They were deregulating the banks, they were selling off houses. And, you know, those are the problems that we're dealing with now. Hello and welcome to the Trawl Meets. I'm Marina Purkis. And I'm Gemma Forte. And on the Trawl Meets, Marina and I get to chat with people we admire and find interesting. We discuss political topics they're passionate about and explore their unique experience of social media. And Today is a Troll first for a couple of reasons.
It's the first troll meets of 2025 and it's the first time we've ever spoken to more than one person in an episode. Because today we are meeting two members of an iconic group, a group who have 160,000 followers on Instagram, 1.2 million subscribers on YouTube and 1.2 million followers on Facebook. That's a whole lot of followers. Yes, yes, yes. And it's a group who are almost as known for their political leanings as they are for their wonderful music.
As the Independent wrote recently ahead of their sellout Wembley arena gig and UK tour, theirs was a sound driven by a powerful alchemy of protest and groove. Voices of dissent set to the rolling mid tempo lope of 1970s reggae. And the last clue, in case you need it. The band's name is famously a reference to the Unemployment Benefit Benefit form, as each of them had signed it having left school without a job, which at the time was a damning indictment of the Maggie Thatcher government.
They are one of the most commercially successful bands of all time, with, worth pointing out, twice as many records sold as Oasis. They are, of course, the wonderful UB40. So please welcome Jimmy Brown and Robin Campbell. What a great introduction. Thank you very much. We're coming again now. And that's it. No, no, no. So it's so wonderful to see you today and we've put a lot of sort of thought into this episode because we're very lucky to have you here, you know, absolute legends.
So we thought, as we go through the episode as well, we're going to chat about all sorts of things. But sometimes those things might be great and sometimes not so great. So at any point you want to say, I tell you what, that is fantastic and really positive, then perhaps we'll hear this divine. And then if there's something that's not so much to your liking, I don't know, maybe a terrible Tory or Donald Trump or something like that, then it's this rain, rain win.
And we will just use that as and when we feel. But we've got so much to talk about now for anyone listening who isn't completely up to date with the band's history, I'm going to attempt a quick potted history and then we'll get really stuck in. And you guys can correct anything that I've got wrong, of course. So I believe. The original starting lineup from 1978 consisted of eight members, four of whom remain in the band to this day. The founding members all met at school in Birmingham.
And the first album was Signing off and that was recorded in a bed sit. And percussionist Norman Hassan had to record his parts in the garden. Cause his kit was too large to fit through the front door. And then in 1980, the record was released and spent 72 weeks in the album charts. And it remains a stellar debut. And here's actually a clip of you, Robin, being interviewed on the Cutting Edge. Some of us had got jobs, most hadn't.
And those that had got jobs didn't want to do the jobs they were doing. And we all. We wanted to form a band. It was simple as that. We just decided if we were going to, then there'd have to be a kind of total commitment from everybody. And those of us that work in gave in the jobs. And we treated it like an apprenticeship, if you like. We spent six, five days a week, from nine or ten in the morning till five at night, learning to play instruments the same way a typist would.
Or, you know, anything else. There you go. Wow. Where'd you get that from? We do our research, which, you know what we do, we trawl social media so you don't have to. I have been falling down rabbit holes and. Oh, God, there's so much in your story that I find deeply interesting. But just before that, the success you found was actually quite quick. Relatively quick, ridiculously quick, because a certain Chrissy Hines. Because of Chrissy. Yeah, yeah, from the Pretenders. So tell us about that.
We spent the first year touring the whole of 79, basically. And I think we did maybe 30 gigs in that year. And then in our first little mini tour of London, our first visit to London proper, we were playing clubs with a 101 club and a few Quarterhouse Redford places. Yeah, that wasn't in London, though. But we were doing. We were doing a little London tour. The 101 Club. Yeah. And. And Chrissie came to one of them. It was the Rock Garden. She came to the Rock Garden. It was a toilet.
And she came backstage and said, you guys are great. Do you want to come on My tour. Wow. And she had a number one album and a number one single at the time, Brass in Pocket. So you said, can we think about it? Well, the tour. We did actually say that the tour was sold out already. And she just invited us on. Her management hated the whole idea because anybody else would pay to get on that tour. We hadn't got a penny to our name, so we couldn't pay. And she just said, I want them.
Do you know what I love about this story as well? Apparently. Well, she said she couldn't understand what the fuck he was saying. Most of the time. She didn't understand the bride. She felt like she was the boss of some joke is what she said. And when she came backstage to talk to us for the first time at the Rock Garden, we were having a fight with the security. It was like really all going off. So she must have thought, we're what, a bunch of nutters. We're all a bunch of lads, you know, and.
And so roadies as well, because all the roadies were our mates. We were a gang. We were a gang. You were a huge gang of gang on the road. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, we met. We met Chrissy, she invited us on the tour, which of course we did. And we then did 30 odd dates in the next six weeks, which was more than we'd done in the previous 12 months. Yeah. And during that six weeks tour of the UK, which as I said, was a sold out tour anyway, we released our very first single.
When we came off the tour, we were number four in the charts. Wow. And you did all that, by the way, without a record label, didn't you? We had an independent deal. You created your own. No, no, we signed a deal with Graduate Records, who were an independent company. And in fact we had the first hit single without any help, for the first ever without any help from a major label. So we were independently distributed on an independent label without any major help whatsoever.
And we were the first to do that. What a baptism of fire, though. It was ridiculous. We actually finished that tour. We had a top five single, we were on Top of the Pops, all looking at each other, going, can you. Believe we're doing this? And then we booked the very same tour that we'd just done with Chrissie and sold his head. Wow. So it was ridiculously quick for us. Ridiculous. And then of course, we released the album that same year, 1980.
We were working on the album when we met Chrissie, but we finished it and released it later on in the year. And you said 70 something weeks. I think it was actually 98 weeks. Oh, was it? Okay, good. The only other album at that time that was in the charts longer than us was Batter out of Hell. Yeah. So it was a massive, massive record for us. Huge. A lot of people don't know when they know us from Red Red Wine, they don't realize that we had a whole career before then.
This is four years before, you know, A lot of bands don't last much longer than four years, you know, so. What we love, as well as how much you weave politics into your music. So you've got the track 1 in 10, which is the statistic relating to those unemployed, starving, suicidal and homeless, as well as your first single, which was the double A side. So you had Food for Thought, which was all about the hypocrisy.
I think this was your quote, Rob, hypocrisy of Christmas, that there are starving people in Africa and yet here we are, all sat around eating our Christmas dinner and praising the Lord. And the other side of that was the song King, which was an ode to Martin Luther King. And here is not quite an ode to Martin Luther King. It was a lament. Yeah. Really, because what it was. The song goes king, where are your people now? And what we. What we realized, or what we.
What we were trying to put across was that passive, you know, resistance doesn't work. And it hadn't worked. So it's quite a sophisticated song in that way that we're not going to. How great you are, Martin Luther King, although we do obviously respect what he did, you know, but the idea that you can passively make any kind of difference just doesn't work for us. You know, you've gotta fight. I really like that sentiment as well, because I think you're probably right.
You know, you look at the suffragettes, they had to do what they had to do to be heard or any form of responsibility. Resistance, sadly, often involves some kind of fight. And. And because it's the last. It's the last thing they can do. It's the last resort. Dare I bring in what we've seen in the US And Luigi Manjone shooting a healthcare CEO in the street because people are feeling. Somewhat. Somewhat.
And it's creating a lot of debate, but a lot of people are saying the sympathy is coming from a place of. There is nothing we could have done within the law. Yeah, we've tried. There is no. There was nothing we could do. There had to be a violent moment because of this. And this is why there was so much Interesting discussion around this, but with regards to your. Your political statements made through your songs, was this intentional? Was there a reason for doing that?
Was it important to you to sing about something you cared about? Yeah. We're political people, weren't we? Exactly. We were political young men who had a lot to shout about. We. We went to a lot of demonstrations. We. We were involved in Rock Against Racism, which was massive in the 70s. We used to go down to South African embassy to protest apartheid. And, you know, we were angry young men. So we were out on the streets when. Sorry, we're out on the streets when the National Front came out.
Absolutely. It would be, you know, there'd be 150 of them like there is now. You know, there's never that many. But then you'd have to come out in numbers and just make the streets so hostile. They don't want to be there and you just have to chase them away, you know, that's what you've got to do. You can't just go, oh, yeah, okay, let them have freedom of speech. No, you don't. Let them have freedom of speech. Big differences in there between freedom of speech and hate speech.
Yeah. And we were. We were very much involved in protest, you know, and we believed that if you have a platform, if you're in a band and you're writing lyrics. We were young men, so we were not that comfortable writing about love songs anyway. What came easily to us was what we were passionate about, you know, so it made sense for us to use the platform we had. And if we were gonna write songs, the odds were that they were gonna be political anyway.
I think that's why the songs are so beautiful and they have that sort of pain within them that good creativity often comes from a place of anger or a place of pain. And now there's a lot of music which is quite banal and quite sort of manufactured. And they actually probably avoid anything that's controversial or anything that might divide. I think there always has been. There always has been. When we were listening to pop music in the season and.
And, you know, there's always been the banal side of pop music that, you know, don't upset anybody and don't want to lose any fans. But then we've gone through punk and, you know, there was. Was an atmosphere of youth culture being politicized in that way. You know, certainly anti racist that at that particular. Yeah, that was a big thing. They might have said, you were woke, you were woke. We were woke. Woke. You know, we're double Double woke. Double woke. Yeah. Now, I love this fact.
And again, you can correct me if this isn't true. Apparently your political lyrics landed the band on an Mi5 watch list. What the hell? During the 80s. Alongside other acts like John Lennon, Crass and then the Sex Pistols. Yeah, as if anybody really cared what they talked about. Crazy. No, but it just goes to show what a fantasy world they live in, these people, that they really thought that. We were some kind of threat. Yeah, threat to, you know, public safety or whatever.
I mean, it's ridiculous. We're just a bunch of. Did one of you have your phone tapped? We all had our fans tapped. It's insane. And there was a guy that would be, like, waiting outside. We built our studios in the. In the early 80s. 82 I. We started building our studios and we were informed by somebody who worked for the telephone people that we were being tapped and we were being observed. And they had a room in a factory across the road.
They had a room where they were taking pictures of everyone who arrived and left, et cetera. Took down the registration numbers of every car, every visitor. You know, we were under surveillance. Stoned with your mates? Well, exactly. I was gonna say that. Dad must have been bored listening, just going, nick, I need weed. Yeah, I've had a little bit of weed. Yeah, we was hilarious. Yeah, it was ludicrous.
You know, what do they think we're going to do, you know, that we're going to be storming the, you know, the Bastille or whatever. If it was under Maggie Thatcher's orders, she didn't like it. It was ridiculous. They obviously didn't have a clue. I mean, there was a. There was a. Part of the culture at the time, you know, was the Thatcherism and. And we were certainly part of that. They didn't like us much, you know. They didn't like us at all.
We were anti establishment, you know, and they didn't like it and they kept their eye on us because of it. But there's nothing new about it. My father was a musician as well, was also a songwriter, was political, was a member of the cnd. So he was part of the anti nuclear thing and he had his phone tapped as well. Wow. A friend of ours who worked for the phone company came and told us, your phone's being tapped.
If you listen carefully, when you pick the phone up, you hear a click and you'll know that the machine has automatically gone on and they're recording your calls. And we used to. We used to show people. We used to Go, we're being. Listen to this. Pick up the phone and say. You'll hear a click and it goes. And you just hear the whole. You know what I think that is? I think that's red. Red wine. Red, red wine. Oh, Gemma. That's Gemma's touch. You can tell. You can absolutely tell.
Something that just struck me when you were talking there, Robin, is you said you were anti establishment. And it just makes me so sad that. That you actually were. Whereas now we've got these bellends like Richard Tice and fucking Farage pretending they're anti establishment. Farage has been on television more times than the Queen. You know, the BBC have created Farage over. Over several decades. You know, so famously, you are Brummie.
You grew up in South Birmingham, Borsal Heath, and it's a part of the city which was full of Jamaicans, which is why you grew up listening to reggae. And then during the 80s, you would have witnessed the rise of the national front and heard 70s, 70s, right before your time. Thank you. And heard. You would have heard the dangerous rhetoric surrounding immigration. So here is a clip from Thames tv. Gemma loves it because it's a bit nostalgic. Nostalgic.
It's from 1980 from a program talking about the danger of the far right in Britain. The week before, the British movement held. Its first national march. The organizers had expected 2,000 demonstrators, but. In the event, the police heavily outnumbered the turnout of only 600. And although there were all the familiar. Trappings, the flags and banners and there. Were some menacing figures, the bulk of the marchers were little more than school children. But it's always been the same.
Every country, every, you know, disaffected unhappy youth, you turn them against themselves. You know, people who are similar to them but a different colour or a different religion or a different. I was gonna say that what you. Have to do is learn to hate difference. Yeah, I was talking about this. And then right wing politics will thrive. The quote Aldous Huxley, I think it was, quote, about if you can.
The herd afraid, then you can manipulate the herd to turn on anybody who isn't part of that herd. Yeah, so true. And of course. So you live through that, where everything was very out in terms of the racism. And when I grew up, I kind of was a bit naive because the lid was on it to an extent. It didn't go away, racism. But it went underground. It became unacceptable. Unacceptable to have those kind of opinions, certainly to put them on the television. Absolutely.
Whereas now Question Time is just raging. So now the lid's been taken off again and I feel like we've gone backwards and here we are. So it felt particularly pertinent to be talking to you today because you attended some of those protests against the National Front and so on. Here we are, 2025. Last summer we saw those riots broke out after those horribly tragic murders in Southport incited by the likes of Tommy Robinson. But you know what, it was the same back in those days.
I remember we were going to a demonstration outside Windsor Green Prison in Birmingham. It was against a guy called Robert Ralph who had put his house up for sale for whites only. And that was against the law to do that. And they put him in prison. Then you had the National Front turning up. This was 77 or somewhere. Well, they had no blacks, no Irish, didn't they? Well, it was after that it was 77.
I mean, we're talking the 60s, the 60s when people wanted to live in digs where they'd say, no blacks, no dogs, no Irish. But later on, it was against the law to say you can only sell your house to whites. So anyway, they put them in Windsor Green Jail and then a handful of National Front turned up. And then probably There was about 100, 200 at the most. But then about 4,000 anti racist demonstrators turned up. And it's exactly the same today. There are not very many of them, you know, okay.
So I think. But they have a very loud voice. And also we've got the issue now where you've got Tommy Robinson, who is being backed now by the richest man in the world. Terrifying. And this is the thing. So when you say it's exactly the same, I actually think we're in a more dangerous spot. And especially when we've just learned this week that Facebook is going to stop its fact checking. We're going to have four years essentially, of, of right wing propaganda, disinformation, misinformation.
Absolutely. Just a tidal wave of it. And then the likes of Tommy Robinson mobilized in a way that the funding clearly Elon Musk would like him to be the leader of reform. Prime Minister. His dad, his dad's going around saying that, well, don't do ketamine kids. Yeah. You know, so. And also there's another great quote when they, when they say that the old ways are dying and the new ways are yet to be born.
Now is the time amongst us, and I think that's where we are in this particular period of time, is that there's a decline. Trump has presence. It's a sign of decline. You Know. Yeah, but Oswald Mosley was a sign of decline and, and Hitler was a sign of decline and. But they gain power if it's successful enough. It's all propaganda. If the propaganda works well enough, then. Populism, the growth happens, the thing is. And it becomes normalized. Absolutely.
But we're now living in a digital age where propaganda is on steroids. So if you are doing that, which the right are very good at, that they are very good at pumping out bite size chunks of information. Popular stuff that is very like, you know, we talked about cultivating fear and how that leads to this kind of disenfranchising of young men. Especially like this is what they are now capitalizing on. They are very good at it. Yeah, but that's a sign of decline.
That's a sign that, you know, people have got no direction. And because of what. And why do we have that? Because of growing inequality. Personally. Yeah, yeah. And I think, personally, I think that there was a new starting gun fired in cash war in the very early 80s with the deregulation of global finance and the introduction of neoliberal finance and the financialization of every part of our lives.
You know, they're really, in the end, the rich have become massively richer whereas the normal workers have seen their incomes flatline or even go. Go backwards, you know. So I think that they've gone backwards from the 80s. 45 exactly. From the early 80s. The big bad deregulation that Thatcher introduced because she was influenced by Reagan in America and Reagan was influenced by the, the, you know, the neoliberal intellectuals in the colleges at that time, you know, and the whole edifice.
Because that's when the shadow banking system and that shadow banking system or derivatives market suddenly in the space of a couple of years became worth More than 100 years of the normal market. And it just shows you that really since then almost all the global growth has been built on debt. And that's, you know, and that's where we are. And you get to the point where Musk is omnipotent. What consequences is he ever going to face with that kind of money? And there he is.
Not a happy chap though, is it? Well, clearly not. He needs a hobby, doesn't he? He does, yeah. He just needs nothing. He's a fucking waste of a billionaire. Like, if that were me, I'd be having the best time of my life. Yeah. And you could change the world. And I'd said this, I would open hospitals, I would do all sorts of good stuff. I would, I would, you Could. He could rid the third world of hunger. He could end starvation, he could end homelessness. Yeah. And you could have that. Wonderful.
It's a selfish thing, isn't it, when you're being kind for yourself. But I think it'd be really fun to be like a sort of Father Christmas type person where you just go. And you knock on the door and you go, he. You had a terrible time last week. Here's a new car. You were genetically programmed to be altruistic. You get all kinds of. Your brain gets all kinds of chemicals. Yeah. Telling you how great things are. Maybe the ketamine's a blocker. Yeah, Possibly, quite possibly.
Makes them send you into an. Alcohol. Yeah, yeah. Most drugs do, apart from weed. But the thing is, because of your youth, you're seeing this as worse than it's ever been before. Yeah. But if you lived in the 30s. A century ago, like Rob did. Hilarious. Then, you know, then you would think that this was nothing compared to this. Yes, yes, yes. We're not having to hide in an accident, our youth. I remember in the 60s talking about no, no blacks, no dogs, no Irish.
Used to get those in the windows of. Of. Of bed sits and stuff. But I also remember an, an advert, a Tory party advert saying if you want a colored for a neighbor vote labor, that was an acceptable advert for. Them to use generic. Putting something out similar. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, so really nothing has changed. It's just cyclical. It comes back all the time as things get worse for people. They look for someone to blame and that's when right wing people use it.
Yeah. Okay, so here's a question then. And by the way, thank you for saying that. I'm young. So. Wait a minute, wait a minute. No, that's red. Red. Divine. Divine. Yeah. Thank you very much. Yeah. So do you think then. So I was looking Kemi Badenoch and Starmer in PMQS yesterday. Essentially. I know essentially Labour want to put through this bill, safeguards kids from being taken out of school and abused. Right. And the Conservatives were trying to block it and all this.
And I thought, I think that there was a time where the opposition picked their battles a little more and did actually, you know, and I think even Starmer and his Labour Party in opposition. I know, but I think when there was something that was clearly for the common good, they would pick their battles more. Don't you think that playing politics, that sort of absolute scrapping, that absolute savagery. I think the quality of politicians has definitely gone down. Over the, over the decades.
You know, I think that when you look at some of the, you know, big people in the past, you know, they're so much better educated, so much more powerful people, powerful speakers. You know, when you look at Tony Ben, for instance, the quality of the. Politicians then in his contempt, in his time, he was ridiculed by the media, by the right wing, he was made a laughing stock of and became a joke, just as Corbyn was. They just told enough lies about him until he was no longer electable.
He was no longer able to lead the Labour Party because he was a terrorist loving, anti Semite. None of which is true. That just speaks to how absolutely the landscape is not just in terms of the standard of our politicians, but our media landscape. That's what I'm saying. The media, but it's always being bought. Up, but it's always been the same. The billionaires, even the Guardian, even the Guardian, Robin. The Guardian, Robin is now being taken over by Tortoise, which is right leaning like.
So we are, we're in Twitter, Facebook, meta, Instagram threads. You know what it is? You know what it is? It's red, red wine. Red, red wine. Right, we're gonna get back to politics because we love it. All political vultures sitting here. But we also want to talk about something else. And we know you've probably talked about it today, but we have to mention the fact that at a certain point, Ali Campbell, your brother, left the band. Right, so here is a clip from the Today program in Australia.
And after a string of hit singles and albums and sellout shows around the world, they're headlining the ragamuffin reggae shows in Australasia and facing a massive challenge with one of their founding members deciding it's time to sign off. We're very disappointed and quite sad about the fact that this may be the last show with Ali. But, you know, UB40 will continue and we'll go on. And we're not quite sure in what guys yet, but we have nothing but good wishes for Ali. What? In whatever he does.
A massive gap. Big old pause. Big old pause there, Robin. I was trying to find a way of saying it nicely. I think he did it. I think you did very well in that statement because, okay, I'm gonna be honest, I didn't know as much about the band as I know now. I've been absolutely falling down rabbit holes and I find it fascinating. I actually feel a bit like. I feel a bit nervous even meeting you today after watching because I didn't Realize quite how iconic you were.
And also I felt like, quite sad. I felt like after watching a documentary. I know it's from 2016. Is it promises and Lies, named after your album? Yeah, mostly Lies, which talked about the incredible sort of rise you had and then the. How it all just fell apart. And I felt so. I felt really moved and really sad watching it, because what we've seen is it was a family band, it was a group of lads.
You were a proper band, you believed in it, you had a laugh, and you were having this incredible journey. Arenas, worldwide tours. And then the bit that just got me in the gut was when it said at one point, you returned back from one tour and there was no money. It all gone. Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, part of that was the music business and the declining record sales, because what was happening was there was less and less records being sold with the rise of technology. And we were.
We were having to tighten our belts anyway. But, I mean, you know, we were still doing really great. You know, we were doing arena tours, we were selling records, but not so many, so we had to tighten our belt. And at the time, Ali got himself a new squeeze, new girlfriend, you know, and rejected his family. And he was trying to impress her by doing. But it was like Mark Tyson in a jewelry shop, you know, he was trying to.
And we were saying, you need to reign this in, you know, you need to tighten your belt. Like, we're gonna have to tighten our belts, you know, because there isn't as much money in the business. Did they last or did she bugger off with the jewelry? Yeah, yeah.
I think he made the calculation, you know, encouraged by his girlfriend and our ex manager, and made the calculation that maybe if he was to dump the band, then he could go out and still live the same pop star life he'd been used to living for 20 years or whatever it was. And I think that was the calculation he made. Unfortunately, the tour that he booked at that time under his own name just bummed, you know, he was selling 200 tickets in a 10,000 because he was. Going as Ali Campbell, not UB40.
Not UB40. Yeah. Yeah. He spent nearly five years as Ali Campbell, the voice of. The legendary. The legendary voice of. He had different ways of billing himself. Yeah. And was spectacularly unsuccessful. I think what made me feel sad is that when you fall out with a family member, which I never have, I have fallen out with some. I had some school friends, and at a certain point, our relationship broke down and it's fine now, but I remember it got to a point where you just couldn't fix it.
Too much. Too much been said, too much had happened. It's done. And that's actually the best point to get to. Cause you just stop caring or you don't want to fix anymore. You've sort of run out of steam. But they were friends from school and, you know, for you particularly. That's your brother. That's gotta hurt again. I've said this so many times, but it wasn't a family fallout. It wasn't brothers falling out. He left.
And he was also closer to several members of the band than he was to me, even though he was my kid brother. Yeah, we were always close. But for instance, Brian Travers, our sax player who's passed away, they were best pals from the age of 10, 11 years old when they started secondary school together and found each other and were inseparable for years. You know, also his relationship with Duncan, who's your younger brother, who actually then stepped in to be. To basically stepped into Phil.
They were really close. My oldest brother, David, he hasn't spoken to any of us since. Since he left. Not one word. But it was funny. But neither has he spoken to any other member of the band either. Yeah, yeah. Or his family, you know, or his family. He's just walked out of that life into another one and. And dropped everybody also. Really. He didn't. He didn't make it to your dad's funeral or his mom's. Mom's. Wow. He didn't come to either parents funerals.
Gave some excuse as to why he couldn't make it, you know. Oh, that's. That is sad. He pretended he was in Australia or New Zealand. One of the times when I know that he wasn't because I know when he flew back, but he said, you know, I won't be able to come because I'm in New Zealand or whatever. And then he didn't come to my mum's funeral at all and never even gave an excuse or anything. Just didn't come. So sad. I know that he'd.
In the documentary, it said that your dad had sided more with you, but your mom didn't take any sides. You were all her boys and she just wanted you to. Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah. Because his mum was lovely. Yeah. Mum didn't want to take sides with anybody because she loved us all equally, et cetera. My dad was just really disappointed that he'd chosen to go solo when, you know, the whole ethos of the band was that we were A gang of brothers, you know, that we did everything equally.
We shared everything equally. Socialist. Exactly. Totally socialist. And that was. Without any doubt, that was greatly influenced on my side by my father, you know, and the. And the advice he gave me when we formed the band about sharing everything equally about, you know, not having some songwriters, but everything's written by eight members of the band. Even though only one or two members of the band wrote the song then, you know, that was massively influenced by my dad's politics. Massively.
Our ethos was. And Ali was influenced in the same way. And for him to turn his back on that whole idea, he went capitalist. Was just ridiculous. But that's the thing about being in a band is. And about being friends from school is that once, you know, it keeps your feet on the ground. Because once somebody starts acting in a way like a pop star, somebody's gonna go, are you acting like that for your pratts? You know what I mean? Somebody else bring you down. Bring. Keep your feet on the ground.
Like with. We've all got families, you know, I've been with my wife since before the band, you know, so we've been together nearly 50 years. You know what I mean? But that keeps your feet on the ground. I think the problem with Ali was that he didn't want to be told that he's not a pop star, you know, he didn't like being bought down, didn't like having his feet kept on the ground. He wanted to play that pop star role, you know, and he hated being. And he found a new circle.
Yeah, they all told him friends and. Family that were all telling him that he was the reason the band existed and, you know, and that he could go on his own and he didn't need the rest of us. I have no problem with. With saying that without Ali's special voice, we would never have got where we did.
You know, when you look at other bands like the Specials or Mad, they haven't got singers, you know, Whereas Ali was a particularly great singer, you know, And I'm sure that we would never have got where we. Where we were without. Yeah. And I only wanted to be in a band because I wanted to sing with Ali, because I knew how good he was, you know, it still doesn't change the fact that it wasn't his band. He didn't start it. We all did.
And he didn't do the work, you know, he didn't spend all the time. He was too busy drinking, you know, he had a drink problem. Most of his didn't Write lyrics. Yeah. The last thing I read up on was that you were suing him because he was going under the name. We were trying to stop him using you before. Where did that get to? We got to the point. Expensive. It got very expensive. And like you were saying about friends, it comes to a point where you just give up.
You just say, it's not worth fixing. Yeah. So we just got to a point where we just, you know, this isn't worth fighting over. This isn't worth constant court cases. So let's just call it a day, you know? See, there's the hopeless romantic in me. Let him do what he wants. Like, there's a. I know you're gonna say, there's no over my dead body. Right. But there's a little bit of me goes, oh, maybe one day. Maybe one day. And then I look at, like, the way. I know. I know.
Was there not a little tiny 1% of you when the Gallagher brothers were like, you know, they're set to make 50 million quid each from a reunion. And we know they didn't sell as many records as you. They weren't as successful. Like, if you did just, like, even just, like, just agree to disagree, all. The money in the world wouldn't get us. See this, because you're principled, you're principally. And we've stuck to them all our lives. See, it's gone too far.
Yeah. Yeah. But also the conclusion I've come to in the end is that he's done us a big favor. We've got a brilliant singer. Singer. He's a fantastic. He's only 30. He's got a fantastic voice and you can rely on him. And he's not. He doesn't get boost up every night. And we're having the best time we've ever had live, you know, and. And making records as well. Your album last year got to top number 10 in the charts. Number five. Oh, sorry, sorry. Number five.
We also had a number one single on the Download charts as well. Wow. Amazing. The thing is, we. We think that the band in its current state is the best band we've been for 30 years, you know? Yeah. We. We honestly are delighted with how we're. The reception, we're getting, the fans, the way they treat us, the way they've accepted the new members, because it's not just our lead singer. We've got a new keyboard player. Concerts. Yeah, it was awesome. Exactly. And you've seen the atmosphere.
You've seen how. How they're totally accepted as members of the band, you know. Yeah. And the sound we're making, we think is stronger than it's been for a long, long time. And it wouldn't be as good if he was still with us. Yeah, that's the point. And going back to that thing where you need people who can talk to you and ground you. I arrived today at the studio and Marina told me I had soup on my face. You need somebody today. Yeah, I think you do now.
So thank you for sharing all of that with us. Now, you're passionate lefties and you even made it onto Newsnight, actually, for endorsing Jeremy Corbyn. Here's a clip. Today, Jeremy Corbyn was endorsed by an iconic band which was the scourge of Thatcherites. Your band formed in the late 1970s. During a time of increasing youth unemployment, then went on to become this iconic name, UB40.
But critics couldn't resist saying that winning the endorsement of a bunch of aging rockers may show how Jeremy Corbyn's world view hasn't changed in three decades. A view vehemently rejected by UB40. Really, in the end, what we proved is that we were absolutely right to be complaining about what they were doing during the Thatcher period because. Because they were deregulating the banks, they were selling off houses and that, you know, and those are the problems that we're dealing with now.
You know, we were right what we said then and we're right now. You know, it's obvious. I think that was me who said that it was. Yeah, it was. Yeah. Well, I, I fully believe it. You know, I mean, we've been complaining for many, many years and like you say, things haven't changed. But I think that what's happened is that we. We've been. It's confirmed, really, that though a lot of what's going on now has its roots in that Thatcher period.
You know, housing, you know, look at what, look at the mess that housing is in. And look at. They sold off all the council houses, you know, and, and, and you can't blame. You can't blame people for buying them because it gave them a chance to get on the. On the house owning ladder for half of the price. Yeah. So of course you can't blame people for doing this, but that whole idea won her votes and destroyed council housing because there isn't any now. There is no social housing left.
Back to Corbyn, go on. How do you feel about him now? Do you feel a bit let down by him at all? He was party the other day not vaguely let down. I think he was a man who was stabbed in the back by his own party, by Starmer and his cronies. I had a surprise birthday party thrown by my wife last week. Week. Because I had a big birthday. And I'm not saying what it was. Guess who was a surprise guest at the party? Jeremy. Jeremy and his lovely wife Lara turned up. And he's a beautiful man.
He's a wonderful man. Yeah. So we struggled with him not being stronger on Brexit at the time. Because that election. No, I disagree. I completely disagree with that. Because don't forget. Yeah. You know, what you had was two sides. You had one side that said all our problems are caused by the EU and the other side was saying all our solutions are in the eu. And whereas Corbyn was in the middle. He knew that the. I mean, the problems with the eu, it wasn't democratic.
You know, you couldn't support your own industries, which mean you couldn't support your own working class, because they weren't. You couldn't allow subsidized products to go into this, into the market. And there were various things that made. The ECB was insisting with. European Central bank was insisting that when you put any kind of public good, public sovereign good up for tender, you had to include the private.
Okay. So there's a lot of nuance there that I would agree with, but it's a bit like you're either pregnant or you're not. And that whole election, if you cast your mind back, was tribal and you were either in the U. EU or you were out and there wasn't room for any of that grayness. No, I was not with Johnson. I agree. Was. You know, I've just got to get in here because this is my bet.
Noir is that what happened on the night of 2019 was 50 of the 56 seats that labor lost that night were in Leave voting. Ex Labour constituencies in the Northeast and on the East Coast. That's what happened. And who was in charge of the policy of ignoring the democratic will of those people that had voted Leave? Keir Starmer. He was the one that was in control and he grandstanded at conference to make sure that the policy that Labour were fighting in 2019 was to rerun the referendum.
And nobody wanted to do that. Nobody wanted that in a country that was completely exhausted by Europe. Nobody wanted to hear the word again to run that election. That policy was suicidal. Jeremy Corbyn didn't want that. He wanted to honor the result because he's a Democrat and it was a democratic decision to leave the eu. And I don't think it was right for Starmer, for instance, to be at the front of the people's vote rallies.
He's not so happy to stand side by side with the workers on a pitted line, but he's very happy to stand at the front of that demonstration, which to me was anti democratic. And that's why we lost. And I think Starmer knew that and I think it was a way of getting rid of Jeremy Corbyn. Do you know what's really making me laugh on our running order, it says coming up after the break, we'll ask the guys what they think of the current labor in con. Okay, carrying on because this, this is so juicy.
Like I am going to take from this. You are not keen on the current incarceration of incarnation. Incarceration. Incarceration would be an improvement. Isn't he incarnation of labor, in fact. You think they're rain. Rain wine. Yeah, yeah. They drive me mad. You know, these, you know, these middle class labor MPs with their PPE from university, you know, and they all think the same way and they really would be in any. They live Dems, really, and probably one nation tourists.
They're all the same, you know, they're technocrats. Oh, you've just triggered me there, Jimmy. I hate it when people say they're all the same because they're not all the same. Of course they're not. No, they're not. What I'm saying is that those particular right wingers of Labour who were dreadful people. I agree with Legacy Sale when he said I met a lot of left wing labor people and they're lovely people, they just want a better world.
But the right wing of labor are some of the most dreadful people he's ever met. And really just dreadful people. And that's what they're like, you know. So how did you feel it feel at the last election? Because we were delighted that the Tories were. I didn't vote for Labor. We were delighted. We voted differently. We also. I didn't vote for Labour. I voted for. First time in my life I didn't vote for Labour. I would have voted for anybody though. I would have voted Labor.
Tinky Winky, Dean Gaffney, Judith Chalmers, literally anybody to get Richard Madeley. I mean anyone to get. To get the Tories out. That was how I felt. I just couldn't. That was happening anyway, though. That was happening anyway. It was written in the stars, you know. But the trouble is, and I have to Say, this is another one of my bit noirs. Is that these. How many bat noise you got? I've got loads. Got loads. But these, these MPs, Labor MPs, they.
They're crowing about having this massive majority, you know, built on nothing. By the way, less votes than Corbyn got anybody? Yeah, yeah. Less votes than Corbyn got in 2019. Yeah. I don't think anybody really knew what they were going to do or what they. They didn't care. They just wanted to tour his house. They got in. For me personally, my. My biggest disappointment is the stance on Gaza, on Palestine. I just bear it. I can't bear it. Yeah. That's why they deserve to lose in America as well.
Heartbreaking. Kamala Harris deserve to lose because of that. Not that it's going to be better with Trump. No, of course, that is why I think she hemorrhaged an awful lot of support as well. There must be one aspect of them being in that we can find a Red Red Divine. Because I like. I want to play that one as well. So what, for instance, what about a VAT on Prophet? Private school fees? Does that get your social? Yeah, that's great. That was fine. Red Devine. Red Devine. Red Red Divine.
Oh, what about another one? What about the inheritance tax reform for farmers? Yeah. I must admit that I. I lack a little bit of sympathy for the farmers. Jimmy, Is it divine or is it wine? Divine. Divine anymore. Winter fuel allowance being taken away from pictures? Definitely wine. Last one. Musk's position on Jess Phillips. Well, I'd never liked Jess Phillips. She was never good to Corbyn. But I have to admit, I'm on her side, you know, with this.
So, yeah, I mean, Musk is just out of control. Ketamine freezing. Yeah. We think that it doesn't matter what your political flavor is. He's turned on Farage because he won't support Tommy Robinson. Though the Overton window has just actually disappeared. It's so right. So one thing I want to ask, because this also made me a little bit sad. Sorry, lots of sadness here. But I just need to get to the bottom of it.
So when you were younger, you sung about political things and now I know there's a quote from you, which was. I think it's from you, Robin. You said, we used to think we could change the 40 years on. It dawns on you that it makes no difference whatsoever. All we're doing is preaching to the choir. And then I look at your latest album and all your new songs. Not that I can see. They're all about love and sort of, you know, they're not. They're not political. Oh, yes, they are. Yeah. Oh, okay.
Maybe I've got this all wrong then. Well, Home is. Is anti racist song. Jimmy's song. For Me Once. For Me Once is about. Is aimed at people who voted for Trump or voted for Congress as a love song. Very happy to hear this and be put wrong here because I thought it sounded like you'd become despondent and you weren't bothering anyone. People often say it makes me laugh. People often say, oh, they just became a covers band, you know, because of the success of tunes like Red Red Wine.
But we've never stopped being a political band. We've never stopped writing our own songs. We've done 20 odd albums of original material and four labor of love albums. Okay, so it's still in your art and it's still in your soul, of course. But this quote is interesting. You've said all we're doing is preaching to the choir. Yeah. I do believe that it makes no difference whatsoever. I think when we. When you're angry young men, I think you do believe you can change the world.
I think that's why young men are as passionate and as involved in protest as they are. But. Or young people, not young men. But, you know, as us as young men, we were very passionate about what we were angry about, you know, and we really did believe we were gonna change the world for a very short time. Because you realize that in actual fact, many of your predecessors have been doing the same thing, have been saying the same stuff and all. It really doesn't make a lot of difference.
And going back to what we were talking about, about racism, about how it became unacceptable in the late 90s and the noughties became unacceptable to be overtly racist in public, you know. But what happened was it gets passed on in families. That's how it works, is that if you're born into a family that's casually. Racist, you're taught racist. You're gonna be grown up that way, you know. Can I suggest your next track? Maybe it's something to do with like telling billionaires to go themselves.
I think it did really well with Trump. Remember Earl's Churn? Trumpy, Trumpy, yeah. Trumpy, Trumpy. Yeah, yeah. Oh, and he's like that combo. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He really did lay into him. Yeah, yeah. We did it in America as well. And it was like a double thing with Gilly, our rapper. And he used to wear A Trump mask and. Come on, he's gone. How do you like me now? You know? So they haven't booked you for Trump's inauguration, then?
Also, if you need some activist backing singers who can't really sing, they're available. I can do that. Yeah. We can do a bit of a troll dance there. Right. You ladies can come on stage with us any time you like. Wow. Amazing. Honestly, you're gonna regret saying the can. Can troll T shirts don't do that, though, when you. All right, okay. Oh, God. I've already been cancelled. Right. Okay. Are you fans of any Tories? No, that was such a quick question. Really? Are your. Are your fans?
Do you have fans? Tory fans? Yeah, for sure, yeah. Yeah. The ones that are always coming on saying, why don't you just leave politics out of it, guys, and stick to what you do best. Just stick to the music and leave politics out of it. What do you say to you? I've been a fan for years, but after you supported Corbyn, that's it. I'm not buying another record. Yeah, well, you weren't a fan beforehand, were you? Really? Yeah. You liked a couple of tunes. Yeah. And also, don't Rob be all right.
It's like when people tell me, I am unfollowing you because I don't like your views, I'm like, bye, bye. Go for it. Yeah, absolutely. Mr. Gimp Face with three followers. Do what you like, stick up your ass. So there's somebody doing it. Every time you guys post, you get a. You know, I'm. I'm unfriending you, I'm unfollowing you. And I tell you what happens to me on Instagram.
I'll post a nice little picture showing off looking nice in a dress or something like that, and I get a little influx of new followers and then they find out I've got opinions and then I'll lose a load again. Oh, you've got that one guy sent you a video of him stroking the bishop. Oh, dear. Really? Yes. Only one? No. Oh, I get. I'm very disappointed. Very disappointed because I've sort of said something that I think I'm like, okay, bye. We lose personally all the time.
I get personal messages from people saying, I can't believe you said that about whatever, you know? And I just think, well, you don't know me then. If you can't believe I said that, then go away. Yeah, don't worry about it. Go somewhere else, please. Right on the trawl. We like to do underrated TWEETS of the week. So we found a couple. We've got one each. So mine is from Mary Hunter, who said, I'm not totally against a memorial to Thatcher, I'm just not sure what form it should take.
An abandoned coal mine, a giant UB40, a mothballed steepyard, or simply an empty bottle of milk. It's lovely to be part of that, you know, to have our name mentioning something like that. This is literally from an account called the dad Joke. Man, it's such a dad joke. I went to see a UB40 tribute act called WD40 last night. They were a bit rusty at first, but got better as the evening went on. Red red wine. Red red wine. Red red wine.
Well, I tell you what, it has been such a treat to meet you today. Yeah, afraid so. Our listeners are busy people, you know, but, I mean, they know where to find you. You know, listen to their music, look them up, be glad that they're still being political and wonderful and outspoken. We wouldn't have it any other way. And if, you know, if I'm Speaking to a UB40 fan. Hello. Welcome to the trawl. Don't you think, Marina? Yeah. And look out for us on the next tour. We'll be the backing dancers.
Yes. Although apparently. God, I wish I never said that. I'm gonna have to have a few. Few lessons before. So. No to our pudding. I'm just gonna say it has been this to talk to you. Divine. Naughty Sophie is laughing there. It really has been divine. But now Marina and I will leave you with pudding. It's the cherry on the top. So this is a lovely moment from Bob Marley, who spent time in Birmingham, I believe, and was a huge influence. Influence on your band, of course. A reggae great.
Have you made a lot of money out of your music? Money? I mean, what is. How much is. How much is a lot of money to you? Yeah, that's a good question. Have you made, say, millions of dollars? No. Are you a rich man? What do you mean, rich? What do you mean? You have a lot of possessions, a lot of money in the bank position make you rich. I know I don't have that type of richness. My richness is life forever.