Suggs from Madness talks as he walks from his house in the middle of the street

SUGGS of Madness, who are in Australia for a tour and his one-man show, talks as he walks from his house in the middle of the street.

Madness being mad outside the house in the middle of the street. Picture: Supplied.

SUGGS is chatting during his morning constitutional through his neighbourhood from his home in north London of more than four decades.

Madness’ frontman has a house is in the middle of the street. Just like the hit song from 1982.

“Can I give you one piece of advice? Buy a house in the middle of the street because you are less likely to be burgled. And that’s a fact,” he says.

Our House isn’t the only hit that helped Suggs pay his mortgage. The seven-piece ska band became global chart-toppers with a run of unforgettable pop gems in the early ‘80s including House Of Fun, It Must Be Love, Baggy Trousers and Driving In My Car.

They called it quits in the late 1980s but enjoyed a career resurgence in the early 1990s, reuniting for the Madstock! concerts in a London park in late 1992.

Madness literally made the earth move during one of those concerts with geophysicists determining that tens of thousands of people stamping during one song set nearby buildings rocking.

The band has kept going more or less since then on stage and in the studio, with their most recent album Can’t Touch Us Now reaching the UK top 5 last year.

Madness still committing crimes against pop music and their fans, old and new, are loving it. Picture: Perou

As he cheerfully dispenses greetings to his neighbours on his interview stroll, he self-deprecatingly insists no one on his street “gives a f*** who I am.”

“I am just that stupid old bloke who makes pop music for a living,” he says.

But the 56-year-old singer admits the band are fortunate to have maintained a livelihood from touring and continued to produce new music when so many of their contemporaries in the 1980s have become novelty acts.

He remembers the first royalty cheque he received as the band hit the charts was £10,000 ($16,600).

“I didn’t understand what it was. All of a sudden we had gone from playing in a pub to our mates with ten quid in my pocket and a couple of chicks in the audience to being on TV and everyone changing their attitude to me. It was a very strange process,” Sugg says.

He nominates the band’s performance on top of Buckingham Palace for the Queen’s Jubilee Concert in 2012 as the weirdest gig Madness ever played.

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Suggs has joined the spoken word crew with his My Life Story one-man show. Picture: Perou

As he stands outside his local newsagent and scans the front pages of the day’s newspapers, he recalls receiving a letter from “Her Majesty asking us to play at her party”.

He thought it was a joke and threw it away.

The offer was briefly taken off the table when the concert organisers realised they had too many acts to program on the main stage.

“With Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Cliff Richard, Sir Elton John and Sir Stevie Wonder, there’s no room for you to play, they said. F*** it, we got knocked back,” he says in between discussing the headlines with a neighbour at the shop.

“And then we get another letter said they had changed their minds and could we play on the roof of Buckingham Palace.

“I am sure they stuck us up there to get us out of the way so we wouldn’t muck up the rest of the show.

“I am not that good with heights but fortunately the adrenaline of the moment took over. Who would have imagined 40 years ago we would be playing on Buckingham Palace?”

Even as mind-warping would be the notion that Suggs would step out from in front of the band to share his life story in a one-man show combining stories and music.

At the end of the Madness dates in Australia, he will return to theatres for Suggs: My Life Story which debuted in Edinburgh in 2012.

The idea was sparked on his 50th birthday when his cat “fell off the shelf and died.”

“It got me thinking about fate and where I have got to. The show is less about being a pop star and more about being a human being,” he says.

“The first time I did it, I was positively petrified but I got the hang of it.”

Suggs’ attention is completely stolen by two sights on his walk. He spots his other cat, which peed on his trousers before our chat and wants to give it a sound talking-to.

But the cat manages to take off when he spots a man sharing his bicycle with a giant toy rabbit.

“It’s just gone into a house. I have to ask him where he got it.”

Perhaps we will find out the answer at one of his shows.

Suggs performs with his band Madness at the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens tournament on April 8. Picture: Anthony Wallace

SEE: Madness performs at Festival Hall, Melbourne today, Hordern Pavilion in Sydney on Saturday and Bluesfest, Byron Bay on April 16

Suggs: My Life Story, Enmore Theatre, Sydney on April 20; Astor theatre, Perth on April 22 and Comedy Theatre, Melbourne on April 24

Originally published as Suggs from Madness talks as he walks from his house in the middle of the street