Skaville UK

Nick at The Rainbow for The Ramones far right (below)

What you mean the size I am today!! Well me, Doug, Alan, Louis, Dave, Paul & Brian all went to school together at Woodberry Down comp in North London.  Me & Doug went to scouts together and  Louis, Paul and me used to go up the Arsenal together (when I was not at West Brom!) as well as our own band Love Squad, we did a few gigs and recorded a lot of tracks one called "Stampede" springs to mind which was later recorded by Busters All Stars. The early pub rock Manners were one of the best and funniest bands you could ever see. When the band started playing ska I thought it was a bad move! but I was wrong and it was great to see my mates doing so well, a very underated live band. I played my first gig in 1986. I played bass and keyboards but the band were only doing about a gig a month so Doug and I formed Busters All Stars. The idea was to play around the London pub scene doing 'skinhead' classics like "Skinhead Girl" and  "Big 5" but you know me, we soon started writing our own songs the first two being "Skinhead Love Affair" and  "Return Of The Ugly" which we demoed at Roger Lomas's studio in Coventry, but soon it got a bit pointless having two bands so Doug pulled the two together and off we went. The last Busters All Stars gig I remember was in front of 2,500 people in Los Angeles with No Doubt supporting. I remember going off to a studio in Norwich and recording tracks for an album called "Eat The Beat" which correct me if I'm wrong became "Return Of The Ugly". It was about this time Doug started his Bluebeat label from a boat in his garden (I recorded my King Hammond "Revolution 70" album for the label) it was a great time it felt like everything was going in the right direction. It was about this time I played what I still consider to be the best gig I have been involved in. It was at the Greek ampitheartre in San Francisco supporting The English Beat. We were brilliant and I have to say on that day Doug was the best performer I have ever been onstage with but then things started to sour for me. The follow up album Doug and I had been talking about a double anything goes white album affair turned into a covers album and I just was not into it. I think Doug was trying to juggle a band, a label and in hindsight maybe it was too much. It was around this time The Selecter came calling. One of the fun things about those days with Manners was the band were really popular on the Uni may ball gig circuit. One week we played about 6 gigs and every one was with the sweet Showaddwaddy and Boney M. I remember once we were playing a gig for nurses and there was a bomb scare so they evacuated the venue and I was standing in a circle in a dark field with glammed up members of the Glitter Band and Mud, it was surreal! Later on we did a Uni gig in Oxford with Big 5 and right down the front was Stephen Hawking!

　Below- Nick with Buster Bloodvessel during his tenure with Bad Manners

 A. Why not! I first played on stage with Pauline and Neol Davies while I was in Bad Manners. They came on at a few shows and played 'the hits'. I really enjoyed myself. Pauline's a great singer and Neol ditto on guitar. Martin Stewart asked me if I would be into doing a tour of the states as The Selecter and I said yeah I would love to. This caused a bit of fuss between Doug and Martin which ended up with Martin leaving the band. We did a short tour of the UK and then went to the USA, where we went down a storm. When I got back from the tour I asked Doug about the idea of staying in Manners but if a gig came up with The Selecter I could do that as well. This didn't seem too a popular idea so thats how I ended up being a full time member of The Selecter.
It was great. At first the gigs were good but I wanted to write songs but there was only room for one songwriter in the band so thats when I formed the band Big 5 with Jennie Bellestar. At this point The Selecter had only released a new version of "On My Radio" and  a live album "Out On The Streets". so there was not too much new stuff going on. It was around this time Neol left the band and so I began a writing partnership with Pauline.
The first record we did was "The Happy Album" which is my favourite of the albums we did. Its dark in places and I like that. My fave track from that has got to be "Neurotica!". We also did a version of "Madness" with Prince Buster around this time which was released as a single in the USA. I think I produced about 4 albums in my time with the band as well as 2 with our offshoot Selecter Acoustic. I felt on these albums Pauline and my writing was getting better all the time. We were also playing in an acoustic group called "3 Men and Black" alongside Jake Burns,  J.J. Burnel and  Bruce Foxton, which was good to show we could hold our own in such company. By about 2005 I was getting a bit stuck in a rut musically and so I decided it was time to form my own band, playing my songs.  It was hard thing to give up playing in The Selecter but you have to move on. Since my last gig in 2006 I have released 2 albums (1973 & Decadent!)with Skaville UK, a solo acoustic CD (The Soho Sessions) and produced a CD for Rhoda Dakar (Cleaning in another womans kitchen). I am just finishing a joint CD with Rhoda (Back to the garage) and we are starting work on the third Skaville album so thats four albums released in two years with another two to come .Oh, did i forget the Skaville acoustic album!!! But going back to my time with the Selecter, I had a great time. I think we did The Selecter name justice with some good new tracks and some great live performances. I have some great memories of the band as well . The Skavoovie tour with Special Beat and The Skatalites was great!  we were promoting the Happy Album, we had maybe 6 new songs in the set and I thought the band was really saying something. The tour we did with USA 97 was a bit special. The first date we did was on our own in a converted laundry in Cinncinatti, they still had the machines in there! then we went on the the Arena circuit with No Doubt and ended playing in New York with The Wailers, a little bit of everything. The crowd size for the No Doubt gigs were about 25,000 a night, we did maybe 40 minutes and their trombone player Gabriel used to come on and play "Celebrate The Bullet" and  "The Selecter" with us. Some nights I remember songs like "My Perfect World" and "Hairspray" going down well with their crowd.The Cruel Brittania tour with Dave Barker as our guest was something else! He has a voice that sent shivers down the spine and playing songs like "Double Barrel" and "Monkey Spanner" took me back to my brutus days.

A-  I did my first King Hammond recording in 1987 at the time there were not too many ska bands around. Potato 5 and  the Deltones spring to mind but none of them were doing what we know as 'Skinhead Reggae' although the first 2 tracks I recorded "Skaville UK" and  "King Hammond Shuffle" didnt fall into that genre. The next one "Right On King Hammond" (recorded at Chrysalis studios) was a little more trojanesque!. Around the same time Doug started Bluebeat Records up, I started to record what was to be the album 'Revolution 70' in a council flat in South London when we finished the tracks we put out a rumour that I had found some old master tapes in Dalston market by an artist called King Hammond. There were a hell of a lot of takers! I remember one time I was in Dingwalls in Camden with a skinhead telling me he had the original records!hahaha! Although years later I did do a tour of Europe as the King with Laurel Aitken and Dave Barker, I dont think I will be dusting down the throne!...Mind you it is the 20th anniversary of Revolution 70!

A. Big 5 were a great band should have gone on longer. I started the band with Jennie because,as I've said earlier, there was only one songwriter in The Selecter and it wasnt me! When we first started we had a kind of soul ska feel which changed in to a punk ska feel. The album "In Yer Face" is one of my favourite records I've done. Jennies a great singer and lyricist. We gave a great live show. There is an american CD called "Live Jive" which captures the show it also has one of the worst covers of all time! it was great playing with John Bradbury from The Specials, what an exciting drummer. We just kind of fizzled out in the end, I dont know why but Jennie still comes along and sings with Skaville and we do Big 5 tracks like "Pussy Whipped" and  "Shame" and they still sound good to me. Hopefully "In Yer Face" might get a re- release and we could put some good bonus stuff on it.

A. Once again Roger Lomas was the man who got it together. He rang me and said did I fancy making a record with Lee 'Scratch' Perry? Next thing I knew me andAal Fletcher were in Coventry in the studio. The first thing we did was listen to 3 hip hop style tracks Scratch had wanted to record. After we did that I just started to play loads of my bass lines and everyone just joined in! I have to say Roger did a great job pulling all the tracks together. I remember wearing my West Brom shirt for most of the time and at night me and Al went off to do some Big 5 gigs. Next thing I know it wins a Grammy for the best reggae album of 2002!! So i now have a certificate above my band as a momento, next to my flower growing & swimming certificates!. I also did a live DVD with Scratch, "The Ultimate Alien" which was fun a couple of days by the seaside. It was the first time in years that Scratch did any of his early ska cuts so that was good and it was also the second time in my life I have been on stage with a singer wearing a superman outfit! The first being the late great Judge Dread.....

A. Brilliant! I produced his last CD "Dread, White and  Blue". On the first day of recording I put naughty seaside postcards around the studio for the vibe! When we finished the first track, "The ballad Of Judge Dread", Alex turned to me and said 'thats the first song I have ever written with someone else besides my manager Ted Lemon..." That was a choker. I could remember buying his singles as a kid and seeing the names Hughes/Lemon next to Big 6, 7,and 8 so that was a big one. He used to sit in the studio and tell me story after story. None are repeatable here! One day he brought in a 10 by 8 black & white photograph of him with the young Michael Jackson sitting on his knee! I asked him for a copy but he said I was a bad bastard and would sell it to The Sun! I did a few gigs as a Dreadnaught and that was always a laugh! A little bit different from The Selecter!

A. The Soho Sessions was a strange one. I was rehearsing to do some acoustic shows and going through the songbook looking for ideas for songs to do etc and I went down to a friends studio in Soho and recorded a few of the contenders. When I played some of it to people they all thought it was for a CD so I started to look at it that way. It was nice and relaxed, most of them were first takes done live (I later added a bit of bass here and there for flavour) but basically it was just me playing live. I normally dont revisit songs I have written or co- written again but as most of them were sung by someone else originally I wanted to put my interpretation on them "Memory Train" was a song I was never that happy with the finished version and "Non Shrewd" ,although a light hearted song about my childhood was a little too 'comedy' for my liking when Busters All Stars recorded it. My personal faves on "Soho Sessions" are "Thank God I'm Not Like You" and "Symphony Of Love". I love playing acoustically live and on record which is why I will be doing both with Skaville UK later on in the year as well as recording another solo album but this time most of the tracks will be original, although I have just recorded my versions of The Selecter's "My Perfect World" and the Big 5 song "Sweet and Funky".........

A. At the end of the last century I was the MD for a thing called "Ska Diva", which was Pauline Black,  Jennie B. and  Rhoda. I said it should be called "Ska Beaver"! but they did not like it. but I did not give a damn geddit?! Anyway that was just for a few shows then Rhoda came to play with The Selecter and Pauline suggested I write some songs with her so we did and the result was "Cleaning in another womans kitchen" which is my title because inbetween takes rhoda used to like cleaning the studio kitchen! We kept on writing,and when Rhoda came to Welsh Towers for tea and cake, the subject came up one day about the 30th anniversary of Two Tone and how some people had been asking about a possible Bodysnatchers reunion. She said I would rather make a real rock n roll album which is right up my street. Oh by the way, the first time we really met was backstage at a Sex Pistols party. We also found out we used to go to the same punk gigs back in the day so we started thrashing them out and the result is "Back to the garage" and I love it. There is a different side to Rhoda on it and I get to play all the instruments on it except the drums which are played by Skaville's Al Fletcher.............

A. Well the working title is "3" because there is about three good songs on it! No obviously, its our third album in three years. It's going to be a little different from the previous 2 for instance on the tracks "One More Drink" and  "Same Old/Same Old", we have a brass section. On "Daddys Gun" there is a pedal steel player.We have got the 11 tracks for the album but there is a late contender I have just written called "Council Estate Pussy which is a punk dub opera! I'm really happy with the way its going. I think it will be our best album so far....

(Please note- the above is not actual album artwork)

A. Let me think... What about that I sang two Madness songs on a Jive Bunny project called "The Sound of Ska!!!" Roger Lomas invited me to be on the project to play the bass. We were in Birmingham recording and me and Martin Stewart were dragging the recording out in a stupid attempt to get more money- you know the kind of thing pretending we could not remember how to play "Lip Up Fatty"! I remember Roger looking over and gave us both a funny look and said "look you will get the same money if you do it in an hour or three days!" so we chose the hour!. I was told Suggs had agreed to sing a couple of songs but then Roger said to me we cant get him I dont suppose?... so tonight Matthew I was a dodgy Suggs! They seemed happy! I thought it sounded well..Not the best!Alo the recording caused a once in a lifetime row with my pal Louis who thought I was doing myself a disservice for doing the session and looking back I think he was probably right!...............

Bad Manners  - "Skaville UK"

The Selecter- "Neurotica!"

Skaville UK- "Don't Let It Go To Your Head"

Acoustic work? I like Three Men and Black's version of Jake Burns' brilliant "Wasted Life"

The perfect gig for me is a meeting between artist and audience. I think you know that any show I do is 'off the cuff', no setlist and nothing I say is planned!Ii like to talk to the crowd and when I play acoustic shows take requests! Skaville have taken the route of playing live a lot of new songs and its very rewarding when people call out for tracks off the albums. I find it strange when people sometimes call out for "On My Radio"! and come up to me afterwards and say 'I saw you in The Selecter why cant you play it now?!' I usually say I can't get to the high bit like Pauline! so for me the perfect gig is a good sized crowd who are open minded to new material and a promoter who at the end of the show says 'Can i have a word with you lads...!

A. Good question. I don't really know if there is a scene. There are some good young bands around, in fact I was just listening to a whole bunch of Do The Dog label CD's they sent me and some of them are really good but I don't know what size of audience these albums are reaching. Of course there are the bands of 'vintage' but there are not too many releases by them. People are excited by The Specials tour and thats good, it gets press for ska etc although I would love it if all of them were on board. I went to see Jerry Dammers the other night at The Barbican in London and I was blown away it. It was so exciting. The version they did of "Ghost Town" was stunning and I've got to say I love some of the tracks on Madness's "The Liberty Of Norton Folgate", the title track is a work of art. Lets hope after this tour The Specials get into the studio and show us what they can do what im trying to do with Skaville UK which is give the people some new stuff to listen to and hopefully they will like it..................

Unique eh?  I don't know how to take that! Well it's always melody first kids, although some times a title will spark a melody, lyrics written the day before recording! mind you I think I'm getting better............

God- good question! I can't really think of one in particular but my wife tells me of one incident that made her proud. I was at a Trojan CD launch with my wife, J.J. Burnel and Pauline Black. It was a very packed room and  Prince Buster walked in to the room and there was a gasp, a sort of 'its Prince Buster!' kind of thing. Everybody was trying to get a word with him but he walked straight past everyone and came and hugged me and we talked for a long while! Its great when one of your heros becomes one of your friends. Oh and when I was in The Selecter, we once played a gig in San Diego with The Monkees and The Village People!

My hero musically is Marc Bolan. As soon as I heard "Ride A White Swan" I was hooked. A very under rated guitarist- I used to bunk off school to hand outside his offices in New Bond Street. He was always friendly and interested in his fans which is something I have took on board. He was always himself even when his music took a soul side or whatever, it still sounded like him unlike Bowie who I also love when he did his Young American thing. It sounded like real soul mind you, he had Luther Vandross on that record! You can hear bits of Bolan on a lot of my songs "Bad Man" from "The Soho Sessions", but even way back when I wrote "Return Of The Ugly", I had the T.Rex song "Truck on Tyke" in mind. Inspiration? Well it has to be Marc Bolan again sorry to be boring!! oh ok, what about Ray Dorset from Mungo Jerry......

All I want for the future is to reach the biggest audience iI can with my music and that I continue to make records that please me and to write a song that lasts forever! Thank you for having me!