UB40 singer Ali Campbell says ‘let them sue’ over long running feud with brother

UB40 singer Ali Campbell talks about his long running family feud over the band name UB40

He’ll always be a lad from Birmingham, but Ali Campbell is now a seasoned globe-trotter.

The UB40 singer is heading for Birmingham as part of a world tour.

He flew to Shanghai to make his debut in mainland China, while talking about playing exotic places like Papua New Guinea.

Ali has even been a judge on New Zealand’s Got Talent.

It seems reggae is a hit in places you’d never expect.

“This year we will be on every continent, all over the world like a good rash,” declares Ali, 55.

“We are riding the crest of a wave.

“We’ve been playing Dubai, Kuala Lumpur and Papua New Guinea.

“That last venue was weird. We did a corporate gig at the airport hotel, where there was a swimming pool between us and the audience.

“We got hailed off in Dubai, it poured with rain then there were huge hail stones and we had to call the gig off. That doesn’t happen often in the desert.

“We do seem to bring the rain. In Zimbabwe there had been six months of drought until we started singing.

“In Santa Fe, in the desert in New Mexico, there was an actual flood which washed away our equipment and I remember seeing my amp float past me.

Original members of UB40, Ali Campbell, Astro and Mickey Virtue at Catton Park, in May 2014.
Not that Ali is neglecting his British fans. He is back in Birmingham on December 19 playing the O2 Academy, a show that quickly sold out leading to them adding a date at Barclaycard Arena (formerly the NIA) on April 17.

It’s a far cry from their very first gig on February 9, 1979.

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There’s a plaque outside the Hare and Hounds pub in Kings Heath commemorating the event, when they played at a friend’s birthday party.

“We were all so nervous, we were walking round with our instruments on for half an hour before we started playing,” remembers Ali, who has a new album out called Silhouette.

“It was awful. We’d been used to playing in a cellar, without microphones or a PA system.

“We were lucky, we’d only done a dozen shows when Chrissie Hynde discovered us at the Rock Garden in London and asked us to support The Pretenders on tour.”