Before We Was We: Madness by Madness

Mike Barson · Mark Bedford · Chris Foreman · Graham McPherson · Dan Woodgate · Cathal Smyth · Lee Thompson

Oct 2019 · Virgin Digital · Narrated by Mike Barson, Mark Bedford, Chris Foreman, Graham McPherson, Dan Woodgate, Cathal Smyth, and Lee Thompson

About this audiobook

Brought to you by Penguin.

Shortlisted for the Best Ensemble Narration Award at the New York Festival Radio Awards 2020.

This audiobook is Madness' story in their own words - with each band member featuring as a narrator.

In their own words they each look back on their shared adventures. Playing music together, riding freight trains, spraying graffiti and stealing records. Walking in one another's footsteps by day and rising up through the city's exploding pub music scene by night. Before We Was We is irreverent, funny and full of character. Just like them.

Ratings and reviews

Mike Barson found in what Madness first did a 'magical ordinariness', and the audiobook captures their humble sorcery perfectly. Suggs and El Thommo sound like characters out of a BBC Dickens production, but no-one hams it up. There's musical interludes taken from rehearsal tapes and a new song to round it all out. Perfection, or as Ian Dury could of said of Madness as much as Picasso or Einstein 'There ain't half been some clever bastards'. Bravo Nutty Boys!

superb book.tells you all you need to know about the band.