NORTH BETHESDA, Md. — We’ve all jammed out to the pop-reggae styles of UB40 at some point over the past 35 years. This Friday, bandmates Ali Campbell, Astro and Mickey Virtue reunite at Strathmore in North Bethesda, Maryland.
“We’re coming to party and we just want the U.S. to party with us,” Astro told WTOP. “We’ll definitely be playing your ‘Red Red Wine,’ ‘Can’t Help Falling’ … plus we do have a current album out called ‘Silhouettes,’ so we will be playing a few tracks from that as well — just to keep people up to date with what we’re up to. Then, personal favorites of the band, so there should be something for everybody.”
UB40 has always been a band of the people. Founded amid the welfare lines of 1979 Birmingham, England, the group named itself after Britain’s Unemployment Benefit Form 40 — hence “UB40.”
“Back in the day in England, if you were unemployed and you needed to collect money from the state, you had to have a registration card — and that registration card was form UB40,” Astro said. “At the time, there were 3 million people in England with a UB40 card, so … we already had a 3 million card-carrying fan base. Also, if you were unemployed and you had a UB40 card and you brought it to the box office where we were playing, you’d get a 50 percent discount. … We became Robin Hoods.”
This blue-collar street cred was boosted by the band’s diverse multiracial lineup of English, Irish, Scottish, Yemeni and Jamaican bandmates. What’s more, the band purchased its first instruments with compensation money Campbell got after a bar fight, as bandmates taught themselves to play.
“We spent the whole summer of 1979 just learning to cut our favorite records,” Astro said. “We then started to write our own records. In 1980, we started touring around Britain. I think we’d only played about 15 shows in our hometown when we ventured down to the capital and played about three or four shows in London. On Thursday night at the Hope & Anchor, Chrissie Hynde was in the audience.”
Hynde, of course, was the lead vocalist of The Pretenders — about to give UB40 its big break.
“She came backstage after watching us perform and asked us if we wanted to go on [tour],” Astro said. “Her tour dates consisted of twice our playing career [up until then], so we agreed to go on tour with her. We released our first single while we were on tour with Chrissie, and by the time Chrissie’s tour had finished, our single had reached No. 4 in the charts and the rest is history, as they say.”
That single was the double-sided “King / Food For Thought” (1980), which reached No. 4 in the U.K., No. 10 in Ireland and No. 1 in New Zealand. The “King” side discussed the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., while “Food for Thought” criticized a perceived hypocrisy of giving presents at Christmas.
But it was in 1983 that the band really blew up with the album “Labour of Love,” reaching No. 1 on the U.K. albums charts. The album featured reggae covers of 1960s pop hits, including Neil Diamond’s “Red Red Wine,” which topped the charts in the U.S., U.K., Ireland, Netherlands and New Zealand.
“When we first heard it, we knew it by a guy called Tony Tribe. We had no idea that Neil Diamond had anything to do with it whatsoever,” Astro said. “So you could have knocked us over with a feather when we found out Neil Diamond had written it. It was just one of those songs … we used to play at the school discothèques … and so it’s just one of those memories that just stayed with us.”
Astro says the band firmly believed reggae would catch on.
“Because reggae was one of the newest forms of music out there, we just believed that if the general public was to get a taste of reggae music, then they would fall in love with these songs just the same way as we did,” Astro said. “We were proved right by the success of tracks like ‘Red Red Wine.'”
Now that UB40 was a household name, the band repaid the favor to Chrissie Hynde by featuring her on a 1985 cover of Sonny & Cher’s “I Got You Babe.” Once again, the song topped the U.K. charts.
“Whenever we’re going to cover something, it’s gotta be a brilliant track in the first place,” Astro said of the band’s hit covers. “If you don’t remember it, then it’s not worth doing. It’s as simple as that.”
UB40 followed up with another cover album, “Labour of Love II” (1989), which went three-times platinum with fresh takes on The Temptations’ “The Way You Do the Things You Do” and Al Green’s “Here I Am (Come and Take Me).” But it was the following album, “Promises and Lies” (1993), that went No. 1 on the U.K. albums chart thanks to a cover of Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”
“We appreciate his contribution to music, but we were never big Elvis fans,” Astro said. “We were asked if we could do music for [the film ‘Honeymoon in Vegas’]. All the soundtrack was Elvis songs, they asked us to pick one, so we chose ‘Can’t Help Falling,’ found out that Bono from U2 had also done it, so the film company decided to go with Bono’s version. … Our version was just sitting on the shelf.”
The following year, another film would arrive, allowing UB40’s version to be heard.
“About 18 months later, that Sharon Stone film ‘Slither’ came out, and they asked if they could use it for that,” Astro said. “We said, ‘Well, it’s just sitting there collecting dust, you might as well.’ So they released it, and I think ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’ was bigger than the film, bigger than ‘Slither.'”
The band remained relatively intact until 2008 when various members began exiting, sparking legal battles between two UB40 groups. One includes guitarist Robin Campbell, bassist Earl Falconer, drummer Jimmy Brown, percussionist Norman Hassan, saxophonist Brian Travers and vocalist Duncan Campbell. The other includes Astro, Ali Campbell and Mickey Virtue, playing at Strathmore.
“They’re just so dedicated to the music,” Astro said of Campbell and Virtue. “It’s not a fad; it’s not ‘let’s just try this so we can earn some money,’ we actually do live and breath and eat and sleep reggae music. Ali to me is one of the finest vocalists I’ve ever heard, and Mickey’s just consistent — whether he’s consistently late or [just kidding]. We’re just old friends and we just know each other so well.”
Conversely, what would they say about Astro?
“Probably just call me jack-of-all-trades, master of none,” Astro joked.
All joking aside, the group has plenty for which to be thankful.
“We’ve been in the position where we’ve recorded with all of our heroes,” Astro said. “So when people go, ‘Is there anybody you’d like to record with?’ Actually, everybody we’re connected with in this genre of music, we’ve played with — apart from Bob Marley, who unfortunately passed away before we had the opportunity. Other than that, everybody’s who’s anybody in reggae music, we’ve worked with. Today there’s a new bunch of up-and-coming reggae artists.”
Among Astro’s favorites are Raging Fire, Nature, Perfect, Chronixx, Jesse Royal and Tarrus Riley.
“All these guys are just smashing up the charts at the moment,” Astro said. “So if you get the opportunity to hear any of their music, I think you’ll fall in love with them like I fell in love with them.”
When it comes to falling in love with reggae, we can’t help it. Or so a wise man once said.
Click here for more information. Listen to the full interview with UB40’s Astro below:
