UB40 at 45: Birmingham roots, political expression, and the key to longevity

In 1978, as Great Britain struggled through the infamous winter of discontent, eight friends from Birmingham got together and formed a band, UB40.

The eight men - four Black, four White - from the Balsall Heath area were a perfect encapsulation of the multicultural mix in England’s second city. They were influenced by Birmingham’s melting pot of cultures and set up as a “jazz-dub-reggae” band.

But beyond the demographics, they also represented the economic struggles of the time. Before the band’s formation all eight were scraping by in gruelling factory jobs, or relying on less than £8 a week in unemployment benefits.

In fact the group’s name was taken from the Unemployment Benefit form 40, an attendance card issued to benefits claimants. As young men they frequented protests and anti-apartheid marches, and attended the ‘Rock Against Racism’ gigs that they would go on the headline.

From those humble roots the band bloomed into the world’s highest-selling reggae band, spawning more than 50 singles in the UK charts and selling over 100 million records. Most impressively, throughout their rise to the top they have never hid the political convictions that helped to draw them together in the first place.

After 45 years the band is still going strong and is back on tour this summer. We spoke to Robin Campbell, founding member, singer and lyricist, and Matt Doyle, vocalist, about the band’s origins, political leanings and the importance of speaking out...

Good afternoon guys! Your upcoming tour takes you to Spain next month, what are you looking forward to this time?

Robin Campbell: “It’s always good. Spanish audiences are great, they love reggae. They love the reggaeton too, but they love reggae.

We’ve always had great gigs in Spain, the reaction is always good. We like an audience that parties and you know Spanish audiences like to party, they like to sing and dance. It’s fiesta time!”

After 45 years of making music how do you decide on the set list for the night – is it what the band wants to play or what the audience will be receptive to?

RC: “It’s a kind of mixture of both, you know. We always play what we think the audience wants to hear, the classic hits that they expect.

We like to put in a few surprise hits that they might not have expected, but we always play the ones that we know that they’ve come to hear like ‘Red, Red Wine’.

We try to mix it up and keep as many people in the audience happy as possible. But it doesn’t matter what you do, someone always comes up after the show and goes ‘You didn’t play my favourite,’ but we’d be on stage for two days if we played them all!”

Going back to the start, the roots of the band are very much in Birmingham. How important is the city to the success of UB40?

RC: “Well, we are a product of Birmingham. We’re a product of where we grew up. We all came from Balsall Heath, it’s like the first suburb outside of the city centre and it had a high Jamaican population.

We grew up on Jamaican music, right from the off. We couldn’t exist as a band making the music we make without growing up where we did. We are a product of our surroundings. And, of course, the racial mix within the original band was four black guys and four white guys.

That was a perfect reflection of where we came from. If you grabbed eight kids off the street where we came from in the 1970s, they’d be just like we were.”

The band was a product of the demographics of the area, but also of the politics of the time. How did that influence the music that you made together?

RC: “We were a gang of mates before we were a band, and we were politically active, we went to demonstrations. We went on to play at ‘Rock Against Racism’ gigs, but before we were playing as a band, we were going there as mates.

We were always active. We were always anti-apartheid. We used to go down to London and demonstrate outside of South Africa House. We were that we were that kind of kids.

So when we starting making our own material we wanted to reflect the things we were thinking about, talking about, and angry about.”

The music industry landscape has shifted a lot in the in the following decades. Do you think there is still a political leaning in popular music in the same way?

RC: “I think it’s probably coming back a lot stronger. It kind of disappeared, but I think everything’s cyclical. Politics is cyclical, and the dreadful situations that people find themselves in are cyclical. The way things are now with food banks, unemployment… I think things are just as bad now, or maybe even worse, than they were in the 1970s. So I think there’s a consciousness again.

I think young people are starting to become politicised again. Like they used to be when I was a kid. I think that stopped for a few decades, or diminished at least, but I think it’s coming back. Because that’s what happens when things get bad, people start to wake up.

Things have to get really bad before people start getting upset. Otherwise, people just put up with things. I think people start to get politicised and when things are really bad it’s usually when you’re under the most right wing governments there are.”

UB40 used music as a tool of communication, has social media changed the way that younger generations express themselves?

Matt Doyle: “I’d say there’s many good things and many bad things about social media. In the past the anger would be saved up, with ideas in your head like ‘why is this happening?’ An artist would take those thoughts, read about what’s going on, and they’d create something that other people can relate to.

But now, you can just go straight on your phone, put it on social media: ‘I hate what’s happening in this country because of this’.

And then it’s gone. It’s happening instead of people writing about these things, getting together and talking about these things. People used to get together in big halls and discuss problems and come up with solutions. But now we just make a quick post on social media. We’ve got our anger out and we’re on with the rest of our day. It might not necessarily make it into the music, which I think is quite sad.

I think a lot of people need to start using that anger and putting it into their art a bit more.”

Are artists still choosing to express themselves through the music?

MD: “I think there’s plenty still doing it, but people maybe just aren’t listening as much. Now sometimes you see people saying that they don’t want to hear about politics in music, but music has always been political.

Like Robin said, it kind of went away for a few decades but it’s you can hear it coming back, even through pop songs that you hear on the radio. You hear hints of it, definitely, but it’s a little bit more reserved.”

The England football team has been praised for being quite vocal on important issues. Can sport help to spread messages of equality?

RC: “I think it’s marvellous how certain players have got the courage to voice their opinions. But the hell they get for it on social media is incredible. You get the ‘brave’ keyboard warriors that scream racist abuse at them, or homophobic abuse or whatever it is they want to scream about.

I find the whole thing a bit sad but I think it’s wonderful that some of them want to stand up and be counted. People like Marcus Rashford, you know. What a man, what a man.

One final question. You’re celebrating 45 years of UB40 with this tour; what is the key to your longevity?

RC: “I don’t have any idea what the key is. If we had a formula, we’d bottle it and sell it!

I think the secret is to do what you love. It’s not to try and second guess your audience or even to tailor what you’re doing for them. Whenever we tried to do that we’ve made bad records. I think what you must do is what you love. And if you do what you love, and you’re a good band, they’ll come along with you.

That’s been the case every time. Every time we’ve just done what we want to do, that’s when the fans have loved what we’re doing. All you can do is make music for yourself, make music that you love and not what you think others will love. I think that’s how you get longevity.”