Reggae band UB40 is on tour this summer in the United States. The 45 year old band is well-known and emulated around the world for their dance beats and distinctive vocals. UB40 was formed in Birmingham in the UK in 1978 and have sold more than 70 million records worldwide. The band’s biggest hits “Red Red Wine” and “Can’t Help Falling In Love” hit number 1 on the Billboard 100 charts in the US.
The band recently made a stop in Tucson and The Travel Addict was able to catch up with founding member and drummer Jimmy Brown for a chat about the origin and continued commitment of the band to continue to entertain the world.
How long have you been on tour this go around?
We’re over half way through the tour. We’ve been here five weeks coming up to the sixth week. We’ve got another three weeks or so. Then we go home for awhile.
Is reggae music on a revival at this point in time?
It is a timeless genre. It may go up and down depending on new artists coming in. There are always reggae bands around the world, not just Jamaica. There are reggae bands in Polynesia and in Europe. There are regae bands everywhere. It’s a genre that doesn’t really relate to a particular time. It’s always fresh. I think there are ups and downs and there maybe a little bit of a revival. It’s never really gone away has it? You’ve got lots of bands that tour all the time. We tour with them all the time. You’ve got Third World, MaxiPriest and people like that. They are constantly working and so are we. The love for the genre is pretty much worldwide.
Are there two UB40 bands?
No, there isn’t. There’s only one, but we have an ex-singer who goes around passing himself off as UB40. He left us 15 years ago with his own backing band passing himself off as UB40 and we’ve been trying to shut him down for a long time. It’s been very difficult and very expensive. And it doesn’t really make that much difference you know. We could stop him from using the name in one way, but he’ll use it in another. When he left to pursue a solo career, it really didn’t take off as he expected. He started pretending he was UB40 to sell tickets and he’s been doing it ever since. There’s only one UB40. There is a sort of tribute rip-off band from our ex singer who actually regrets leaving because he has actually billing himself as UB 40 for awhile now. We’re still trying to stop him from doing that.
Where did the name UB40 come from?
UB stands for unemployment benefits. There is an unemployment benifit card that you hand over to the unemployment benefit office so you receive your check. So yes UB stands for unemployment benefits. They don’t use that card anymore.That’s why early on we couldn’t register the trademark because it was actually a government tradmark rather than ours. Now we are actually able to register the trademark. We were all unemployed at the time putting the band together. We’re not unemployed now. We are celebrating 45 years together as a band. We can’t believe we’ve lasted so long. We still get the kind of response we got in the very beginning. It just never seems to stop. We just carry on as long as people are willing to listen. It’s a phenomenal story really you know. We were just a bunch of kids from Birminham, England that dreamed of forming a reggae band. We ended up entertaining the world and really having a Hollywood rags to riches story. It happened to us which is really incredible. We pinch ourselves every day, you know.
As a drummer, who are your inspirations?
Oh, there’s lots. When it comes to reggae music, there is Sly Dunbar who is a massive influence and he’s become a good friend. Tragic to loose Bobby Sykes over the last year. Sly is still with us and we come across him every now and then. We’ve become good friends over the years. But then there are other influences like Carlton Barrett from Bob Marley. Those guys are our heros. We’ve spent time with them and they have become our heros. It’s not just our success that is a big part of our story, but we’ve become such good friends with our heros. Obivously we looked up to Bob Marley in 1976. We knew all the crooners, Dennis Brown and Gregory Issacs all those fabulous crew, including John Holt. Getting to know seemed like a miraculous thing to happen for us.
I read that you got a big boost from Chrissy Hynde of the Pretenders. Can you tell me about that?
Yes, that’s right. We’re talking about the end of 1979. We did about 30 gigs in the middle of pubs and clubs in the toilet of a venue called the Rock Garden in London. It was iconic because a lot of rock bands played there. We did a gig there and after the show, someone came to the door and said that Chrissy Hynde wants to talk to you. At the time she had a number one single and number one album. She was as big as they got. This was when we first started.
She said, “Hey, you guys want to come on my tour?” The tour was already sold out. We were unknowns. She said, “I love the band and I would love for you to open for us.” By the time we finished the Chrissy Hynde tour, we had a hit record of our own. We had released a record and a hit of our own. It was a certain change going from being an unknown and having a hit record,”Red Red Wine.” I suppose she was instrumental in introducing the band to the public and really starting up our career. We will always be eternally grateful to her. We’ve stayed friends over the years. She’s a lovely lady. We’ve been great friends ever since. We’ll always be great friends with Chrissy.
Who is your touring vocalist this tour?
When Edison left 15 years ago, we immediately replaced him with his brother Duncan who was apart of the gang anyway. We went to school together. He was kind of an obvious choice. That was a great transition. Ari went out to do a solo career, but it didn’t realy work out for him. It didn’t make that much difference to us. We never really wanted him back. Duncan was a great replacement.
For about 12 years, he worked out really well. But then he had some health issues. He had a stroke and he was cognitively impaired. He sort of gave up on himself. About 20 or 30 people were relying on him. Not just the band. The technicians need to rely on us to do our job. Duncan couldn’t rely on himself to do it. So, he didn’t want to continue doing it anymore. It was too big of a responsibility. We had a contingency plan. A guy called Matt Doyle. We call him Hollywood Doyle because all the ladies love him. He is constantly surrounded by middle aged women wanting his autograph. He was a great replacement. The transition from Duncan to Matt was quite an easy one. Matt Doyle was Duncan’s nephew so we are keeping it in the family.
What music are you listening to in your car now?
Ha! That’s a good question. I’m afraid I’m stuck in the 90s. I’m not really a nostalgic person. I don’t really like to look back to the 60s. Maybe the 70s. I get DJ tapes, mix tapes. I never know whos who. There’s never a list of who the artists are. The kids sometimes recommend stuff to me. They’ll say “Try this dad.” I like a variety of things.
If you weren’t a musician, what would you be doing?
It’s an impossible question to answer. There weren’t too many prospects where I live. I’d be working in an office somewhere. Maybe at the Jaguar factory in Birmingham. Obviously making Jaguar cars. I went to a specialist school at the age of 11. That’s where most of the band met. We were really good artists at a young age and they put us all together. I was one of them and so was four other members of the band. We would maybe doing something creative. It’s hard to make a living out of being creative. It’s so difficult. There are so many people who would love to do that. They barely survive. I’ve been doing this for 45 years and it’s a way of life. I met my wife before the band started. We have gone through the whole thing together. We’ve been together for 50 years and it has worked for us. I go away and I come back and I think they like not having me around all the time.The wife is used to me doing this. She likes that I’m not another baby to look after. It works for us definitely absence makes the heart grow fonder is something I’ve learned over the years.
What is the biggest difference you’ve noticed between England and the US?
I could write a book about that. Yeah the positive differences in America they like people being successful. Whereas in England there is a cultural kind of knocking that down a little bit. When people get too successful they get knocked back. I think that’s a different attitude.
In America if you got an idea, you’re fine to run with it. Whereas in England, people would be going, ‘Oh no you can’t do that.” I think there is more racism in America than there is in England. There is racism in England, Don’t get me wrong. I think it is more overt certainly, we’re not as bad in England for that. We haven’t had segregation or those types of things. There has been more kinds of integration. My wife’s father is from Jamaica. We’re a multi-racial, multi-cultural family. That’s very typical for England.
In America nobody wants to admit it. It’s like Jekyll and Hyde in America. It’s worse if you’ve never met anyone who isn’t white. Coming from an inner city Birmingham, it’s a multicultural melting pot of all kinds of (people) from the empire. Like Pakistan, the Caribbean, or Arab states. These are the kind of immigrants we grew up with in Birmingham. In Mountain Park, we believe people should be together and should be influencing each other.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever gotten?
I was working in the Jaguar factory where they make the cars. I had been there about a year. I was walking across the shop floor where they actually construct the automobiles. A man called me out. I didn’t really know him. We hadn’t spoken. I thought ‘What’s he going to say?’ some old bloke, whose going to give me some advice. He called me over and he said to me ‘Let me give you some advice,’ he said “Get as far away from here as you possible can and don’t look back.’
This is a guy who has worked the factory all his life. His advice to me was ‘Leave immediately and don’t come back and don’t look back.’ That’s exactly what I did. Shortly after that we got the band together. Obviously I’ve never looked back. What a beautiful thing for him to do. He didn’t know me and I didn’t know him. He felt he needed to tell me and it has stayed with me forever you know. You’re talking about 1977. That bit of advice has stayed with me all of my life. I figured it was a beautiful thing for him to do. I’ll never forget it.
Is there any new music that the band is releasing in the near future?
We’re constanly working on new music. We just reieased a new album called UB45. That is the album we are promoting on the tour. It’s half old tracks redone. The other half is brand new material. People ask “What’s your favorite song?” I respond ‘It’s the one I’m working on now.’ That’s the one you are putting all your effort into. The one you believe in. I know we are a heritage band but we want to make new music. We don’t want to be like a caberat act, a third of the act in this tour, is new material. We indulge in ourselves and expect a new audience to give us that freedom to play new material too. Doing new stuff is very very important to us. So we’ll be in the future as far as I’m concerned.
Photos and Words By: Mary Andrews