The Bermondsey Carnival is back and so is Neville Staple who will be bringing his band with him to entertain us with classic hits that the lucky amongst us grew up with and others came to love.
And to show his excitement at the upcoming gig Neville gave us an exclusive interview about what he has planned for us.
Neville and his wife, Sugary, played at the carnival before when in 2017 Indika invited them to do some songs with them.
“We really enjoyed it,” he says, “it was so good, a wicked crowd, and when I saw the crowd, I thought how much I would love to play here again.”
Russell Dryden, who arranges all the Carnival music, picked up on that and finally got the legend of Two-Tone music to sign up for this year’s extravaganza.
Neville has been making music for more than 40 years, from early beginnings toasting in the sound system scene in Coventry.
He revealed his influences from those days: “U Roy and I Roy were who I picked up my skills from because they were the Toast Masters, it was them and Prince Buster who got me into music and performing; toasting comes straight off your head, there’s nothing written down, you just get the vibe and go with it.”
Toasting led on to Neville joining The Specials who championed the Ska revival and the Rude Boy look.
The band enjoyed a string of Top Ten hits with singles and albums until they split when Neville, Terry Hall and Lynval Golding formed Fun Boy Three, which had its own share of fame.
Since then Neville has been continually writing, performing and recording and says he loves ‘being on stage in front of an audience’.
I asked if he would be doing any new stuff but was told how difficult that is: “The crowds always shout out their favourites for us to play so we will probably stick to the hits that everyone knows and loves but throw a couple of new ones in; when we play Message To You, Ghost Town, Monkey Man, everyone starts singing along and it’s like having a party because when we play those classics, people start moving and I see young kids in the crowd dancing who must have got their love for us from their parents.”
We moved on to speak about Terry Hall’s passing and Jerry Dammers DJ’ing, and about some of the Ghost Town video being filmed in Bermondsey when the area was itself a bit of a ghost town with the docks closed and nothing taking its place until the developers moved in.
That jogged a memory for Neville and he told me that the car in the video is now in the Two-Tone Museum in Coventry. “A lot of people visit to have their picture done sitting in it,” he says with no small amount of pride.
Mr Staple wanted to big up his home town of Coventry, or Cov, as he calls it: “It’s where Two-Tone started” and where he still lives. It was obvious that the city, and what The Specials were a big part of there, is still an important part of his life.
The band comprises seven musicians: “Drum, bass, guitar, keyboard, two horns, and me and Sugary do vocals… We’ll be looking forward to not just playing but to see the crowd enjoying themselves, because all the band enjoy being on stage and love seeing people really get into it – it’s a vibe, it’s an energy, you’ll see the band jumping about,” he tells me but adds that he doesn’t do so much of that himself these days. I know how he feels.
The Carnival is part of the regular performing the band do around the UK and abroad, and Neville smiles when he tells me of his pleasure at pulling a good audience at Glastonbury at the same time as Elton John was giving his last UK performance. “Once we came on the Avalon stage it slowly got packed, and about two songs in it was full!”
I asked if he could explain their attraction. “If you grew up with the music I did you want to hear it forever!
“When you watch The Neville Staple Band you can see all the members really loving it and when the audience see you enjoying yourself, they can feel that off ya; we don’t just turn up to take money off a crowd, we are there to give them a good time as well as us.”
And for us in Southwark Park he promises it will be “full of energy, a party and we will be flying the Two-Tone flag with all the classics… It will also be in memory of all those Specials who are no longer with us… Everyone who comes will have a great time, we’ll party it out and we will give it all.”
A message to you, Neville – We can’t wait!
Sugary will be putting out an EP soon and Fun Boy Three will be releasing a box set on August 4th for all the fans.
Bermondsey Carnival, Southwark Park, Bermondsey, SE16, August 6th, 12pm – 8pm. Admission: Free.
