One of the greatest pop bands of the 1980s will be playing at the Hard Rock Cafe Dubai, tonight. Level 42 will be very familiar to those who remember the era of hardcore pop which saw the rise of the likes of Madonna and Wham, it was also a period when Level 42 made funk and jazz music fashionable.
Karim Bassatne talks to Mark King of Level 42 which will be playing in Dubai tonight
One of the greatest pop bands of the 1980s will be playing at the Hard Rock Café, Dubai, tonight. Level 42 will be very familiar to those who remember the era of hardcore pop which saw the rise of the likes of Madonna and Wham, it was also a period when Level 42 made funk and jazz music fashionable.
In their heydays, Level 42 sold well over 30 million albums worldwide with Lessons in Love proving a big hit. This song made it to the number one position in the charts in 17 countries. In lead vocalist’s Mark King’s words, “It was an incredible time, the song would top one chart in one country and the moment it fell we would hear it had topped the charts in another… it just went on and on.”
Here, King talks to Gulf News in an exclusive interview:
Karim Bassatne: Is this your first trip to the Middle East?
Mark King: This is not our first trip to the Middle East but it is our first trip to Dubai and I can tell you all that the guys are really looking forward to it.
What brought you into the music industry?
When Level 42 got together in 1980 – now it sounds like a hundred years ago – we were four friends who greatly enjoyed listening to American artistes, particularly the Jazz Fusion guys who came out of the late 1960s and early 1970s, the guys who played with Miles Davies. We wanted to play like them but after four to five years together somewhere we turned a corner and moved into the pop world and that is what made Level 42 so different. We were and still are a unique blend of high technical ability coupled with good pop songs.
Your first album, titled Level 42, was described as funk-jazz. Was this the genre of music the band was solely interested in?
Yes that’s where we came in originally. The idea of singing never occurred to us. We wanted to be serious musicians and none of us had ever sung. It was extremely uncool to sing. Somebody said let’s get a singer for you but we didn’t want to bring in an outsider so we agreed to audition among ourselves. I got the gig.
Had you ever envisaged yourself as a vocalist?
Actually, I wanted to be a drummer but as it happened when I was working in a music store in London they didn’t sell drums, they only sold guitars and things like that. So, I started playing bass and in a rhythmic way. It was almost like drumming but on a bass guitar.
By your estimation, was Lessons In Love your most famous song?
It was our first song to get us to the number spot on the charts one in so many countries, so it did a lot for us in 1985.
The song, I suppose, combines most of what we are about. Something About You, the song before that, however, hit the American top 10 which is a difficult thing to do.
We spent the next two years touring the U.S. because it’s such an enormous country. Also, we had to play live which is very important to Level 42. When people see us live they get to see that we can actually play. We were never about a bunch of pretty boys on stage miming at gigs.
How many albums have you recorded so far, with the band and solo?
About 15 so far as Level 42 and a few solo. I think I have recorded probably about 19 in all. Our last album was recorded as a band in 1994. The album did okay but you have to look at the way the music industry works. I would say the high point of our career was between 1987 and 1990.
By 1994, the pendulum had swung a little bit and there was, in Britain, this thing called Brit Pop that was taking off. The goal posts had moved and we felt that Level 42 did not belong to this new type of music so we decided to stop for a while. In 2000, I felt it was time to put the band back together.
As a musician, is it difficult to tour and balance your family life?
I look at what I do as a job, a real career. I don’t take the whole family on the road with me. The children need stability and a home. They are better off at home where they can have their tea at 5o’clock, take a bath, then go to bed and off to school the next day. Children need a home and should not be uprooted.
Would you consider making another album as a band?
We will, absolutely. That is what we want to do. And our music is more relevant now than it was 10 years ago.
In your opinion, has the music industry changed over the last decade?
It has definitely changed but not for the better. It seems to have gone back 50 years to a time where some songwriters were penning songs and the musicians were hidden away in a studio and then you just have this guy who sings the song on television and wins a talent show.