UB40 Musician Bankrupt, Joins UB40 Tribute Band

Brian Travers, the former saxophonist with the hugely successful British band, UB40, has looked to get back into the music scene after several years of financial turmoil, by joining a UB40 tribute act.

Travers founded UB40, who went on to sell over 70 million records across the world during the height of the popularity, and decided to get on stage with UB42, impersonators of UB40, over the weekend.

The 54-year-old played along to the hits, “Can’t Help Falling In Love” and “I Got You Babe” at a pub in the British city of Ipswich, and he also joined by other members of the band’s brass section, with Laurence Perry and Martin Meredith joining in.

Brian was declared bankrupt two years ago, along with four other band members after their record label collapsed, and the foursome were even being asked to pay over $1million in debts.

Travers revealed that he enjoyed playing with the act again, stating, “I know of about twenty UB40 tribute bands around the world and it’s my ambition to play with all of them. I can’t think of a better way of thanking them for celebrating the music of UB40.” He added, “It was a great honour. The pub was full of lovely people and I had a lovely time.”

Pete Ryder, who is the lead singer of UB42, revealed that he has been friends with Travers with some years and that they’d talked about a collaboration for a while.

Ryder stated, “He always said he’d come and play with us one day but he just never had the time. Then when their tour was postponed, he said, ‘I’ll do it’ so I said ‘Do you want to come to Ipswich?’ He was really good. He said he loved playing with us and it was great to have him there.”

Travers, who wasn’t paid for the gig, revealed that UB40 are still touring across Europe and plan to release another album, Getting Over The Storm, in the next few months.

[Image via Egghead06/wikimedia]