Specifically, the bits called Suggs and Chas Smash (aka Carl).

It feels a bit redundant to say that I like Madness. Is there anyone that doesn’t? I bet even the Taliban like Madness…

This shoot happened late at night in a room above a restaurant in Soho. They’d just come back from playing a festival in Australia, Suggs was a bit tired and Carl was, if not over-refreshed, definitely a long way from being under-refreshed. After two minutes of sitting and squinting at my camera he realised something  was missing, so he pulled out some Rizla and started constructing, and then consuming, a large jazz-fag.

So far so good, but post jazz-fag thing took a turn for the weird. We decided to take a photo in the strip-club next door. There was no real plan but we had a few minutes spare at the end and thought that we might get something spontaneous and interesting. So we went in and took a few photos, but quickly realised that we were out of our comfort zone. The strippers were fine, the usual fare of silicon-stuffed Eastern Europeans, it was the guys that were the problem: red-faced, bellowing, horny, drunks everywhere - very unpleasant, so we beat a retreat. On the way out a woman in a group of guys shouted at me to take her photo. I told her that I was working and didn’t have time and kept walking to keep up with Team Madness. A minute later we were out in the street when one of the guys erupted from the club and charged at me shouting something semi-coherent about taking photos of his ‘bird’. He was jacked up on lager, tits and idiocy and tried to grab my camera which was on a strap around my neck, resulting in us scuffling about in a very undignified manner. A pretty ugly scene, but Carl and Suggs, who were standing a few meteres away, jumped in without any hesitation shouting “Oi, he’s with us!” Between the 3 of us we got the guys hands off my camera and my neck but were still engaged in argy-bargy when he looked at Suggs and a thought seemed to occur. 

“Jesus!” he says, “its Suggs! Out of Madness! Can I get your autograph?” 

Very admirably Suggs told him to “fuck off”, and so off he fucked to join the other morons back in the club. 

I ended the night sitting on a piano stool with Carl in the Groucho Club as he played songs and growled the lyrics Tom Waits style in my ear - a bit ‘Bromancing The Stoner’ but good fun…

Anyway, my final thought is this: how many other bands can you think of who, on an hours acquaintance, would jump in for you in an ugly street-scuffle with a punter from a strip-club? Now, to me, Madness are not just the guys who’ve made great music for more than 30 years, they are the guys that saved my camera from getting smashed and my ass from getting kicked. That’s a lot more than even The Beatles have done…