J

span class="caption" style="width: 398px;">JP/Dina IndrasafitriWhen what seemed to be a minor scuffle broke out among the audience during British ska band The Specials’ set at Singapore’s Rock and Roots Festival last month, singer Terry Hall paused to watch and then responded in a matter-of-fact tone, “Chill out.”

He then proceeded, in what appeared to be dry humor, to remark, “Men”.

Typical Hall? Perhaps. Several interviews have described him as enigmatic, withdrawn and even deadpan. But of course he is also known as the capable front man of the group dubbed by the Singapore show as “the greatest Two-Tone, Black & White Unite rocksteady dancehall band of all.”

And dry as his humor might be, during the interview with The Jakarta Post the afternoon before the show, he spoke his polite words in an amicable, somewhat careful manner.

The gig’s pit incident quickly dissolved without even the need for security. In fact, it was probably nothing compared to what the band described in the early 1980s when they wrote the hit “Ghost Town”, with the lines “Bands don’t play no more — Too much fighting on the dance floor.”

“Ghost Town”, which peaked at Number 1 on the UK charts in 1981, mentions unemployment and dissatisfaction among youth in its lyrics at a time when those things were actually brewing in the country. In fact, riots broke out in several areas, including London, Manchester and Liverpool, a few weeks after the single was released, as if it was some unhappy prophecy.

The lyrics might still ring true nowadays, especially if the problems faced are still the same, and Hall says they are in some ways.

“I can understand what’s going on because I got children and I see them with their friends … It is still the same thing ... It’s still the same problems. Trying to find work and people listening to teenage voices is still very difficult,” he said during the interview.

Yet the fifty-something sees differences between the unrest surrounding him in the 1970s and 1980s and what occurred in more contemporary times, with perhaps an extreme example being the riots occurring in several areas in Britain in August of last year.

“When there was this sort of disorder in the 1980s, it seems it was directed. I felt more of a class thing. And it felt more like people taking hold of their situation. Last year it was just … people were stealing stuff, just chaotic, and setting fire to stuff … That’s not teenage rebellion that’s just teenage idiots really,” Hall, who was in London when the riots occurred, said.

The Specials’ songs touch other whimsical yet critical issues, ranging from unintended youth pregnancy to racism.

The band fed listeners with lines such as “We don’t need no British movement / Nor the Ku Klux Klan / Nor the national front / Make me a angry man” from “Why”, which reportedly tells of an actual racist attack that seriously wounded guitarist Lynval Golding in South London.

According to Hall, racism remains a problem in Britain nowadays.

“In the 1970s in Britain it was British against people from India and stuff, but now its directed to eastern Europeans who moved to Britain some as asylum seekers … and that’s just as bad,” he said.

When they played at the Marina Promenade that night, however, the band’s call for racial harmony seemed to have gained a warm answer with audience members of various colors, ages and sexes arriving, some in the distinctive “rude boy” or “rude girl” attire of black and white shirts and miniskirts, coming in dozens to watch them play.

And The Specials’ shows are known to draw finger snaps and hand claps along with awareness, because for many it is hard to resist their sound.

Combining the catchy upstrokes of ska, which enjoyed a considerable heyday in Britain in the 1960s, the energy and sharp social criticism of punk, along with other often unpredictable touches — take the insertion of Middle Eastern influence in “Ghost Town” for example — it produced dance hall-friendly songs packed with energy, angst and, occasionally, jest.

To Hall, singing had been the first thing that he considered giving him “some sort of reward”.

“Between the age of 16 and 19 I have tried working but I didn’t really get that at all and I like the idea of being in control of what I do. And since that point I have always been in control of what I do,” he said.

Hall personally views the music scene back then as a movement where one carries out a fight to be heard.

Music, to the self-confessed solitaire, is essentially a mode of communication. “I always believe if you make a record and four people get it then you will be communicating … It doesn’t have to be a million. It can be a handful and it is just finding like-minded people really,” he said

He added that he is currently not very impressed with the easiness of social networking websites as well as what the music scene has to offer — “it makes you lazy.”

The Specials manage to communicate and then some. The band is seen as one of the pioneers of the “2Tone era” of music, the name coined by then keyboardist Jerry Dammers.

Dammers then set up a record label housing bands such as The Selecters, and, for a short time, Madness, that played somewhat similar ska and punk influenced sounds with frequent multi-racial lineups as well.

Not long after “Ghost Town” was released, the band’s fiery days of touring and recording ended, partly due to the intensity that was too much for comfort. In between their reunification, Hall’s ventures in music included founding new wave and alternative bands Fun Boy Three and The Colorfied, as well as solo projects such as one with artist and producer Mushtaq in 2003.

“It is hard with any sort of job because no matter where you work, if you are with the same people eight hours a day every day it becomes tedious,” Hall recalled of the breakup, which occurred roughly at the peak of their career.

Yet the band’s return to the stage was fueled by their own discovery that they actually “got on really well” when they got together four years ago to rekindle their friendship.

The current members initially planned to do a charity show but somehow it evolved into a tour that took them halfway around the world. So far, they are just going with the flow without any specific plans for a new release.

“We are talking about setting some time aside to write but whether that’s an album or a book, we don’t know yet. Could be anything and that’s the beauty of it,” Hall said.

And these days, the members’ separate lives allow each of them more breathing room, which, according to the front man, translates into a healthier situation.

As for himself, Hall said he has learned to keep his emotions at bay.

“I am still angry when I haven’t got enough milk in my double espresso but I could contain the anger, which is a part of growing up I think,” he said.