UB40 are on their way back to Perth so Clairsy & Lisa spoke to lead singer Robin Campbell about how the band has survived of 45 years and what the Birmingham music scene was like in the early 80s when they started out.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We're very excited here at ninety six of them. Because
You Be forty are playing Redhill Auditorium October twenty. Tickets
on sale today from ticket Tech, supported by Eagle Eye Cherry.
You Eat forty in Perth. Robin Campbell, good morning mate,
How are you good morning?
Speaker 2 (00:13):
How are you good morning?
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Well October twenty, get your tickets too, sweet because you
are a very popular band every.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Time you come to town, Robin.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
Yeah, and we don't do it often enough.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
No, no, well as well, this is the good part,
as well as the tour, which is coming up on
October twenty. You've got a new album coming out this Friday.
In fact, it's called You Be forty five. What's going
on with that?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
You Be forty four five?
Speaker 4 (00:41):
Well, believe it or not, we're celebrating forty five years
as a band.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Oh forty turns forty five.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
It's unreal. You see what we did there? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah, yeah, just a one meeting.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
I thought I thought it was going to be made
on my father's favorite format of I'm listening to on
a forty five, but no reggae reggae on forty.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Five, I wrote Robert, I remember seeing you guys at
a reggae festival at the Whacker about fifteen or twenty
years ago, and it was the love in the house,
the love and the Oval at the Oval famous cricket ground,
of course, was just it was tangible. In fact, there
was a sweet smell in the air too. There's something
about reggae that brings the community together, isn't there?
Speaker 4 (01:21):
Absolutely? And it's global. It doesn't matter where you go.
People love reggae, you know, and usually the warmer it gets,
the more reggae is loved, and so sell us. In
the case, we travel all over the world and it
doesn't matter where we go. The reception we get is,
you know, is always warm and wonderful.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
I wonder what that is about. The warmer it gets
the more reggae is love. Perhaps it's the humidity and
the slow movement of that. Yeah you can doad slow, yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Yeah. I think it's because the music. I think it's
possibly because the music was born in the Caribbean. Yeah,
And I think I think you can tell tropical, you know.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Because you weren't born in Jamaica.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
You The band came out of Birmingham in the late seventies,
and I think of Birmingham in the late seventies. I
think of Simon Labon buying his first puffy shirt. So
it was there was there a lot of reggae around Birmingham.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
At that time, in the area we grew up in. Yeah,
we were in South Birmingham and everywhere we went as
a gang. We've all grown up together. I've known everybody
in the band about ten years old or even younger,
and we just, you know, everywhere we went, all the
youth clubs, the clubs, the pubs, coffee bars, whatever, you know,
(02:40):
everywhere we went we heard reggae. And if we went
outside of our area, not so much, but where we
grew up it was it was surrounding us, you know,
because of the high immigrant population from the fifties, you know,
the wind Rush, the Arabian population that came to England.
(03:02):
A lot of them came to Birmingham and I grew
up listening to Jamaican pop music, you know, and when
it became reggae in the late sixties, was that was
the music that we just you know, we grew up
and loved absolutely.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
You had a whole generation probably just before you guys
who said it was Little Richard or the Beatles, or
Elvis that influenced them. But then you ended up with
a whole lot of bands with the reggae influence in
their music. So you can talk about the Police and
Robert Palmer and Australia's Cold Chisel. There's something about the
music that's just infectious like that from Musos as well,
isn't there.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
Yeah. And the kids that we were hanging out with,
many of them were of Jamaican parentage, you know, so
their parents were playing their music from home and you know,
we would hear it and it just became like the
same track to our lives. Yeah, it became the music
the music that we did everything too.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
And we are talking about the seventies and you were
talking about, you know, immigrants. Do you find that music
would have been such a wonderful way for each other
to learn about each other?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
It was sort of a communication.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
It was one of the ways. Very definitely. Birmingham, you know,
is still a cultural melting bus and has been all
of my life. You know, all I've known in Birmingham
is an influx of different people, different cultures, different music,
different drama, you know, just everything. The whole Bollywood scene,
(04:30):
the Asian Indian movie scene. We saw that too, you know,
the Indian music, the bunder who were surrounded by it,
you know, And it's absolutely a cultural melting putt and
it's one of the ways of bringing people together, you know,
and breaking.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Down barriers as a musician, as a performer. You wouldn't
have it any other way, was you real?
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Isn't it?
Speaker 2 (04:50):
That's awesome?
Speaker 4 (04:52):
Absolutely?
Speaker 1 (04:53):
You're talking about forty five years of the band. But
forty one years ago there was an album called Labor
of Love which changed everything. One was a huge single,
and you had so many great songs on there, including
many rivers to cross. It did change the game for
you guys, didn't It took you to the stratospy.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
It took us up another level. Yeah, we were doing
very well before. Yeah, we had I think I think
three or four albums out in the early eighties and yeah,
and quite a bit of success in the charts and stuff.
But when we released Labor of Love and the accompanying single,
Red Red Wine, of course that went number one in
(05:28):
twenty eight countries I think around the world. So that absolutely,
you know, launched us onto another level.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Another big one was, of course, your version of Kingston Town.
You know Kingstontown was a very big horse. Of course
he was an Australia in Australia as well, what a
lot of races. Did you ever ever meet the trader
of Kingston Town or any of you?
Speaker 2 (05:49):
No, it was a very very successful horse.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
Yeah there was. There was a horse running in England
called ub Forty as well. Really I never met.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Ill are you a bit of a bit of the
A bit definitely about each way? Now, very excited that
Eagle Eye Cherry is supporting you.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
A big fan of.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
The whole Cherry family of musicians. Have you toured with
Eagle before?
Speaker 4 (06:18):
No? Never, right, it was it was a name that
was suggested to us by the Australian promoters, you know,
and they said, hey, do you fancy have you Cherry
on the tour? And you know, obviously we're fans of
the Cherry family as well, so we were up for it.
(06:40):
You know, I haven't actually heard anything for a while,
but I'd be very interesting to hear what you're doing there.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
We've just been on holidays, Robin not together last holidays
and while I was on holidays, always take a book
with me and I love autobiographies and musics. And I
read the Ian Jury story. What a life and what
a career that man had, you know, And he had
inter actions with lots of bands, including Madness and like,
did you come across Ian in your travels because he
was an interesting geezer.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
We met briefly in the eighties because we would do
you know, the BBC's put program up of the Pups
was something that we were on very regularly in the eighties,
probably more than any other band. But yeah, we met
him quite a few times. Delightful man.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Yeah, yeah, he did a lot for charity as well
over the years.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yeah, and funny global sales of over one hundred million,
ten UK top albums.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
That's in the UK alone.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
We like to ask, though, Robin, where were you do
you remember the first time you heard yourself on the radio.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
I'm not absolutely sure, but I'm pretty sure that we
were in a minibus. I love that, and we were
all traveling together and we were in London going to
do some TV show and we heard ourselves for the
first time on the radio and we all jumped out
the van and started dancing.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
That's the way to do it. I get chewels every
on that.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Every answer from everybody the first and it so often
in a car and suddenly there you are coming out
of the speakers.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
It would it would be incredible.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
And what would that be for thought or something. One
of the early singles from.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Yeah yeah, the very first single, Yeah that's cool.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
That's like that Tom Hanks movie when the band for
recout when they themselves.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
We always think of that scene. That was another one
that was that was a mad launching. You know. We
released that single while we run to supporting the Pretenders. Yeah,
oh wow. That was our first proper tour. By the
end of that tour we were number four in the chart. Yeah,
you know, we would she launched our careers.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Yeah yeah, Chrissy Hian, Yes of course. Well.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
UB forty Redhill Auditorium beautiful spot to play Robyn October
twenty so that would be perfect weather for it. Tickets
are on sale today from ticke Tech. Thank you so
much for joining us.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Bring your swimmers mate.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
Yeah, absolutely been a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Thanks Robin, all the best. Thank you, Robin.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
It's it October, Thank you.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Bye.
We're very excited here at ninety six of them. Because
You Be forty are playing Redhill Auditorium October twenty. Tickets
on sale today from ticket Tech, supported by Eagle Eye Cherry.
You Eat forty in Perth. Robin Campbell, good morning mate,
How are you good morning?
Speaker 2 (00:13):
How are you good morning?
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Well October twenty, get your tickets too, sweet because you
are a very popular band every.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Time you come to town, Robin.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
Yeah, and we don't do it often enough.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
No, no, well as well, this is the good part,
as well as the tour, which is coming up on
October twenty. You've got a new album coming out this Friday.
In fact, it's called You Be forty five. What's going
on with that?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
You Be forty four five?
Speaker 4 (00:41):
Well, believe it or not, we're celebrating forty five years
as a band.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Oh forty turns forty five.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
It's unreal. You see what we did there? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah, yeah, just a one meeting.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
I thought I thought it was going to be made
on my father's favorite format of I'm listening to on
a forty five, but no reggae reggae on forty.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Five, I wrote Robert, I remember seeing you guys at
a reggae festival at the Whacker about fifteen or twenty
years ago, and it was the love in the house,
the love and the Oval at the Oval famous cricket ground,
of course, was just it was tangible. In fact, there
was a sweet smell in the air too. There's something
about reggae that brings the community together, isn't there?
Speaker 4 (01:21):
Absolutely? And it's global. It doesn't matter where you go.
People love reggae, you know, and usually the warmer it gets,
the more reggae is loved, and so sell us. In
the case, we travel all over the world and it
doesn't matter where we go. The reception we get is,
you know, is always warm and wonderful.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
I wonder what that is about. The warmer it gets
the more reggae is love. Perhaps it's the humidity and
the slow movement of that. Yeah you can doad slow, yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Yeah. I think it's because the music. I think it's
possibly because the music was born in the Caribbean. Yeah,
And I think I think you can tell tropical, you know.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Because you weren't born in Jamaica.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
You The band came out of Birmingham in the late seventies,
and I think of Birmingham in the late seventies. I
think of Simon Labon buying his first puffy shirt. So
it was there was there a lot of reggae around Birmingham.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
At that time, in the area we grew up in. Yeah,
we were in South Birmingham and everywhere we went as
a gang. We've all grown up together. I've known everybody
in the band about ten years old or even younger,
and we just, you know, everywhere we went, all the
youth clubs, the clubs, the pubs, coffee bars, whatever, you know,
(02:40):
everywhere we went we heard reggae. And if we went
outside of our area, not so much, but where we
grew up it was it was surrounding us, you know,
because of the high immigrant population from the fifties, you know,
the wind Rush, the Arabian population that came to England.
(03:02):
A lot of them came to Birmingham and I grew
up listening to Jamaican pop music, you know, and when
it became reggae in the late sixties, was that was
the music that we just you know, we grew up
and loved absolutely.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
You had a whole generation probably just before you guys
who said it was Little Richard or the Beatles, or
Elvis that influenced them. But then you ended up with
a whole lot of bands with the reggae influence in
their music. So you can talk about the Police and
Robert Palmer and Australia's Cold Chisel. There's something about the
music that's just infectious like that from Musos as well,
isn't there.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
Yeah. And the kids that we were hanging out with,
many of them were of Jamaican parentage, you know, so
their parents were playing their music from home and you know,
we would hear it and it just became like the
same track to our lives. Yeah, it became the music
the music that we did everything too.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
And we are talking about the seventies and you were
talking about, you know, immigrants. Do you find that music
would have been such a wonderful way for each other
to learn about each other?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
It was sort of a communication.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
It was one of the ways. Very definitely. Birmingham, you know,
is still a cultural melting bus and has been all
of my life. You know, all I've known in Birmingham
is an influx of different people, different cultures, different music,
different drama, you know, just everything. The whole Bollywood scene,
(04:30):
the Asian Indian movie scene. We saw that too, you know,
the Indian music, the bunder who were surrounded by it,
you know, And it's absolutely a cultural melting putt and
it's one of the ways of bringing people together, you know,
and breaking.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Down barriers as a musician, as a performer. You wouldn't
have it any other way, was you real?
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Isn't it?
Speaker 2 (04:50):
That's awesome?
Speaker 4 (04:52):
Absolutely?
Speaker 1 (04:53):
You're talking about forty five years of the band. But
forty one years ago there was an album called Labor
of Love which changed everything. One was a huge single,
and you had so many great songs on there, including
many rivers to cross. It did change the game for
you guys, didn't It took you to the stratospy.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
It took us up another level. Yeah, we were doing
very well before. Yeah, we had I think I think
three or four albums out in the early eighties and yeah,
and quite a bit of success in the charts and stuff.
But when we released Labor of Love and the accompanying single,
Red Red Wine, of course that went number one in
(05:28):
twenty eight countries I think around the world. So that absolutely,
you know, launched us onto another level.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Another big one was, of course, your version of Kingston Town.
You know Kingstontown was a very big horse. Of course
he was an Australia in Australia as well, what a
lot of races. Did you ever ever meet the trader
of Kingston Town or any of you?
Speaker 2 (05:49):
No, it was a very very successful horse.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
Yeah there was. There was a horse running in England
called ub Forty as well. Really I never met.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Ill are you a bit of a bit of the
A bit definitely about each way? Now, very excited that
Eagle Eye Cherry is supporting you.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
A big fan of.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
The whole Cherry family of musicians. Have you toured with
Eagle before?
Speaker 4 (06:18):
No? Never, right, it was it was a name that
was suggested to us by the Australian promoters, you know,
and they said, hey, do you fancy have you Cherry
on the tour? And you know, obviously we're fans of
the Cherry family as well, so we were up for it.
(06:40):
You know, I haven't actually heard anything for a while,
but I'd be very interesting to hear what you're doing there.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
We've just been on holidays, Robin not together last holidays
and while I was on holidays, always take a book
with me and I love autobiographies and musics. And I
read the Ian Jury story. What a life and what
a career that man had, you know, And he had
inter actions with lots of bands, including Madness and like,
did you come across Ian in your travels because he
was an interesting geezer.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
We met briefly in the eighties because we would do
you know, the BBC's put program up of the Pups
was something that we were on very regularly in the eighties,
probably more than any other band. But yeah, we met
him quite a few times. Delightful man.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Yeah, yeah, he did a lot for charity as well
over the years.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yeah, and funny global sales of over one hundred million,
ten UK top albums.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
That's in the UK alone.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
We like to ask, though, Robin, where were you do
you remember the first time you heard yourself on the radio.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
I'm not absolutely sure, but I'm pretty sure that we
were in a minibus. I love that, and we were
all traveling together and we were in London going to
do some TV show and we heard ourselves for the
first time on the radio and we all jumped out
the van and started dancing.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
That's the way to do it. I get chewels every
on that.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Every answer from everybody the first and it so often
in a car and suddenly there you are coming out
of the speakers.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
It would it would be incredible.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
And what would that be for thought or something. One
of the early singles from.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Yeah yeah, the very first single, Yeah that's cool.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
That's like that Tom Hanks movie when the band for
recout when they themselves.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
We always think of that scene. That was another one
that was that was a mad launching. You know. We
released that single while we run to supporting the Pretenders. Yeah,
oh wow. That was our first proper tour. By the
end of that tour we were number four in the chart. Yeah,
you know, we would she launched our careers.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Yeah yeah, Chrissy Hian, Yes of course. Well.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
UB forty Redhill Auditorium beautiful spot to play Robyn October
twenty so that would be perfect weather for it. Tickets
are on sale today from ticke Tech. Thank you so
much for joining us.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Bring your swimmers mate.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
Yeah, absolutely been a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Thanks Robin, all the best. Thank you, Robin.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
It's it October, Thank you.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Bye.
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