Suggs has admitted Madness "saved [his] life".
The 58-year-old frontman – who was born in Hastings, Sussex, in 1961, but moved around a lot, living in Wales, Liverpool and finally settling North London – has admitted it was difficult growing up because there weren’t many opportunities and everyone was hard up, and he credits joining the ‘Baggy Trousers’ group in the 1970s’ with putting him on the straight and narrow.
In an interview with the Daily Star newspaper’s Wired column, he said: "Madness saved my life. From where I came from, there was no real options for me, seriously.
"I was talking about it with Ali from UB40 because they came from a rough part of Birmingham. It was the music and and their friendship that saved them.
"It was the same for Madness. There weren’t very many ways I was going to get out of that situation."
Suggs says the band plan to keep going for as long as their fans turn up to their shows.
He vowed: "We’re just going to keep going until we can’t sell tickets!"
Things got so bad, that the ‘Our House’ singer used to pinch clothes from charity shops.
He recalled: "You’d go in the cubicle, take the clothes, put them on under what you were wearing and walk out."
Madness have been performing for more than 40 years and Suggs recently admitted he can hardly believe the band has lasted this long.
He said: "It is amazing, that we’ve been able to do this for so long. It constantly surprises me – for me, I’m one of those people that the 80s only feel like ten years ago to me.
"It’s a privilege to still be doing this, we’ve done festivals all over Britain and still enjoying it, which is great.
"We spend more time arguing than anything else, but it’s healthy and we all still get on great and that’s the major important point about it.
"I’m name-dropping terribly here but Paul Weller was standing in my kitchen chatting about this very thing the other day, and of course, he famously dropped his band [The Jam].
"He was saying how do we do it, how is it we’re all still together and still close?
"I said that democracy is a very difficult thing, and it’s hard but the fact is that for important decisions we all have to agree.
"Everything you see us do, we’re all on board with. If there’s something that we could do, if one person in the band doesn’t want to, the chances are we won’t do it."
Suggs: Madness saved my life
