Happy second coming for Dodgy’s great sound

They play Brighton’s Concorde 2 on Friday, November 4 as part of a tour which will lead them through to the release of a new album in January.

Dodgy are on the road in the definitive line-up: Nigel Clark, Andy Miller and Mathew Priest.

“We’ve actually been back together for two and a half years,” says Mathew, “but it is only now that we have got the album ready. We wanted to do everything at our own pace this time, when we were ready.”

The gap had been about ten years: “I can recommend that to anyone having problems with their old man. Just take a ten-year break!

“But when we reformed, it was actually bitter-sweet in the circumstances of the reunion, getting back together through our lighting technician, a guy called Andy Moore who was dying of cancer. He was one of the funniest men you ever knew. He was so dry and had a very skewed look on the world.

“He had this testimonial while he was still alive to raise money for his family and he got us together. He invited me and Nigel and got us on stage, and then said ‘Why on earth aren’t you guys gigging? Life is too short!’ He was only in his mid-40s. He left two daughters.

“But he wasn’t maudlin. He just said ‘If I can bring you lot back together, then I will be happy.’ He died on the first day of rehearsals for our reunion tour. You’ve got one of your best friends dying; you look at each other and you discover that you have still got that same chemistry.

“We did the reunion tour which was just purely nostalgia for us, but then we started thinking ‘Shall we see if we can get some new songs together?’ And we discovered it was all still there. But we made the really important decision that we would really take our time, that we wouldn’t get rushed into it.”

The point was that this time they wanted to retain control.

Last time was different: “It was the external pressures. Suddenly the band was being pulled in every which way, and the tight unit which had been so special was being pulled apart. Nigel had a young family. He had two children born within a year of each other right in the 90s. Me and Andy (Miller) couldn’t understand what that was like. We couldn’t imagine it, and Nigel didn’t’ make it clear. It was just communication. It just broke down.

“But now we are older and wiser. We manage ourselves. We don’t want it all to run away from us… And I have got family now. I know what it is like!”

Tickets on 01273 673311.