MADNESS ONE STEP BEYOND

The Nutty Boys classic debut is the pair’s first full collaboration. Featuring “The Prince” and “My Girl”, it brings instant success CLIVE LANGER: I grew up with Mike Barson’s brother Ben in north London, listening to Soft Machine, 10CC and Roxy Music. I’d see the band at Ben’s house, always stylishly dressed in a mod way, but also a bit glammy. They were a gang of kids, a few years younger than me. I did “The Prince”, the first Madness recording, at Pathway Studio, which was cheaper than TW. When it came to the album, it made sense that me and Alan do it together. ALAN WINSTANLEY: I’d already done quite a lot of stuff with Stiff, so they knew me. It was fortuitous. LANGER: “My Girl” jumped out when I first heard them rehearsing. I made a demo with Mike doing the lead vocal. I remember [Warners exec] Rob Dickens suggesting that the lead singer should sing it rather than the keyboard player! When it came to the LP, that’s what we did. WINSTANLEY: We rehearsed quite intensely with them. The LP took two weeks to record and a week to mix. It was pretty straightforward. As long as Woody was playing the same beat, he was good. If you asked him to change during a song, there might be a problem. LANGER: The road crew were their mates, so there’d be a bit of mayhem in the studio, which we managed to work through. Alan’s a big guy! The album is a photograph of where they were at that time. Crucially, like a lot of bands making their first album, they had enough good songs.