“I SPENT two months arguing with my parents until I finally wore them down.”

If Mathew Priest, drummer with Nineties indie band Dodgy, hadn’t have been so persistent about moving to London to be in a band, his life would have been very different indeed.

“With the benefit of hindsight you look back on it now and think what were we doing?” he laughs. “But we just had this feeling it was going to work. To be fair there was never a point where I thought I’m going to have to go back to Birmingham because every week there would be a new opportunity opening up for us.”

Born and brought up in the Midlands, Mathew was friends with Nigel Clark, the band’s singer and bass player, from the age of 15.

“I just loved playing the drums,” he adds, “and tried to find as many bands as I could so I could play them.

“When I met Nige we got on straight away and, all credit to him, it was Nige that had the impetus to push us further.”

Which after a few years meant re-locating to London.

“I was doing my A-levels but Nigel had a mortgage and a good job at Austin Rover so it was a big thing for him.

“My parents weren’t happy but eventually I got the pass and I’ve never looked back since.”

It was while gigging in London they met guitarist Andy Miller and with the three-piece in place they set about conquering the British music scene.

Which they did rather well.

The first time round, Dodgy were only together for seven years but in that time they sold more than a million records worldwide, released three albums and 12 Top 40 singles such as Staying Out For The Summer, If You’re Thinking Of Me, and the top five hit Good Enough.

They sold out the Brixton Academy for three nights in a row and were awarded an unprecedented 90-minute Saturday evening slot on the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury Festival in 1997 just before Radiohead.

“It was incredible,” he tells me. “Playing Glastonbury before Radiohead, being on stage with Ray Davies but the real pinch me moments were what came with being in a band back then.

“We used to get invited to absolutely everything. Film premieres and art shows. I once got invited to the press launch for PG Tips pyramid teabags – and went.

“I got presented with ‘ligger of the year’ by the Sun in 1997, but come on why wouldn’t you go when there’s free drink and free food on offer, and anyway we were playing the game.”

This time around, the band have been back together for just over four years now.

Brought back together at the funeral of their friend and long-standing lighting director Andy Moore, once the decision had been made to regroup they found the chemistry was as strong as ever and set about writing and recording new songs.

Sessions began in an old wooden workshop in Nigel’s back garden in Malvern, resulting in last year’s critically acclaimed Stand Upright In A Cool Place, 15 years after the platinum-selling Free Peace Sweet.

They followed it up with an extremely busy summer, even by their standards, with slots at Camp Bestival and the V Festival.

Matt says: “Time does seem to move a lot slower these days but that’s OK because it means we have been able to get so much more done.

“When we got back together we sort of forgot the reasons we split up and while there is a tendency when a band gets back together to relive the good old days we wanted to create something new.”

 

Dodgy
Braintree Arts Centre,
Friday 7.30pm.
£15, £12 concessions. 01376 556 354.
www.braintreeartstheatre.com