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‘Music can be like a time machine’ - interview with Level 42’s Mark King




Unlike certain other artists who rose to prominence in that much-missed golden age for music that was the 1980s, Mark King, singer and bassist with pop/jazz-funk collective Level 42, knows exactly what people want to hear at the band’s live shows: the hits.

Level 42. Picture: Tina Korhonen
Level 42. Picture: Tina Korhonen

Having led from the front since Level 42’s inception some 40-plus years ago, Mark is one of two original members left in the current line-up, the other being keyboard player Mike Lindup. He spoke to the Cambridge Independent from London, where he was busy rehearsing with his bandmates ahead of a UK tour which stops off in Cambridge this Saturday (October 23).

“I’m feeling a little bit croaky in the voice because it’s getting the pipes opened up again, and my fingers are killing me,” he says, “apart from that, everything’s going swimmingly!”

Mark is well known as one of the finest bass players in the world and, after so many years spent playing the notoriously thick-stringed instrument, he must have very strong fingers?

“The thing is my fingertips seem to respond very quickly after all this time,” he explains, “if you think I’ve been doing it for 40 years... and the strings themselves are quite heavy, and they’re roundwound, so it’s a bit like running your fingers up and down a rat-tail file for 90 minutes every night.”

Mark King of Level 42. Picture: Tina Korhonen
Mark King of Level 42. Picture: Tina Korhonen

Mark reveals that he tends to dip his fingers in surgical spirit after each gig, noting: “It’s really myself and the drummers that have always done this, and [ex-drummer] Phil Gould I can remember many times back in 1980 and 81 when we’d come off stage with blisters that had burst and you just had to dip your fingers into surgical spirit, which hardens the skin up very quickly – but my goodness me that stings a bit.

“You see what we have to go through just to entertain you guys!” Well, we do want to hear those hits... “That’s exactly what you’re going to get,” insists the friendly sixty-something.

“I’ve really enjoyed putting the set together for this tour, which of course was the postponed tour from 2020. We all know why, but we were lucky enough to get pretty much the same venues a year later. And the ticket sales have been fantastic, I have to say.

“We didn’t get many returns at all and it’s just kept selling, so that tells me that there is a good hunger out there I think for people to try and ease back. Obviously, there’s some confidence issues and we won’t really see that until we get out there on the road. But I’m really heartened by the fact that there have been very few returns and many more sales.”

Mark, a resident of the Isle of Wight – the place where he was also born and raised – says that traditionally, he and the boys tour “every other year”, meaning that the 2020 jaunt was to have followed on from their 2018 Eternity Tour (the current tour is titled ‘From Eternity to Here’).

Mark King of Level 42. Picture: Tina Korhonen
Mark King of Level 42. Picture: Tina Korhonen

“We haven’t got a new album or anything to promote – we haven’t done that for a few years now,” he notes, “because I know very well that the fans that do come and see us want to hear the hits that we’ve got, and fortunately we were able to bank a lot of good hits through the 1980s and early 90s, so there’s more than enough to choose from.

“The thing I have to juggle with is which ones to leave out, because you can’t play them all.”

Level 42’s best known songs include Something about You, Lessons in Love, Running in the Family and Leaving Me Now. “We’ve been rehearsing a song, Turn It On, that we haven’t played for ages,” reveals Mark, a big fan of BBC Radio 6 Music, which specialises mainly in alternative music. “That was a minor hit, I suppose, for us back in the early 80s, because we were just getting going as a band.

“But it’s been lovely digging that one out and rehearsing it with the guys, and we’re a considerably bigger band these days, as a seven-piece, than we were when we were doing it as a four-piece. So to rearrange the song and get the brass guys in to emphasise these bits... I’m really proud of how it’s sounding actually.”

Mark says that the thing he missed most during lockdown was being able to be creative as part of a group, although he and the others did stay in touch via WhatsApp. Overall, he says he found lockdown “quite a negative experience, musically” but notes that his garden “looks amazing”...

Mark King of Level 42. Picture: Tina Korhonen
Mark King of Level 42. Picture: Tina Korhonen

The seasoned musician was therefore pleased to get back to playing again with the band, which also includes his younger brother, Nathan. “It’s quite emotional really, when you haven’t done it for a while,” he says.

Many people look back on the 1980s with great affection and nostalgia. Does Mark? “I do, and when we take to the stage I understand that for a large part of the audience that’s exactly what it is. I can take Fred Trubshaw back to being at high school in 1983, just for an hour or two, and that wonderful escapism that music can give people, it’s like a time machine really.

“The comments I get about certain songs we’ve had over the years, what those songs mean to people, around the world... of course, that’s a lovely thing because as four lads sitting together in a room and writing the stuff and sticking it down in a dark, smoky studio somewhere, the last thing on your mind is ‘This is really going to mean something to somebody that we’ve never met in the years to come’.

“It’s a strange phenomenon really.”

Level 42 will be appearing at the Cambridge Corn Exchange on Saturday, October 23. For tickets, visit cornex.co.uk. For more on Level 42, go to level42.com.

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