Nige Tassell used to go to school in full donkey-jacket-and-woolly-hat ensemble to express his boundless devotion to Dexys Midnight Runners. Forty years later he set out to find and interview everyone who’d ever been a member. For some, their time in the ranks was a joyful, career-launching delight. Others felt it was like a slightly chilly and controlling cult. They all took a while to recover and they all had extraordinary stories to tell in his latest book ‘Searching For Dexys Midnight Runners’. Here’s a flavour of what gets discussed …

… ‘No drugs or alcohol! No smiling! No eye contact with the audience!’ and other unsettling Dexys mantras.

… examples of Kevin Rowland ‘snatching defeat from the jaws of victory’.

… the many ways the band made themselves deliberately different’.

… the event supporting Bowie that got their power cut onstage in Paris and had them thrown off the tour.

... the heavy-handed recruitment of Helen O’Hara.

… Geno Washington and other strands of the Dexys DNA.

… the ad they took in the NME that soured their relationship with the music press.

… and how Rowland’s approach today remains resolutely unchanged.

Order Nige’s book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Searching-Dexys-Midnight-Runners-Tassell/dp/178512059X

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