people turn up at our gigs, you know.
It’s like half the island. And we love doing that. We’ve done it a couple of times, and it’s like touring in paradise, you know.
Every single island in Polynesia has got reggae bands. They’ve adopted the style of music to express themselves. Reggae’s massive in the Polynesian Islands.
How were you received by the Jamaicans themselves? I’ve heard it said about UB40 that you were accused of being too middle of the road, and you’d sanitised reggae music too much. We’ve always had a wonderful reception from all the Jamaican artists and Jamaican people. They love the fact that we love their music, and have no problem with it.
The people who have got a problem with it tend to be white, middle class journalists, who want to wear their purism as a badge and dismiss us. In Kingston Town In Kingston Town The place I long to be If I had the world I would give it away just to see The girls I play So the question really remains, why do so many reggae purists consider UB40’s contribution to the genre as minimal at best? The band’s lyrics certainly speak about individual power and fighting injustice, and every song is backed by a solid reggae beat. Could it be that UB40 reggifies mainstream songs?
This is a Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy Kaye. It’s a beautiful day. For decades the sound of Jamaica has been reggae, the infectious music that transformed the small Caribbean island into a cultural powerhouse.
But the genre’s success with bands like UB40 has taken it far beyond its roots and now some in Jamaica apparently worry that reggae lovers have forgotten the motherland where it was born. One thing I’m very proud of is that we managed to track down the original writers of the songs that we did on the Labour of Love series. For instance, the guy who wrote Kingston Town, he’d never been paid a penny for that song.
It was bought for a small amount and we tracked him down to make sure he was the one that got paid. At the time, he was in hospital and he couldn’t afford to pay the hospital bill. He was defecated and suddenly 100,000 pounds dropped on his lap while he was in the hospital and he came to see us when we went to Jamaica.
He was there with his whole family just to thank us for saving his life, really. You know, John Holt’s one of the greatest singers in the world. He never got paid a penny for his songs until we paid him for songs of his.
I think it was Way To The Ball, which was his song. He never got paid a penny from Blondie, who did Tide Is High, which was a John Holt song. And they never paid him a penny and he used the money we gave him to take them to court.
So I’m really proud and I think, you know, the people in Jamaica are aware of this. They thank us all the time. You guys have always prided yourself on being able to keep the same line-up.
In fact, you were the original band for, what, about 17 albums or so. 30 years, yeah. Until, of course, the Camel Brothers had a bit of a dust-up.
Yeah, although it wasn’t a brothers’ argument. The problem was that the music business was going downhill with the internet and all that. They weren’t selling any records.
So we’ve gone, well, we’ve got to tighten our belts. We were earning so much money before that. But things got a little bit more difficult and I think he made the calculation that if he went out on his own, he wouldn’t have to pay, because we all split everything equally between eight of us, you know, we always did that.
And I think he made the calculation, if he went out on his own, he’d take our fan base with him and he could have everything himself. But it wasn’t that simple, because we knew that it was the band that was making the music. And his career flopped completely, his solo career.
And then he started using our name again and he keeps going doing gigs under the banner of UB40. And we’ve taken him to court. And even if we won in court, he could just carry on doing the same thing and we’d have to take him to court again, you know.
So we’re kind of pissed off that he does this, but it doesn’t really make that much difference to us. The band had sold 70 million albums worldwide, when in 2008 frontman Ali Campbell split from the group to work on his solo career. Duncan, Ali and Robyn’s elder brother, took Ali’s place as lead singer with the group.
I can imagine it would have been pretty disappointing, given you were childhood friends. Yeah, people do seem to say, oh, there’s the Robyn UB40 and the Ali UB40, but it’s not like that at all. We are UB40, we’re the band, we’re the original band, wrote the songs, recorded the songs, produced the songs, you know, we’re the original members.
And he left the band, he didn’t just leave his family, which he did. He turned his back on his kids and his wife, turned his back on his family, didn’t come to his father’s funeral, didn’t come to his mum’s funeral, hasn’t seen his grandkids. He walked out one day, 15 years ago, and we haven’t seen him since.
We’ve been meeting here so long Guess what we’ve done or was wrong Please darling, don’t you cry Let’s just kiss and say goodbye We try not to think about it, to be honest. We’re just carrying on doing what we’re doing and we’ve never been happier, so we’re quite happy to carry on. And do you guys all still get on really well together? Families have their fights and fallouts, understandably.
You’ve been in closer proximity with one another than most families have ever been. Does it work out well for you on the whole? Yeah, what happened when Ali left, he bonded us together. We knew that only together we can maintain our jobs, you know, and our livelihood.
And that’s really, really brought us closer together. After all this time, we know we can trust each other. We like each other’s company, you know.
We’re not like some bands who like staying in separate hotels and travel separately and the only time they see each other is on stage, you know. Old bands like the Eagles and all these arguments. But we genuinely love each other, you know.
We genuinely are brothers and we all look after each other. Out of the six original members, one died unfortunately, Brian, the sax player, and Ali left. But the rest of us are all still together playing and loving it more than ever.
There are not too many bands that can lay claim to that, can they? Not really, no. I think that that translates in the music too. It makes it much more cohesive and you can feel the love you have for one another.
Absolutely, and the love we have, the shared love for music. When you get these people in a room, this is what it sounds like. There’s chemistry involved.
We don’t have to work very hard to sound like UB40, you know. It happens naturally. To finance our plan We are Birmingham And we’re forever true To the royal blue Keep right on Forever true Keep right on Forever true To the royal blue Keep up the good fight Victory is inside Cause we’re forever true To the royal blue One of the secrets to our success is we make a unique sound.
And I think bands try and chase that, you know. And not every band succeeds in finding that unique sound. For themselves.
And if it ain’t broke, we ain’t going to try and fix it. We’re going to carry on doing what we’re doing. And you’re doing it so damn well, aren’t you? The world’s biggest selling reggae group.
You have sold over 100 million albums, 50 UK top 40 singles, 10 UK top 10 albums. And I don’t know one country in the world that just does not love you. This new album that you’ve got to celebrate your 45th anniversary together.
Tell me a little bit about that, Jimmy Brown. Well, the idea was at first we were just going to do an album of our old tunes. We wanted to record what it was like as we perform it live now.
You know, there are slight differences as opposed to the originals. Half and half is what we ended up deciding to do. Half old tunes like, you know, Kingston Town and Red Red Wine and those old hits.
And half brand new material. It’s worked for us, you know. It was a hit in England.
It was a top five album and a number one single. It’s where the band are now after 45 years and celebrating those 45 years. And we’re also showing the band that made those old tunes are the same band that are making these new ones.
How do you decide? Do you sit down the eight of you and it goes by a vote as to which songs you’re going to include? Is it a democratic vote all the time? Generally, yeah. Sometimes it can take longer than it would if somebody, one person could make a decision. But we’re quite happy with that.
We don’t mind that. If we’ve recorded 15 tunes and only 10 of them are going to go on the album, then we’ll all sit and vote and work out which ones are the favorites, you know. And nobody’s precious about it, you know.
And we understand that we produce something that’s more than the sum of its parts, if you see what I mean. If everybody contributes, it ends up being something special rather than having to work hard to make something average. It shines, you know.
Because if you need me, show me that you love me. And when I’m feeling blue and I want you, there’s just one thing that you need to do. Just give me some kind of sign, girl.
Oh, my baby. Show me that you’re mine, girl. All right.
Just give me some kind of sign, girl. Oh, my baby. Show me that you’re mine, girl.
All right. If you do want me, give me a little sweet talk. If you don’t want me, don’t leave me out, girl.
Because if you need me, show me that you love me. One thing we’ve learned is that if you’re trying to control things too much, it will diminish it. What works best is when everybody contributes.
Even if you don’t like what they do, it ends up being the right thing. I might expect the brass to go one way, and Brian ends up making the brass go a completely different way. But then in the end, I realise, well, actually, yeah, that was the right way, just that I couldn’t see it.
We’re open-minded enough to do that, and we enjoy what we do. We enjoy making music. And is everybody as down-to-earth and as humble as you are? No, no, but I think that’s the thing.
Because we are the gang and we have been together for many, many years, if one of us starts to do it, I mean, we used to do it with Ali. He used to kind of play the big pop star sometimes, and we used to say to him, stop being a twat. You’re acting like an idiot.
And if somebody does start saying, oh, the meat doesn’t fit the bread like Spinal Tap, then somebody else will go, yeah, shut up. And, yeah, we all keep each other’s feet on the ground, and so do our families. I mean, like I said, we’ve all got big families, must have about 50 kids between us.
Wow. So you’re still pretty much the same young boys that, well, you’re not young anymore, but you’re still the same boys. Not really, no.
The bike shed smoking, except I’m sure none of you smoke anymore. Do you? Well, I gave in a year ago, actually, so, yeah. But I still vape occasionally.
We know we have to look after ourselves. We don’t party like we used to. But we still have a good time, you know.
I still like a glass of champagne after the gig. It keeps you fit because when you’re on stage four times a week, you’re working, you know, and it keeps you in shape. So it’s actually a good thing, working hard.
I’m working out, like I said, every night I’m doing two hours of exercise. Does it come as easily to you now at this age as it did 45 years ago? Yeah, easier because you develop technique. It’s not like in sport where you peak when you’re 27 or whatever, do you know what I mean? You can get better and better and better when you’re a musician.
And it gets easier, not harder. Jimmy, you’re coming back to Australia again. What did you say? You’ve been here six times already.
This will be your seventh tour. We’re about to start a massive US tour. Last time we were there we did 22,000 miles on the road.
It’s a great life. It’s a lot of fun when you’re with your friends on the road. October is Australia and New Zealand.
Then November is England and December we’re doing Europe. So we’re going to be very busy. We’re already booking tours for 2025 and we won’t be giving up yet.
Our international reach is just phenomenal. We got on stage for the first time in 1979 at a local pub and we got a great response and we just carried on and carried on and carried on and here we are 45 years later. I feel very, very privileged and pinch myself every day.
Thanks, Jimmy. Thank you very much. Thank you for your time.
We really appreciate it. UB45 is the name of the latest release that celebrates UB40’s 45th anniversary. Make sure you grab your tickets to see the band live wherever you live.
It’s sure to be a fabulous show. Thank you so much for your company today. I’m sure you got a lot out of hearing from UB40’s Jimmy Brown.
Can I count on you again to join me same time next week? I hope so. I’ll see you then. Bye now.
Beautiful day. You’ve been listening to A Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy Kang. Beautiful day.
Oh, baby, any day that you’re gone away. It’s a beautiful day.