“NO QUARRELLING, NO SMOKING, NO DRUGS”
Lynval Golding looks back in wonder
“ILIVE in Seattle but I’ve led a pretty transatlantic life over the past decade, particularly this past year. I spend a lot of time in in 2018 and 2019 in England. I’ve got a daughter in Woolwich – along with my six-year-old grandson. I’ve also got a sister in Colliers Wood and another sister in Coventry. I sometimes stay with my co-writer – a wonderful kid from Coventry called Mark Adams, who played in the band for a while. I’m even godfather to his daughter, Page.
“I left music for a while. I took some time off to bring up my son, Dominic. He’s now 22. Funnily enough, it was Dave Wakeling from The Beat who got me back on stage. He lives in LA and runs a version of The Beat, and I toured with him for a while. I got the bug again. I played with a few other bands and then the Specials reunion came up in 2008.
“We’ve been on a journey since then. When John Bradbury died in December 2015 it was devastating for us all. We’d just seen a football match – Chelsea at Manchester United – and I’d played him a Sly & Robbie track called ‘Queen Of The Minstrels’ as an idea for a song I thought we should play. Then the next day we got a call telling us that Brad had gone. That threw me completely. I went into a deep depression. It’s taken us a while to get back.
“I’m not a religious person, but I think the spirit of Brad was with us throughout this album. It was one of the easiest records we’ve ever made. No quarrelling, no smoking, no drugs, we were all completely clean. Terry has been absolutely amazing and inspiring since Brad’s death. People don’t recognise him as the great writer he is.
“We all love Jerry to bits. He’s a genius, a great songwriter and a great arranger. But, as a bandleader, he had no people skills. It was always ‘my way or the highway’ with Jerry. I don’t see Neville so much since he left the band. But I did see Roddy Byers and his band at the Dublin Castle this year. He sounded a bit nervous on stage, and said it was because Lynval Golding was in the crowd! Then he got me onstage and I guested on a few songs. I told the audience how I saw Roddy many years ago in San Francisco, emptying his pockets to give money to homeless people, and then do the same thing in Australia. That’s the kind of guy he is. The gig was great in the end!
“In some ways, Britain is in a much better place than it was in the late 1970s. The country is much more racially integrated than it was. But the country is still divided. A lot of racism gets thrown towards people from the former Eastern Bloc. And it doesn’t matter what colour your skin is, racism is racism. Thirty years after the borders in Eastern Europe were torn down, we’re putting them back up. It’s a tragedy, because a united Europe is such a beautiful thing, and something that has kept the peace.”