Sure, bands like No Doubt, Smash Mouth, Reel Big Fish do a fine job giving ska
a fresh '90s spin. But take it from Neville Staples, there's more to ska than
thrifting for two-tone suits and porkpie hats.
"These American bands have their own style, right?" asked Staples, vocalist for
the recently re-formed kings of second generation ska, the Specials. "Just like
we put our own English style on the ska in the '70s, which was the rock, the
punk. Americans are not taking from the original blue beat, but from us and then
putting their own tune on it. I think it's brilliant."
Staples, along with original bassist Horace Panter and guitarist Lynval Golding,
have reformed the Coventry, England band (except songwriter Jerry Dammers
and singer Terry Hall, who refused to participate), to record another album, due
in early '98 on Way Cool Records. "It took a bit of time, right?" said Staples, the
Santa Cruz, Calif.-based vocalist who said he was glad to be back with his
mates after a decade-plus apart. "It's like finding me feet again and it surprised
me."
The original band released a classic self-titled album in 1979 and went on to
record such hallmark second-wave ska tunes as "Racist Friend" and "Free
Nelson Mandela," mixing not just punk and ska, but music and a message in
bold and unprecedented ways.
Following one of their biggest hits, 1981's "Ghost Town," the band fell apart with
Hall, Staples and Golding going on to form Fun Boy Three. Dammers reformed
the band later that year under the band's original name, Special AKA.
Panter, 44, who has most recently been playing with a mix of the Specials and
their contemporaries in the English Beat in an amalgam called Special Beat, said that band's recent touring was the seed for the reunion.
"I knew ska was starting to take off again in America when we would play the
Beat's 'Save it For Later' at shows and these young kids would just go
bananas," said Panter, who toured for several years with the band before
settling into the job his parents always wanted him to pursue, elementary school
teacher.
"Some of us got together for a Desmond Dekker tribute in 1993," Panter said.
"Then some shows in Japan were offered, and I felt a bit peculiar about doing it
without Terry and Jerry, but we worked up 15-16 songs we knew well and
figured if we were to make fools of ourselves, better to do it half-way around the
world than in our own back yard. We went on and tore the place up."
The band also gained the confidence to record a still-untitled new album, due in
February. The album, now being recorded in the U.S., will be the band's first
ever with all original tunes. Among those scheduled for inclusion are new
compositions such as "Call Me Names," "Fearful," "Bone Digging," "All Gone
Wrong," "Man With No Name" and "It's You."
As a tip of the hat to their idols, Lars Fredricksen and Tim Armstrong of Rancid
invited several of the Specials to guest on their new album, scheduled for a
March release. They then returned the favor by doing a bit of "toasting," rap/
singing, on a still untitled track on the Specials album. Members of No Doubt
and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones have also been tapped for contributions.
"We're not living in the past, right," Staples said. "We're mixing everything we do
with the now generation. If you put this new album on, it will sound like the
Specials, but up-to-date because we're doing the same thing we've always
done. If something's fucked-up with the government, we write about it. If my life
is fucked-up, I write about it."
Color="#720418">[Mon., Oct. 27, 1997, 9 a.m. PDT]
