We are teaming up with The Selecter in 2017, hitting the road together for a number of dates around the UK and Ireland. After our show at Shepherds Bush Empire sold out in record time, we have added a show at the iconic Roundhouse in Camden on Friday 6 October 2017.

M: So were you listening to a lot of punk? Along with The Police, a lot of those punk bands had a reggae-influenced phase; The Clash, Stiff Little Fingers, The Ruts, Costello… all had at least one reggae song. M: You always get dubbed a ‘ska’ band, probably just because your debut single came out on 2-Tone (The Beat formed their own Go-Feet label after that)RR: I did want to put something out as The Beat but me and my son, Ranking Junior, who sings on stage with me, want to launch another project called Return Of The Dread-I. The late Ranking Roger talking about his memoir I Just Can’t Stop It which will be published on June 13 th by Omnibus Press So, fast forward to the present day. I’m sat in an onion shaped pod in the garden of an Edgbaston home belonging to one of Birmingham’s musical icons and all round top bloke Ranking Roger. With it’s Deloreon style door of entry and the mother of all glass ceilings “so I can do some serious star gazing” this is where Roger still creates music to make your head bob and your feet tap. M: That would complicate things a little. Although, last year, the US Beat and the English Beat toured America together, billing it; ‘Two Beats Hearting As One’. Ranking Roger: It’s not really much of a summer anymore is it? We’ll find out whether there really is a summer in the next couple of weeks but so far it’s been good. Plenty of gigs.

When I can – or when the weather’s good – I try to do loads of inline skating, that’s my love, second to music – getting on my skates and getting out there. But I haven’t been on the streets for a long time – I skate around the park a lot. I used to be on the street racing the buses – but now I’m like – heeeeeey – this is a dangerous thing to do. I used to be a bit of an expert, I still am, I teach people, I love doing that. And I love video games – I do loads of video gaming – that’s when I’m not writing or building a rhythm – but sometimes it’s good to get away from all that, and get away from who everyone thinks you are – and be yourself. That’s important too.As a DJ when you’re spinning discs, that in itself is an art. You have to be good with rhythm and timing and with the flow of what goes with that tune. Not every tune works together. Yeah – not forgetting The Police and Talking Heads – and just to let people know that REM used to open up for The Beat. They had three or four tours with us before we made our record company sign them up. Obviously I’m glad that they became massive in the end. U2 opened up for us once – but you know – you meet people along the way and some of them are nice and some of them are horrible – the nice ones you end up working with again. If you’re a diva I don’t want to know, but if you’re grounded and down to earth like a lot of bands around then seemed to be – it still seems to be the way to be. You’ve been involved with so many projects over the years including Big Audio Dynamite, Special Beat and General Public. What’s next? Having thought about it, maybe it’s the fact that I never got married. I should have been married. I’ve 3 kids and was with an Irish girl for 20 years, but we split up about 10 years ago. I regret that. We should have got married, but we didn’t. Maybe if we’d married we wouldn’t have split up later, I don’t know.

Touring with the police was exceptional too, it showed me the top line of being a big pop star in the music industry, I used to get up and DJ with them onstage every night. I was only 17-18 while they were well into their 20′s so maybe because I was so young, I got away with it. Or maybe it was my smile. On the eve of the re-release of The Beat’s Wha’appen on Demon Records Vinyl Louder than War’s Martin Copland-Gray had a chat with the band’s front-man (and fellow Brummie) Ranking Roger.M: One thing I thought was interesting; you and drummer Everett Morton are the two remaining original members in this version of The Beat while original vocalist/guitarist and songwriter Dave Wakeling fronts another version of the band in America, where you were instead known as The English Beat (there was already a new wave power-pop band called The Beat in the US). Can both bands coexist without there being any messy legal issues? It seems a unique situation that you’re each playing in different continents under different names. RR: Well, what the punks were saying was along similar lines to what the reggae artists were saying in Jamaica. The same sort of political issues were being sung about; inequality, rights, people having a say, so there was a connection. The Skids, The Members, people like that were trying reggae too and although The Beat came after that, we were influenced by that punk/reggae sound and took it to another level, without realising. So we took some time off after touring with The Pretenders and starting jamming again. Within it all we’d been reading our fan club letters and we got this one from a lady in America saying I’ve tried to use your music for my keep fit lessons and it’s too fast. It was a lovely written letter so we decided to tone it down a bit in the way that The Beat became what we call ‘one-drop’, where the rim shot and the snare hits at the same time and that’s the main emphasis. So we did Doors of your Heart and Monkey Murders and along with a few others and that was the kind of style for that album in the end. RR: heard about that. It sounded like a really good thing. We met them years ago and I thought ‘They’re really nice guys… for Americans!’ Very into their music, they loved our music and their music was OK. Obviously there was a lot of poverty. It needed building up. High unemployment. It seemed like there was no future. I was about 16-17 and it looked like there was no future for the youth. It was a horrific picture when I really think about it – the strikes going on everywhere and the threat of nuclear war – we’ve found out since that Russia aren’t that bad – and they’re now our friends – but that was the biggest thing for a lot of people then – we really thought that the chances of nuclear war were high. We’ve learned years later that there was never really any intention for any side to start it – but it’s weird the things we live under – like the wars in the Middle East – and the Western world’s secrecy with China – so it’s like a new iron curtain has come up now. It’s a shame.