Steve’s decade of Madness after learning to play sax
After setting up a Madness tribute band The Los Palmas 6, the father-of-four was invited to play for Madness full-time, and spent eight years accompanying the British ska band as it travelled around the world.
Steve, of Cissbury Road, Ferring, did not pick up a saxophone until he was 30. He said: “A friend of mine used to teach and asked me to have a lesson ten years before I ended up doing so but as soon as I started, I gave up my job as a financial adviser straight away.
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Hide Ad“I absolutely loved it and knew that I no longer wanted to be doing a normal job. I took a classical music course at college in 1995.
“My first band was called The Last Word, which was a soul band but I was one member of the bass section and was looking for something that featured the saxophone more heavily. Because Madness is a party band, it seemed like a good idea to start a tribute.
“The line-up has changed a lot but the band is still going strong now and we have done hundreds of gigs all around the world.
It was while performing as part of The Los Palmas 6 that Steve was introduced to Lee Thompson, the saxophonist from Madness.
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Hide Ad“We were playing at the Brighton Dome and suddenly this bloke got up on stage and stood right in front of me, then I realised who it was,” he said.
“I gave him my saxophone and he played a couple of songs with us which was excellent fun and also good for the band. I told him that it was only fair that I played with his band, too. This happened at Guildfest when Madness was headlining.”
For the full story, pick up a copy of this week’s paper, out tomorrow.