Send a message to the terrorists
Defiant Mark King keen to play on at Rewind
After narrowly avoiding the London Bridge attacks bass legend Mark King says playing Rewind will be his way of “sticking two fingers up to the terrorists”.
The Level 42 frontman was in Southwark on the night of the June 3 atrocities, which claimed the lives of eight people.
He and his wife Ria, who spend most of the year at their family home on the Isle of Wight, were staying in the London district ahead of a gig he was playing that evening.
“We have a flat which is about two blocks away from Borough Market itself,” King explained yesterday.
“The band finished a show at Canterbury on Saturday evening and I got off the bus at 10.45pm at Great Dover Street, which is where our flat is, and this whole nightmare had just gone down.
“I’ve never ever seen so many police or people running in a panic. And then spending the next four or five hours through the night with the windows open just listening to controlled explosions and constant police helicopters.
“I was only a quarter of a mile from the main incident, three blocks. Our apartment is right next to Guy’s Hospital, which is next door to the Shard, then it’s Borough Market.
“Two nights before that happened my wife and I were in Borough Bistro where they first ran down the steps and started stabbing the people there so it could easily have been me and my family who were sitting there. Two nights before we were.”
The 58-year-old said being so close to the hell of June 3 had only served to strengthen his belief in the power of music.
“I wasn’t cowering up there, I was definitely thinking, ‘You b ****** s are not going to win, you’re not going to change this’,” he declared.
“They might take a few people out with their disgusting brand of hatred but we stand shoulder to shoulder, so two fingers up to them.
“If that’s what life is like these days that’s the vile side of it, the great side of it are things like the Rewind festivals.
“Just bring it on, this is what we love doing and people love going out and having a great time at weekends. This is how we show our unity and say you can’t change our way of life.
“In these times, more than ever before, going to a concert like Rewind with your family is the best two fingers you can give to these terrorist groups that seem to want to change our way of life.
“It’s just not going to happen. I don’t think they understand what makes people tick.”
Multi-instrumentalist King said he’s become a regular festival-goer in recent years.
“My wife and I bought a Dodge campervan for the very thing,” he revealed.
“We love going to Glastonbury or Bestival, and of course we have a big festival here on the Isle of Wight. We go because it’s such great fun and music really is unifying.
“I’ve had the pleasure of 30-odd years travelling round the world and it doesn’t matter where you go, people love music, it’s just this great universal language.
“I was too young for the original Isle of Wight Festival. I was 11 when the Hendrix festival took place, which was the last big one here.
“When you see photographs from back then the sea of people is incredible. Glastonbury did a great thing in picking up the baton and running with it and moving it on.
“My wife and I were there a few years ago and I think it’s the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen. They had 200,000 people in on the Sunday afternoon to see Dolly Parton.
“It was just a beautiful mix of ages, everybody there to have a great time and fill the place with love not hate.”
Level 42 formed in 1980, with cult sci-fi novel The Hitchhikers’ Guide To The Galaxy inspiring their name.
“Our guitarist Boon and myself were big fans of that whole sciencefiction comedy thing that was coming around a lot at the end of the 1970s and Douglas Adams hit the nail on the head with his book,” said King.
“The idea of using numerology seemed like quite a good idea given that we were coming in on the back of punk and the bands just prior to us had very aggressive names.
“We wanted to somehow say, ‘This is something different’, and the numerology thing has worked well for us.”
King believes the bass guitar is “in safe hands” following the emergence of innovative newcomers such as Drenge and Royal Blood in recent years.
But despite being lauded down the decades, he admits that his
Level 42 with Mark King, front right own trademark slap playing style borrowed heavily from others.
“It’s not a style I invented, I was just trying to emulate my American bass playing heroes like Stanley Clarke and Larry Graham from Sly and the Family Stone,” he said.
“But of course being British and having Church of England running through my veins it had its own way of coming out, which I suppose made it a bit different.
“It’s very flattering when people say it only sounds like me because there are so many wonderful bass players out there.
“My good fortune was coming along 37 years ago when people were ready to hear something a little bit different, and it just so happened that’s when I picked up the bass and started playing in this style.”
The father-of-four named Talking Heads as his favourite ‘80s band and revealed he’s been working with the New Yorkers’ former guitarist Adrian Belew and ex-Police drummer Stewart Copeland.
Separate new material from Level 42 is a possibility, but touring remains their priority. “We work live such a lot we keep working on the songs we’ve got,” King added.
“On the last two tours we’ve added a brass section so we tour as a seven-piece now and that by its very nature changes the songs. You have to rearrange things.
“I know that when people come along to Scone Palace they’ll be seeing a totally different band from last time where the dynamic changes an awful lot.”
Level 42 won friends on their only previous stint at Rewind Scotland in 2013 by playing on unamplified following a power outage on the main stage.
“It’s almost like a festival of fun where you get people from the 1980s and our demographic, but bringing their kids along and dressing up,” he enthused.
“I think that’s what I like, this great nostalgic trip of dressing as ‘80s pop stars. It’s really something to stand on stage and look out and see all that, I can tell you.”
• Rewind Scotland is at Scone Palace from July 21-23 with the line-up including Level 42, Human League, Billy Ocean, Kim Wilde, Belinda Carlisle and T’Pau.