His started out on London's 2 Tone scene with a saxophone held together with elastic and ended up playing with one of the UK's biggest Ska revival bands. Meet Madness saxophonist Lee Thompson…

Which bands do you work with besides Madness?

I'm doing gigs with a band called Damaged Goods (formerly Camden Cowboys). We do 50 per cent Madness songs and 50 per cent pop songs. We cover artists such as Amy Winehouse, The Kinks and other Britpop. We only perform the Madness songs that I wrote – tracks like The Prince, Embarrassment and Lovestruck. I wouldn't want to upset the rest of the band.

You got together as The North London Invaders in 1976 before forming Madness. How did the band meet?

I was mates with Mike Barson and Chris Foreman. We used to hang out and we got into music like Roxy Music and David Bowie – I remember trying to dress up as Bryan Ferry! That was when pub rock was big and we went to see live bands and artists such as Ian Dury. We liked what we saw so we decided to get into it ourselves. We made Chris go out and get a guitar and I bought myself an old sax held together with elastic bands. We all managed to get better instruments and we started practising in school halls, though we'd always end up back at Mike's mum's house.

Why was Ska a particular favourite of yours – had you grown up around Reggae?

We did Rock & Roll first, then Reggae. Then the 2 Tone thing was started in Coventry by bands such as The Specials. It took off and we were in the right place at the right time. Who were your musical heroes? Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, black American music, 60s Britpop. I was also a great fan of Glam – artists such as David Bowie really appealed to me. You have collaborated and performed with some of the most respected names in the business – from Ian Dury and Elvis Costello to UB40 and Prince Buster.

Who are you most proud to have worked with and why?

The moment that stands out has to be when I met Ian Dury – it was just phenomenal and like it was meant to be. Years earlier I had asked him for his autograph and he just barked at me. Then I was working on this wonderful track called Drip Fed Fred – a tongue-in-cheek song about a gangster – and I was writing it on Mike's barge. I finished it in one night, and when I got back to the hotel I saw Ian doing an interview. I told him about the song and he asked me to come round to his house to play it. Then he came down to the studio to do the same song and he recorded it in three or four takes. That was my golden moment.

You penned quite a few of the Madness hits, including Embarrassment – where do you get the ideas for your songs?

I like to write about anything serious that I can make comical. I like bittersweet songs.

Are you still writing your own material?

I'm still writing with my old school friend Keith Finch. He's written with all the greats – Derek Morgan, Desmond Dekker, all the greats have been up in Keith's attic writing with him. We're writing Ska material and we're getting a live band together for a September gig.

Your performance of The Prince on Top of the Pops propelled you into the limelight. How did it feel to get recognition at last and was being on TOTP a buzz?

It was great doing TOTP, but no different than playing in the pub down the road. I remember standing in the rain at Archway in North London and our manager turned up with seven discs – one for each of us. I remember the 2 Tone label with my name on it as I had written the track, and I thought, “I've made it”. That was good enough for me.

You performed your Number 1 hit House of Fun live on The Young Ones – were the cast as mental as they came across on screen?

It was a lot more controlled than it looked. We performed House of Fun and then Our House on an outdoor stage and the cast were faking a riot scene. I had a saxophone made out of plastic and I jumped from a wall and hit the camera with the sax. Splinters of plastic came off and broke the camera guard. Thank god it wasn't the lens – breaking that would have set me back £30,000.

The band also achieved notoriety and success in the US – how did it feel to be known on an international level?

We had more of a cult following over there. We played the deep South where you would see about a dozen Stetson hats just standing there, along with a horse in the corner. Also Suggs was told that he would have to sing in an American accent and that we'd have to live out there for six months to crack the market. We couldn't stand being homesick so we didn't do it. We're more popular in the US now than ever before. We supported Beck and Oasis at an outdoor festival over there in 2006 with a 40,000-strong audience.

What is the best gig/venue you have ever played and why?

A gig in Turin. We just turned up, looked through the curtain at the crowd and it seemed to go on forever – it was the size of Wembley Arena and it was a bit daunting. It even gave me butterflies, which I quite enjoyed.

Did Mike Barson's departure in 1985 and the release of your album Mad Not Mad on your own record label, Jarjazz, signal the decline of Madness?

Definitely. There were so many little bombs going off at the time with Stiff Records and the management. We had a crew and an office that cost a fortune every month and it was a rudderless ship going down. Now playing with the band again is a joy.

You're performing with Madness at London's O2 arena in December – how does it feel playing to a venue that vast?

Personally, I prefer Butlins. The crowd get really stuck in and enjoy themselves. Once the starter gun goes off, I tell the security guys to lock down the doors and not let anyone out until we've finished our show. The atmosphere is great at Butlins, because no one has anything to prove. When we turned up at Minehead recently we were faced with a group of guys all dressed as Borat. And one time we reached our dressing room to find a load of 60-year-olds dressed as schoolgirls in there!

Any exciting plans in the near future?

I'm still playing with Damaged Goods and I'm putting a band together called The Dance Brigade, which will have a Ska/Reggae sound.