Fact #160679
When:
Short story:
Don't Turn Around by Aswad reaches No1 in the UK singles chart.
Full article:
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO ASWAD?
Interviews conducted by Johnny Black, May 2002.
After Britain’s premier reggae act, Aswad hit No1 in March 1988 with Don’t Turn Around, the success never really stopped, with the band touring regularly, making No5 in 1994 with Shine and earning a Grammy Nomination in 1998. But for frontman Brinsley Forde, success had a downside.
Brinsley Forde (vocals) : The original concept of the band was mine. As opposed to trying to emulate Jamaica, we wrote about our experiences in Inner City London and, at first, people had a hard time relating to a British band doing reggae.
We’d been going for more than ten years when Don’t Turn Around got to No1 and one of the things that happened then was that a lot of people, especially younger ones, thought we were a brand new band. But one of the things that happens when you have success for a long time, I think you lose that attention to detail you had in the beginning, when you’d work for three hours to get something exactly right. With success you start to think, ‘Well, this’ll do.” or “I’ll do that tomorrow.” I felt like we were tending to start recording things that we wouldn’t have recorded earlier on. I had to ask myself if it was important for me to be a pop star or if it was important to be true to my morals and standards that I set in the beginning
At the end of the day you just know it’s time to move on. It came for me just after Shine, and I didn’t want the band to stop, so we went through all the necessary legal and contractual things, and now Tony and Drummie are continuing that work as a duo. Yes, financial security is important, and only those who have it can play it down, and I have it, so it’s an important part within life, but it’s not so important that I would prostitute myself just to keep that standard of living.
No, not really. I intended to continue making music. So just after the Big Up album, I started recording a solo album, because that’s what you do, and did some production, but I got to a point where I felt I needed to get away from it completely. I wanted to get back that feeling you have when you first start making music, that you’re doing it just because you want to do it.
So I took some time out, did a bit of acting, in the film Goodbye Charlie Pride, and I had parts offered from lots of theatres in the UK but I couldn’t do them because I had a small tour of Germany as a solo act, with Mafia and Fluxie.
Tony, Drummie and I are not as much in touch as we used to be. The last thing we did together was the Dennis Brown tribute record, he was a great friend of ours, and then I performed it at In The Park, the last Sunsplash that they had in England.
Then I decided to pick up on something I’ve wanted to do for a long time – I opened a bar in Tenerife, called Ragamuffins, about two years ago, in the lower part of Los Americas. It was really successful, and I had a lot of fun creating cocktails. We closed it just a couple of months ago. It was a great escape for me. We had live bands at the bar, so I was still involved in music. There was one day I got together with a bunch of people who played reggae and we played for hours, just for the fun of it, and that helped me get the urge back.
But then I was offered a job at the new BBC digital channel, to do my own show, Lively Up Yourself on Saturdays and Sundays, which led into the Island Rock documentary, so that’s all keeping me quite busy at the moment. It’s an eight part series for Radio 2, starting in June and running through to August. It’s not chronological, but each show has a theme, like girl singers, producers and so on.
Going to Jamaica also got me talking to a lot of people over there, and I think I’ll go over there in a few months and start work on an album. Watch this space. I could have done albums before now, but it has to be the right album, it has to be the album I really want to make.
Angus ‘Drummie’ Zeb (drums) : It didn’t come as a surprise when Brinsley left. He’d been an actor before he was a musician, so he had other things he wanted to do. There was never any question of ending the band, though. We started out with eight members before we slimmed to the three, so Aswad is bigger than any individual and we’re still really a three-piece – me, Tony and Jah.
Tony Gad (guitar) : We still live in Shepherd’s Bush, as we always did. We’ve toured and worked pretty constantly. We had our 25 Live album last year, and did a birthday gig at Subterranea in Ladbroke Grove. We haven’t settled a UK tour yet, but we are looking at US dates and we’ll bring in session players for that. As producers, we’ve just done three tracks for Janet Kaye and, as far as our own material, Drummie and myself are strong enough songwriters that we’ll be OK. We’re recording an album right now in Sanctuary Studios in West London, with the working title of Cool Summer Reggae, which should be out this summer (2002).
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Interviews conducted by Johnny Black, May 2002.
After Britain’s premier reggae act, Aswad hit No1 in March 1988 with Don’t Turn Around, the success never really stopped, with the band touring regularly, making No5 in 1994 with Shine and earning a Grammy Nomination in 1998. But for frontman Brinsley Forde, success had a downside.
Brinsley Forde (vocals) : The original concept of the band was mine. As opposed to trying to emulate Jamaica, we wrote about our experiences in Inner City London and, at first, people had a hard time relating to a British band doing reggae.
We’d been going for more than ten years when Don’t Turn Around got to No1 and one of the things that happened then was that a lot of people, especially younger ones, thought we were a brand new band. But one of the things that happens when you have success for a long time, I think you lose that attention to detail you had in the beginning, when you’d work for three hours to get something exactly right. With success you start to think, ‘Well, this’ll do.” or “I’ll do that tomorrow.” I felt like we were tending to start recording things that we wouldn’t have recorded earlier on. I had to ask myself if it was important for me to be a pop star or if it was important to be true to my morals and standards that I set in the beginning
At the end of the day you just know it’s time to move on. It came for me just after Shine, and I didn’t want the band to stop, so we went through all the necessary legal and contractual things, and now Tony and Drummie are continuing that work as a duo. Yes, financial security is important, and only those who have it can play it down, and I have it, so it’s an important part within life, but it’s not so important that I would prostitute myself just to keep that standard of living.
No, not really. I intended to continue making music. So just after the Big Up album, I started recording a solo album, because that’s what you do, and did some production, but I got to a point where I felt I needed to get away from it completely. I wanted to get back that feeling you have when you first start making music, that you’re doing it just because you want to do it.
So I took some time out, did a bit of acting, in the film Goodbye Charlie Pride, and I had parts offered from lots of theatres in the UK but I couldn’t do them because I had a small tour of Germany as a solo act, with Mafia and Fluxie.
Tony, Drummie and I are not as much in touch as we used to be. The last thing we did together was the Dennis Brown tribute record, he was a great friend of ours, and then I performed it at In The Park, the last Sunsplash that they had in England.
Then I decided to pick up on something I’ve wanted to do for a long time – I opened a bar in Tenerife, called Ragamuffins, about two years ago, in the lower part of Los Americas. It was really successful, and I had a lot of fun creating cocktails. We closed it just a couple of months ago. It was a great escape for me. We had live bands at the bar, so I was still involved in music. There was one day I got together with a bunch of people who played reggae and we played for hours, just for the fun of it, and that helped me get the urge back.
But then I was offered a job at the new BBC digital channel, to do my own show, Lively Up Yourself on Saturdays and Sundays, which led into the Island Rock documentary, so that’s all keeping me quite busy at the moment. It’s an eight part series for Radio 2, starting in June and running through to August. It’s not chronological, but each show has a theme, like girl singers, producers and so on.
Going to Jamaica also got me talking to a lot of people over there, and I think I’ll go over there in a few months and start work on an album. Watch this space. I could have done albums before now, but it has to be the right album, it has to be the album I really want to make.
Angus ‘Drummie’ Zeb (drums) : It didn’t come as a surprise when Brinsley left. He’d been an actor before he was a musician, so he had other things he wanted to do. There was never any question of ending the band, though. We started out with eight members before we slimmed to the three, so Aswad is bigger than any individual and we’re still really a three-piece – me, Tony and Jah.
Tony Gad (guitar) : We still live in Shepherd’s Bush, as we always did. We’ve toured and worked pretty constantly. We had our 25 Live album last year, and did a birthday gig at Subterranea in Ladbroke Grove. We haven’t settled a UK tour yet, but we are looking at US dates and we’ll bring in session players for that. As producers, we’ve just done three tracks for Janet Kaye and, as far as our own material, Drummie and myself are strong enough songwriters that we’ll be OK. We’re recording an album right now in Sanctuary Studios in West London, with the working title of Cool Summer Reggae, which should be out this summer (2002).