What Goes Around... Carl talks to Brum News

Extracts from a Birmingham interveiw with Carl. Full verison in XMIS eve issue.

How's the New album progressing?

"It's going very well, we have four to five songs more or less completed including a song called NW5 which will feature in the gigs, and another 10-15 minute opus about London which is easily our longest song to date. The plan is that we'd ideally have another single around April/May then release the album in June."

How did the collaboration with rapper Sway and Baby Blue come about?

"We had heard that Sway liked Madness and we'd got this track Sorry which had been offered to us by the house producer Tim Deluxe, and thought that he could probably add something to it. We called him up and he did it within a day - he brought Baby blue along."

Your last album, The Dangermen Sessions, Was a nod to your ska roots - will the new album continue that theme? Or is it very different?

"It's different and the same! The way it's being recorded is similar to the style of Dangermen Sessions, but also of early Madness. Suggs has said that the new album contains the traditional rich british pop of early Madness but from a 40-year-old perspective, and I wouldn't argue with that - at least not yet."

Any plans to tour the musical?Our House?

"Funny you should ask, it's become a whole new leaner and meaner beast with bits cut out and others honed into shape and it'll be touring in 2007 probably playing as many dates as we will."

Do you sense any Madness influence in any Contemporary acts? If so, who and any thoughts on them?

"The Madness is all around, and you can hear it everywhere if you listen hard enough. Woody played with Franz Ferdinand at the reading festival and was treated like a rock legend apparently, so there's a lot of love out there and we try to reciprocate. Suggs has done some stuff with The Ordinary Boys and then did It Must Be Love with Preston and AL Murray of all people at the V Festival. Suggs has also done stuff with the Audio bullys and might so more with Sway. I like it that people think we're and influence just as the bands that came before were an influence to us. What Goes around..."