He was present at rehearsals when the full line up reunited in 2008 but soon dropped out, apparently because the group were unwilling to play his new songs.
The one absence that still rankles with some fans is that of keyboard player Jerry Dammers, who formed the band and wrote most of their original songs. “It’s not as if we have to drag anybody out of bed to be here. “The people here are all facing the same way,” says Panter, tellingly. The Specials have reunited in various line-ups and formats over the decades but with the departure of toaster Neville Staple in 2012 and lead guitarist Roddy Radiation in 2014, and the death of drummer John Bradbury in 2015, it has boiled down to just three men standing. Well, give me a reason to smile and I will. So why should I walk on stage and suddenly turn into Marti Pellow?” His bandmates guffaw at Hall’s dig at the perpetually grinning ex-frontman for Wet Wet Wet. And I don't walk around the house smiling, ever. “I've never looked at it as a job or a career. In my review of The Specials chart topping 2019 comeback album, Encore, I noted that “Hall’s spirit of glum idealism may make him the most quintessentially British protest singer ever.” It is not an act, according to Hall, who was only 18 when he joined The Specials.
The 70-year-old Golding is rambling and loquacious, Horace (67) offers up thoughtful analysis, while Hall (62) chips in, slipping almost imperceptibly between grave seriousness and deadpan humour. Only Hall, Golding and Panter remain from the original line up, and the rapport between them is relaxed and humorous. The Specials are in a rehearsal studio in south London, preparing for a forthcoming tour. “We knew it was going to be our swan song because the band was crumbling.” “People in every major city in England think Ghost Town was written about them,” notes Panter. It is still revered as perhaps the greatest protest song in British pop history, a sinister skank through inner city decay that presciently topped the charts just as riots were breaking out in London and Liverpool. They broke up at the Top of the Pops studios in June 1981, immediately after performing their number one smash Ghost Town. “By the second album, we were falling apart. “For the first album, we were all drunk, and we had a lot of fun,” says Golding. Unfortunately, the band were possibly enjoying themselves too much, and a combination of drink and drugs with an intense work schedule made relationships fractious. “The exuberance of youth and an excess of Watney’s Red Barrel. “It was more to do with football and an enormous amount of alcohol than racism, to be honest,” insists Panter. Their gigs could be literally riotous, with stage invasions and fights breaking out. Formed in Coventry, they released two top 5 albums and scored 7 top 10 singles between 19.
The Specials had an explosive early career as lynchpins of the post-punk ska movement known as 2-Tone for its black and white colour scheme and inclusive ideology. “But we were playing skinhead reggae, so we knew that was going to be our audience and we did target them. “We came out of punk rock, the music of disaffected youth,” notes bassist Horace Panter. “From day one, we were a multiracial line-up and that was a statement,” he says. The Specials have always been a protest band according to guitarist and vocalist Lynval Golding. There’s always something to protest about.” “It can echo a feeling, it gives you something to think about, but real change is hard. “There were protest songs before we were born that sound as relevant today as they did at the time,” says Hall, citing 1920s gospel anthem Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Us Around and Big Bill Broonzy’s anti-racist blues Black, White & Brown. Their famously dour frontman, however, remains pessimistic about the power of song to affect real political change. The band put their unique stamp on activist anthems and songs of grievance by The Staples Singers, Bob Marley, Leonard Cohen, Frank Zappa and Talking Heads, spanning a succession of unpopular wars and righteous causes. The Specials are about to release a new album, Protest Songs 1924-2012, featuring the 2-Tone champions’ typically heartfelt take on protest music from the past 100 years. “All you can do is put your point across, really.” “I don’t believe music can change anything,” says Terry Hall.
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