Buster Bloodvessel: ‘We’re not trying to be clever, it’s just about fun’
‘I FEEL AS FRESH AS A YOUNG KID’: Buster Bloodvessel
Music legends Bad Manners fly to Mexico today for a warm weather warm-up to their UK Christmas tour, which includes a date in Hull. Simon Bristow caught up with their iconic frontman, Buster Bloodvessel
In an uncertain world, it’s reassuring to know that some things never change, or not much anyway.
So gig-going music fans will be delighted to learn that Bad Manners are on the road again with a Christmas tour that will stomp into Hull on Monday, December 20, for a show at Hull University’s Asylum venue.
The band will be delivering their unmistakable blend of two-tone, ska, R&B, and, irresistible rhythm - led of course by the high-energy antics of iconic frontman Buster Bloodvessel.
Bad Manners are, in many ways, the ultimate party band; good-time guarantors and quite simply, purveyors of great tunes you can dance to. And they’re good at it.
Bad Manners are continuing to enjoy the sort of career most aspirant musicians can only dream of - commercial success with a string of hits to their name, a loyal and sizeable following, and a gravity-defying longevity that has carried them, incredibly, into their 45th year in the industry.
Emerging around the same time as the cultural revolution that was punk, Bad Manners offered a more humorous entrée to the ska revival of the period, and in Buster, had a presence that once seen was never forgotten.
The success of singles including Ne-Ne Na-Na Na-Na Nu-Nu, Lip Up Fatty, Special Brew, My Girl Lollipop, and Can Can ensured they made their mark and proved there was an appetite for their music.
Buster - who took his name from the bus conductor in The Beatles’ film Magical Mystery Tour - became almost as famous as the band itself.
Large, shaven-headed, and fond of waggling his over-size tongue at audiences, he cut an intimidating figure. But beneath the persona he is warm, engaging, generous, and still full of mischief at the age of 63.
“I’m 63 now and it’s very hard saying something like that,” Buster said. “I still feel like I’m younger than 63, I must admit, but physically the body does start hurting more than it did.
“Mentally I run up there and feel like I’m a fresh young kid that’s just started. I’ve got the experience now to know the right things and the wrong things to do.”
‘GOOD-TIME GUARANTORS’: Bad Manners
It has not always been easy being Buster.
Though he used to revel in his big and heavy image, Buster once topped the scales at 31 stone and was classed as morbidly obese. In 2004, he underwent pioneering gastric bypass surgery, and shed 18 stone in just ten months. He later paid tribute to the surgeon for saving his life.
Thankfully, that and other health scares are now behind him, and Buster is looking forward to the forthcoming tour with the same enthusiasm he has always had.
“I’m in good health,” he said. “But I’m a bit stressed because we’re off to Mexico on Thursday. We’ve got to get all the Covid tests done just to get to America, then we fly down to Mexico from there.
“We’ve got a very popular following in Mexico – it’s amazing to think they are still going strong.”
Asked if he’s ever been to Hull before, Buster laughs and speaks from the long knowledge of a life on the road.
“There isn’t a place in Britain I haven’t been to,” he says. “I know the saying ‘It’s never dull in Hull’. I know the best thing about being in Hull is the fish and chip shops, and the pubs – the pubs are very good. Everywhere I go I have such a great time, there’s never a dull moment for me.”
He has an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of the places he’s been to, and says he “remembers everything”.
So what is the secret of their enduring appeal?
Buster said: “We are completely different from most bands – the music’s not sensible and we are not trying to impress people’s imaginations with our thoughts. We are just a good-time band who enjoy the music they play, and I think that’s what comes out when we are playing live.
“There ain’t many band like us, we are quite unique. We’ve never been into politics. I know they say everything is political but we’re not.
“I really don’t understand that situation [why we’re still popular] but it’s a very pleasurable situation to be in. I think we are unique and that’s kept us going.”
‘THERE AIN’T A BAND LIKE US’: Buster Bloodvessel
It sounds like a simple formula, but it perhaps belies the eclectic musical sensibilities Buster and his friends had growing up in such a vibrant place as the London of their youth.
“We were well brought up, musically,” Buster said. “I lived near the Rainbow Theatre in the 70s and bunked in there so many times to see bands. I was the chief bunker-inner.
“Some doors you can just push in so we’d push in, run into the toilets and hide there and then go and see the bands.
“There were so many bands, The Osmonds, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Genesis. Musically I was quite enriched as a child. I loved what I was seeing, so I suppose, being a bit of a show-off…”
Although Buster soon found his calling, his dream initially was for another kind of stage.
He said: “I always thought I was going to be an actor, but came from comprehensive education so there was no way my mother was going to be able to pay for me to go to drama school. It was a pipe dream.
“I was surrounded by very intelligent musician-type people. We’d go out at the weekend, have the fun and enjoyment of playing and get paid a bit of money - enough to buy fish and chips and get some beer, and thought, ‘This is a good way of doing it’.
“It was quite hard. There were lots of bands and it was very competitive, but I loved the competitiveness of all those bands.
“It was the era of punk, but we weren’t a punk band, we were a ska and R&B band, which was not the sort of thing to be in at the time.”
Bad Manners formed at Woodberry Down Comprehensive School in north London in 1976.
After proving popular in London they became regulars on TV programmes such as Tiswas, and with their chart hits soon had a national following. They would go on to tour across the world.
Buster is the sole surviving member from the early days, but so many musicians have passed through the band he sees it as an extended family, and talks of it like selecting players from a “squad”.
“There’s always nine of us, but we have 30 in the squad,” he said. “There’s been at least five to six-hundred musicians all the way through Bad Manners; it’s a very big family. We are a friendly family and that’s the way it’s always been.”
One thing Buster won’t tolerate, however, is any squabbling.
Buster said: “We’ve never argued in Bad Manners because there’s so many of us. If anybody argues we stop the bus and get the two people to get off and sort it out how they want, and usually they get back on the bus arm in arm with tears running down their faces.”
The only thing Buster took issue with in our interview related to preparations for the tour.
“Rehearse?!” he said, indignantly. “You have just used a swear word in Bad Manners. Rehearse is not a word we use.
“We have always thought, go do the gig, we know what we have to do. If people are not good enough they can learn their part, they can go away with somebody else and learn their part. We don’t all need to be there for rehearsals. It’s pointless me being there – I know it inside out.”
The music scene and industry today is unrecognisable to the one Bad Manners emerged from, but he does have advice for anyone starting out.
He said: “I think it’s very healthy that music changes all the time. It has to. Yes it’s about survival and keeping your head above water.
“I think it’s very hard for a band to break at the moment because you’ve got to have something unique about you that makes you stand out from the crowd.
“A lot of the bands I hear and see nowadays playing live seem to go for covers and I really think they need to get out of that and get on with their own stuff. It’s important for the future.”
As for Bad Manners, their party ethic is enjoying a bit of a resurgence, and Buster said language is no barrier to their fans in a place like Mexico.
He said: “Bad Manners music is a bit simple and it’s just fun and they know it. It’s what’s winning with us at the moment – with this lockdown everybody needed a bit of fun, so we are the perfect band for that.”
Bad Manners tour dates, supported by Max Splodge. Buy tickets here.
Friday Dec 3 - MANCHESTER Gorilla
Saturday Dec 4 - LIVERPOOL Arts Club
Thursday Dec 9 - SOUTHEND Chinnerys
Sunday Dec 12 - BATH Komedia
Thursday Dec 16 - SWANSEA Sin City
Friday Dec 17 - CARDIFF Tramshed
Saturday Dec 18 - SOUTHAMPTON Engine Rooms
Sunday Dec 19 - READING Sub89
Monday Dec 20 - HULL Asylum
Tuesday Dec 21 - BIRMINGHAM The Mill
Wednesday Dec 22 - LEEDS The Warehouse
Thursday Dec 23 - NOTTINGHAM Rock City
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