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EDITS Level 42
Level42 tick many boxes but they should also get huge
tick in the thoroughly nice people box.Ox magazine
were delighted to have had the opportunity to chat
to the delightful Level 42 front man and all round
good chap Mark King. Here’s what he told us about
his Island, his albums and of course the wonderful
Rewind festival coming to our county very soon.
Are you the Isle of Wight’s most famous
resident do you think?
No, I don’t think so. The Island has had some
quite famous sons and daughters. Oscar
winning Anthony Minghella, was born here.
Ellen Macarthur and Shirley Robertson live
here too.
So you’ve sold 30 million albums, when did
it all start for you?
Yea, it’s a lot isn’t it? And we are still making
the stuff. At the moment we are just promoting
The Sirens EP which is a slope back to where
we came in 1980. We were very much part of
the Brit Funk movement which was really led
by the DJs. They were called the “funk mafia”
and used to run the soul weekenders and all-
nighters that were essential to the movement.
When you talk to the younger generation
then they say that they invented raves and
partying hard, but we were doing that way,
way back .In fact the whole thing just used to
roll into one long party.
So what influenced you? What was your
big tune?
That’s a great question. Nobody has asked
me that. Well it’s all I ever wanted to do really.
In terms of the big tune, I just did something
for Radio 2 to celebrate the sixtieth
anniversary of Rock Around the Clock. That
tune had a seismic shift on the world of music
and was the first record that introduced rock
and roll to the masses. Also up to that point,
it was people like Frank Sinatra and Perry
Como and all the crooners. After the film
The Blackboard Jungle came out and Rock
Around the Clock was used as the score,
it caused mayhem. Teddy Boys just went
mad and were tearing up the cinema seats
because this was suddenly what they had
been waiting for.
Even though this was all a few years before
I was born, I remember dancing to that record
at the Albany Prison Officers Club as a little
boy. I would always be standing outside the
gates of the prison waiting for my Dad to
On the Level
Funk? Soul? Britfunk?