IT WAS FORTY YEARS AGO TODAY...

...that Mark King’s flying thumb first blew our minds and, in doing so, opened up a whole new era for the bass guitar. As Level 42 celebrate their fourth decade in business, we sit down with King and take a look back—with the benefit of 2020 vision

- Joel McIver

Mark King has been on the cover of this magazine quite a few times in its existence, and as befits a bass player of his profile, when interviewing him we’d normally take him out to dinner, do a photoshoot in a posh hotel, quaff a series of fine cocktails and generally behave in a thoroughly celebratory manner. Today, though—or rather on April 22, 2020, some weeks at least before you read this—he and I are sitting at our computers in our respective home offices. That’s the current pandemic for you.

Still, though, there’s an air of celebration throughout our chat: King’s band, Level 42, have reached their 40th anniversary this year. What better time to look back at a career at the cutting-edge of bass guitar?

First off, it emerges that Level 42 have been hit by the same wave of gig cancelations as every other performing band. This virus is no respecter of anniversaries, apparently. “We’ve had so many shows drop off the calendar because of lockdown, but obviously we’re not alone there,” explains King. “It’s happened for so many bands, but we had a particularly busy year set up. We had a big Australasian tour, with 10 shows in Japan, three shows in Australia, a show in New Zealand and a show in Singapore: They went straight away. We were doing an orchestrated thing with the BBC Concert Hall on 16 March, too, but that didn’t happen for obvious reasons.”