With a new album on the way, a tour starting in April and their festival, Beautiful Days, gathering force with each summer, the Levellers are as busy as ever. We caught up with singer and guitarist Mark Chadwick at a pub in his current hometown Lewes to discuss his upcoming solo record, what keeps the folk-punk band going strong and whether today’s music is missing the ‘point’.

“We’ve stayed the same and the world’s changed around us,” jokes Mark when we ask him how the Levellers have progressed over the last 22 years.

He’s half-right. The band continues to consistently play packed gigs where their fans dance themselves into the dust, drunk on the unwavering energy of a live Levellers performance. They even throw in a few of their classics for good measure.

But while they may not have changed much, neither has the world. Not really. Two of the events that birthed Mark’s musical career into being took place when Britain was gripped with recession. “When I left school in 1982, it was a recession. The band didn’t form until the recession after that.

“Obviously when I left school at the end of the 80s recession I didn’t get employment…that’s how I ended up being a musician to be honest. It was the only way I could see to survive because there weren’t any jobs.” Thank God there weren’t.

Seriously though, what has changed? Not the band’s politics. Mark credits the Levellers’ communist view of money, which they’ve held from the beginning, with keeping them from splitting up. He doesn’t seem to see the logic in getting paid differently according to the work done. He tells us that anyone in the room while a song is coming together is considered to have participated in the writing process even if they were simply sitting there.

“I think most bands, if not all bands, stay away from politics these days… what you hear on the radio is versions of love and sex and that subject’s been pretty much covered and I think we live in very interesting times. Why not comment upon them as well?

“I mean, people used to, you know, in the 60s and 70s and 80s, people always used to write political music, 90s not so much apart from the Levellers maybe. Now: nobody. Even in folk music it’s kind of disappeared which is weird, you know.

“The bottom line for all music is that it has to entertain. Not necessarily inform.” The Levellers’ music has always done both. The gents are writing a new album and are taking their time about it too but Mark suspects it will be a “punky, fast thing”.

Meanwhile, he’s had the time to work on “All the pieces”, the solo project he’s launching this autumn, which he describes as acoustic and gentle. He is joined on the album by the likes of acclaimed folk artists Catherine Roberts and the Lakeman brothers.

With all this talk of what the band is up to, we can’t miss an opportunity to ask about their popular festival, Beautiful Days – a throwback to the free festivals of the past. The Levellers have performed at Glastonbury from since its early days and attracted one of the largest stage-front audiences the festival had ever seen in their legendary 1994 set.

What’s missing from Glastonbury today? We expect Mark to talk about what commercialism has done to it but actually he’s more concerned about the lack of local beer and tells us that Beautiful Days makes sure there’s an abundance.

“People have tried to buy [Beautiful Days] off us. Glastonbury tried to buy it off us. But no, we’re not having it. It’s ours,” says Mark though he later laughs that the people of Devon think it’s their festival and don’t even know it is run by the Levellers.

Beautiful Days kicks off on August 21st this year. Manchester rock band James are the Saturday headliners and amongst the long list in the lineup are The Wailers and, of course, the Levellers themselves.

The guys haven’t seen each other in about three months. As they gear up to go on tour, Mark says: “It’s like old friends. It’s like putting on an old suit. We’re always that comfortable.” Actually, Mark, we feel it too.

Adele Jarrett-Kerr

Buy a Levellers album from: