Biography

May 22, 1955 · Ootacamund, India

Dammers publicly opposed Paul Simon's decision to record his album Graceland in Apartheid South Africa in the 1980s. When Simon played the first of six nights at London's Royal Albert Hall on April 7 1987, Dammers joined Paul Weller and Billy Bragg in protesting outside and delivered a letter demanding that Simon give a "complete and heartfelt apology to the UN General Assembly".

[on Paul Simon and "Graceland"] The leadership of the South African people made it clear that a campaign of sanctions against isolating Apartheid South Africa was the way to get rid of Apartheid. History has shown it was the correct strategy. With any boycott, if you start making an exception for this pop musician, or that professor, then the whole campaign is in danger of being undermined... To walk into that situation in defiance of an established boycott was very irresponsible, and predictably proved extremely divisive.

It helped that you had someone who was the very embodiment of evil in power. You have to remember that it was an incredibly politicised era. People were arguing in pubs about monetarism, inflation and unemployment. Everything became political. Not mentioning Thatcher, in a way, was as political as singing about her!

The whole reason people still remember The Specials is we were one of the last bands with something to say. To come back with nothing to say doesn't seem right.

I never wanted to just be in a good pop band. I always wanted it to be a great British band, like The Who or the Small Faces.