Boredom, or a lack of hit tunes, they had a long time coming – if any at all, perhaps lack of recognition in changing times, a somewhat downward spiral…?
No, I wouldn’t look at it that way because the reason for saying that I don’t look at it that way is during that time when we were singing, we were thinking of music. We were not thinking of making hits that is gonna bring us money. We just loved the music. It was something that we wanted to do in music. So I don’t think that it’s that downside of it, really. It’s just something to do at the time, that’s what I’m concluding here. Yeah, I just think it’s something to do because as I said to you earlier I was standing there the other day and waiting on someone and get out me rizzla… (laughs)! So, you know, it’s just something to do.

And to kill time.
Yeah, to kill time. And then it became, you know, what is called “practice and practice becomes perfect”. So it is when practicing you get it perfect. Now that’s what I break it down to. And also sometimes bad habits as well. ‘Cos bad habits weh you pick up from other people…

Or a lack of self-discipline perhaps?
Yes. That’s the right word! That’s the right word, and that’s where now… I’m saying to you now the moral state of mind is more important than the money. Because without that moral stand your self-esteem is at peak. So, yeah… that self discipline have to be there. I like that word.

So Batman and Delroy, were they not that close?
Oh yeah, they were close. Very close. Yeah man, very close.

And yet still so different individuals, as far as characters is concerned?
Yeah, they had different characters, they both live with their mom. On Second Street. Even though she don’t know sometimes where Batman is and what he is doing. He would come home…

Well, it cannot be easy to have someone like that in the family, for the neighborhood and all that, the little family reputation that you have?
Oh no, it wasn’t. You’d hear sometime from some neighbour, “You know seh OK, that will have to be your son a doing that?” And she’d say, “Looord, gaaawd – me nuh know this!” (laughs)! “Me nuh know, a yu tell me now!” (chuckles). Things like that happened. It was a moulding period for me. Because I was like a sponge. I was the one who… like I would sit there and take in every new thing…

Observing.
Yeah man, and I was absorbing everything. I was the sponge. Even the other day Wailing Souls was here, last year. And we were saying – I was telling them something that happened at me house in the sixties. And they said “Bwoy! You remember that?!” I said “Yes!” Because they were there but because they were the one’s doing it, it might not have been a part of their memory. But because I was the one seeing it and hearing it, it stuck out there. So I can remind them of things that they jus’ take for granted. Or, that they took for granted then. But, I was the sponge, man. I was soakin’ up, soak up everything. I can tell them stories now that would make their hairs stand on end. Them would a say, “Bwoy, yu remember dat?!”

That’s why you should write a book!
Yeah, I am, I am… I am thinking of it. Because I’ve got a legacy. I’ve got a legacy of Trench Town, I’ve got a legacy of Rastafari, I’ve got a legacy of the Wailers. So I’ve got three legacies there.

OK. Back to Knowledge now, finally. But, before that I would like to know your previous experience in the music, before you and Michael Smith decided to form the group back in 1974? Was there any involvement in other unrecorded or recorded groups or solo venture before this?
Yes. For instance, the first time I went into a recording studio, was to record for Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry. I was in school then, so was about ’69. And, I had a duet. A friend of mine named Norman Edwards, he’s a teacher now in Jamaica – educated, we were in school together. But he loved the singing, and so did I. So, we decided to form a duet. And, we wrote some songs, a song that said… I remember Norman wrote the song, and I finished it too. Like, it said (sings): “We need more civilisation, we need more organisation, in this world, all the nations, all the nations…”.

Is that you?? I don’t know, that’s a Stingers song, I think?
“… have gone astray” (laughs)! So, yeah! We did that for Lee Perry. And…

They were called The Stingers, or something like that, but I’m not sure…?
I don’t… to be honest with you, I don’t remember the name that we had!

Wait, I’ve got to check the CD, incidentally I have it here on a table… one moment (then I turn around and grab a CD from a bunch of Steve Barrow-linked eighties compilations for Trojan, and excellent they are too I should add!).
You’re joking, are you…?

Let me just have a moment, put it into the computer… You haven’t heard this tune in a long long time, I suppose?
I’ve never heard the song! I’d never… I didn’t even know that it published!

Maybe there was a mix-up… a different group who…
… who “did” it? Yeah, maybe Lee Perry did it. Maybe Lee Perry gave it to somebody else?

It’s possible, because I mean that was common practice in the business in those days?
Oh yeah! That was part of the commonality in Jamaica at the time.

… let me see now? Yes, it’s by The Classics, track titled ‘Civilization’.
“The Classics”? Ah, let me hear… now? If you…

(Some silence, and finally the track starts to play) OK, here it is, can you hear…?
(After a few bars) That’s it! (sings along) “… the nations have gooone astray…”. Yeah! Yeah – that’s it!!

Recognise it?
(Excitedly) That’s the song!!

That’s the song?
That’s the SONG!! Where did you get that from??!