Madness vocalist Suggs says it was a ”revelation” that he could sing.
The ‘House of Fun’ band were formed in London in 1976 by a group of friends, but their singer was never picked to front the group because of his vocal abilities.
He told the Yorkshire Post newspaper: ”I never considered that I could be a singer, but I remember me and some mates went to watch ‘American Graffiti’ and when I came out my head was spinning.
”We started talking about starting a band and someone suggested I could be the singer. I was quite a charismatic kid and when I found out that I could actually sing it was a bit of a revelation.”
Suggs – born Graham McPherson – also explained how he got his name from a book on Jazz musicians.
He added: ”I was looking though one of my mum’s books about jazz musicians and I took a pin, closed my eyes, and stuck it into a page at random and it landed on the name Peter. That didn’t sound very interesting but I looked at the second name ‘Suggs’ and that sounded a bit different and it’s stuck ever since.”
Suggs is currently on tour with his solo show, My Life Story in Words and Music, across the UK now.