Interview: Mark King of Level 42 on Their Australian Tour Debut
By Leanne Hollis
For more than four decades, Level 42 have fused jazz-funk musicianship with polished pop songwriting, powered by Mark King’s unmistakable slap-bass style. Formed in 1979 by King, keyboardist Mike Lindup and brothers Phil and Boon Gould, the British band grew from its jazz-funk roots into an international success. Its best-known songs include “The Sun Goes Down (Living It Up)”, “Something About You”, “Running in the Family” and “Lessons in Love”, the latter reaching No. 3 on the UK Singles Chart. Across their career, Level 42 have achieved six UK Top 10 singles and seven UK Top 10 albums.
January 2027 will see Level 42 arrive in Australia for the very first time, delivering a career-spanning live show featuring songs from the landmark album World Machine and a host of fan favourites. Renowned for their exceptional musicianship and infectious stage presence, the band promises a performance that showcases the very best of their celebrated catalogue.
Released in 1985, World Machine marked a pivotal moment for Level 42, blending jazz-funk sophistication with chart-ready melodies and bold musical ambition. The album became a cornerstone of the band’s success and continues to be praised as one of the defining releases of the decade, admired for its timeless sound and enduring appeal.
In this warm and wide-ranging conversation with Leanne Hollis (aka “Skip”), King reflects on the band’s long journey, the joy of playing alongside Lindup, and Level 42’s eagerly awaited Australian tour. He also discusses the instrumental B-sides that captured the group at its most spontaneous, the loss of his songwriting partner Boon Gould, and the treasured JD bass that helped define both his sound and a family guitar-making legacy.
Mark King: Is that a backdrop behind you, or are you really sitting in a beautiful studio?
Leanne: Well, like, I wish it was a beautiful studio, but it’s actually a backdrop. I got so many selections and it’s so funny, but I like this one because it’s got a big, massive keys.
Mark King: My backdrop is real.
Leanne: My goodness. Wow.
Mark King: We’ve got a lot of guitars.
Leanne: Oh, I love guitars. And you’ve got your drum set in the back there.
Mark King: Yeah, there’s a drum room in the back. There’s another wall of guitars in there. I’ve got a lot of guitars hung up, which kind of defeats the purpose of the soundproofing that I have in there, because that sounds now bouncing off the guitars. But they are one of the real joys in my life.
My youngest daughter, Marley, who is not that young anymore, actually. She turned 30 a couple of weeks back. She shares my absolute fascination with guitars. So I was able to buy her for her 30th birthday; a 1969 Gibson Black Beauty, Gibson Custom-made. And it’s absolutely beautiful. There are many nights we’ve been on the sofa watching TV, and she’s drinking a bottle of wine, and she’ll say, “Hey, Dad, what we need? A really lovely guitar” and I go, “Yes. And of course, because we’ve had a glass of wine, we go online, find one and buy it.”
Leanne: So yeah. That’s amazing. Have you been to Australia before?
Mark King: I have family in Perth. My eldest daughter, Florrie. She lives there with our two grandchildren, Bastian and Lova, and her lovely husband, Gary. So I’ve been to Perth. I’ve been to Perth 3 or 4 times. I’ve never been over the east side, though. I’ve never been to Melbourne, Sydney or, the whole thing. So Perth, I know about and it’s quite nice because when we come over in January we’re actually kicking off the Australian tour in Perth. So it’ll be a bit of a family reunion for me.
Mark King: So where are you?
Leanne: I’m in Perth. I’m coming to see you in. I think it’s January. I’m coming to see you because I’ve got Nathan on my Facebook. Your brother, he said to come.
Mark King: Oh, yeah. Why have you got him on your Facebook?
Leanne: Well, I don’t know, but he’s on there anyway.
Mark King: I’d block him.
Leanne: haha… So there’s about eight of us coming to see you.
Mark King: Oh great stuff.
Leanne: You got an album out tomorrow…
Mark King: Yeah. So it’s a collection of instrumentals and B-sides that were from our very early years, and so in a lot of ways it’s going to be a new record for a lot of people, but it’s all instrumentals.
And the reason for that is because when back in the early 80s, you’d say you’d come up with a song that you released as a single, you go and record the song and they’d say, ‘What are we going to put on the B-side?’ And so we always have to go, ‘Don’t know.’ ‘Haven’t really thought about that.’ And then we’d go in the studio and jam, and we didn’t have to worry about coming up with lyrics or many lines as such. And so we just used to sit down and do what we really enjoyed doing. So you get like a seven-minute track, and we chop that around a bit, and there you end up with the B-side.
And another thing is that, because we’re all involved in coming up with a lot of these instrumentals, a B-side sells the same number of records as the A-side does, because it’s on the B-side of the A-side. So, it was a great…because just 2 or 3 of us had written the A-side…and everybody got a shout on the B-side because it sold just as many records.
Leanne: So your last album was released some time ago…
Mark King: Well, if it’s not compilations, because they’re forever releasing compilation albums of ours. There are some really good collections out there. But our actual last, we put out an EP in 2013, maybe 2014, and it was called Sirens. And it was kind of a throwback to a lot of the sort of club music we were making back in the day, and it was very enjoyable to do and really sort of quite easy to do.
And it was something that I thought, well, maybe the fans would like to hear some of you, but I remember when we went out and we toured that year, and I said, like, this. These are some new songs that we’re going to be playing…and the audience almost go, ‘oh, no’
Leanne: Oh really?
Mark King: Well, I kind of understand that. I know what it’s like when, if I go and see, what are my heroes or something, I go and see Todd Rundgren or any artist that I really love. I really want to hear those great songs and tracks that I love from them, back through the 70s and the 80s.
I don’t particularly want to go down some jazz odyssey that they’ve just sort of come up with when actually they’re bereft of ideas. All the good ideas were back in the day. Now, I get that. And also to is that the rather tragically, I lost my songwriting partner, my main songwriting partner, Boon Gould, back in 2019.
So, for me, kind of some of the thrill of sitting down and knocking something together with a pal has just kind of disappeared for me. But it’s not the end of the world. And because we have such a big catalog of songs that there’s no shortage of tracks to play, that’s for sure.
Leanne: I can’t wait to see. I’m so excited. I’m a huge fan. I’ve just, I just, so I’m just looking at you like, oh. Still growing up and seeing you. So it’s just, I can’t believe you’re here talking to me. So I was like telling Sheldon, ‘oh my God, what do I say?’ But yeah, it’s just fantastic seeing you there with all your instruments in the back. I read that you played drums first.
Mark King: Yeah, I did as a drummer. I think that any musician really should have a basic sort of fundamental knowledge of drums, because it just gives you a great grounding in time. And it’s also really easy. Drums are easy.
Leanne: Yeah that’s amazing. So you sold out on the first day of the Australian tour, like in the first day.
Mark King: It did. Yeah, which is pretty cool. And we’ve tried to come to Australia before but yeah circumstances prevailed like Covid just got in the way and that stuff. And then the second round of Covid got in the way of the rescheduled dates. And it’s obviously, some things are actually bigger than us going on tour.
Yeah. And a pandemic is one of those things I’m afraid. But it doesn’t matter because now we’re coming. We’re coming over in January. Yeah. We’re starting off in Perth and then we’re hopping over to the East Coast, and we’re doing six shows in all, which is absolutely lovely. Yeah. Then we hop on a bit further east, and we go over to New Zealand, and we play a couple of festivals there. So we’re really, looking forward to it.
Leanne: Brilliant. So that’s it. I guess so many questions like I could rebel on all day, but I’ve only got a little while to talk to you. But I look forward to seeing you when you come here. And hopefully we grab a photo and stuff like that. So that would be amazing.
Mark King: That’d be great.
Leanne: Must be surreal, isn’t it to do what you do.
Mark King: Well, I’ve counted my Blessings that I’ve been able to be doing this for, like, 46 years now. And Level 42 has been the only real band I’ve ever been in. I’ve played in other bands as a kid; at the age of 11, I was in Pseudo Foot, and I was playing three nights a week.
I think it’s amazing that my mum and dad have always been so supportive of me. Yeah, a good lesson for other parents out there. If the kid wants to do it, then let the kid sort of go and see what.
Leanne: Yeah, Living It Up is my favorite song.
Mark King: We’ll play that…Do that one for you, man. The Sun Goes Down
Leanne: Yeah I love that one. So who’s in the lineup? IS Mike Lindup in the lineup?
Mark King: Mike has been we had a little hiatus at rest between 1994 and 2002 where we went off and did our own things. And then, as I was sort of starting to go out again with Mark King, I just ended up playing all Level 42 songs and then just seeing the logical thing as well.
So I was like, ‘Let’s, get the band back and go out and do that.’ And so Mike’s a joy for me to play with. And I’ve known Mike for 47 years, 48 years now. And so we know each other inside out. So there are things that you don’t have to explain or talk about; we understand each other.
And that’s lovely because things just happen. And they happen in a way that works for all of us. And I’ve got my brother, as you mentioned, Nathan King on guitar. We’ve got a wonderful brass section. Sean Freeman, Dan Carpenter, and Nicol Thompson. So we got sax, trumpet, trombone and they’re great. I mean, they’ve been with us since 2012 now.
And they have real dynamics. And it was lovely for Mike and I because so many of the Level 42 songs lent themselves to having brass arrangements on. And very often when we were in the studio, we’d have Gary Barnacle come in and play. John had come in and played trumpet, and so to take them out on the road was just great.
Mark King: And they’re also great fun to watch, do amazing players. We’ve got a brilliant drummer, Pete Ray, and Pete, like, we always think of him as the baby of the band, but he’s not really that young anymore. It’s just when you’re 67, everybody seems young, so everybody else seems.
Leanne: So do you have a favorite bass that you like? Is that on the wall behind you there.
Mark King: Yeah. I’ve got one of my favorite bass. It really is the first bass I ever owned which is my JD supernatural serial number SA 0003. And it’s, it was we got our first advance, having made the first record all on borrowed equipment. We got an advance from Polydor Records, and we each had 500 pounds to go out and equip ourselves.
And so with my 500, I was supposed to pick up a bass and an amplifier, but I went into a music store on Channel Cross Road in London Sounds, which isn’t there anymore. And this bass was just there, and it called to me. So I played the bass and I said to the guys, I said, this is beautiful. How much is it?
They said, ‘Oh, 725 pounds.’ I said, I haven’t got that; I’ve only got 500. And I said, can you do anything? And they said, well, we’re actually selling it for somebody. So we’ll give them a call to see what they say. And they called John Diggins, the guy that built the bass, and he was such a sweetheart.
And he said, ‘yeah, okay, let him have £500’. So I got this bass. And the great thing is that thanks to John’s generosity of let me have the base at a knockdown price with the very sort of a couple of months after that, we got on top of the pops with this song called Love Games, and everybody saw the bass.
And then suddenly John Diggins was inundated with requests to make a bass like that for them. And John had his whole career. He passed away a couple of years back now, but his whole career was sort of making these wonderful bass guitars. And today, his sons and grandsons still carry on the family business of making these lovely guitars and basses.
It’s amazing that there’s a whole family career out of this thing. And today, this very day, if you want to order one, there’s a waiting list of two and a half years. So there’s still and the very bass I’m talking about. I can’t show you Leanne because it’s in London; it’s in the Victorian Albert East Museum…as an exhibit, as part of the Music is Black exhibition that they’ve got on now. So I won’t get the bass back until January, unfortunately. So I may get to bring it out to the stage.
I’ve got another one. Another one here. This is the Star Child bass. And this was another; once again it’s JD.
And John made it for me. We had a single out called Starchild. And John did this lovely star child in the neck and stuff. It is beautiful. Yeah.
Leanne: That’s amazing.
Mark King: Yeah. Lovely.
Leanne: Oh thank you. Well, thank you so much, Mark. It’s been a pleasure.
Mark King: You’re welcome.
Leanne: For your time. And I look forward to meeting you.
Mark King: Thank you so much. A Privilege. It’s been lovely talking to you. Come and say hello in January, right?
Leanne: Of course.
Mark King: All right.
Leanne: Bye. Take care. Bye.
LEVEL 42 January 2027 Australian Tour Dates
Monday 18 January – Astor Theatre, Perth – SOLD OUT
Tuesday 19 January – Astor Theatre, Perth – 2nd Show
Thursday 21 January – The Gov, Adelaide
Friday 22 January – Palais Theatre, Melbourne
Sunday 24 January – Enmore Theatre, Sydney
Wednesday 27 January – Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane
Tickets On Sale Now: https://www.destroyalllines.com/tours/level-42
Check out
‘Lessons In Love’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t256k9aZd-4&list=RDt256k9aZd-4&start_radio=1
‘Something About You’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpdQQoc-gkk&list=RDzpdQQoc-gkk&start_radio=1
‘Running In The Family’:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpVVDaQU9eE&list=RDHpVVDaQU9eE&start_radio=1
