While the current crop of rude boys and girls was just learning to walk, England's two-tone movement was popping. Spearheaded by the Specials (originally the Coventry Automatics), two-tone melded Jamaican ska a la Desmond Dekker with pasty white punk rock -- a hepped-up version of the horn-heavy original. Brit punks latched onto this "second wave" of ska, championing bands like the Specials, English Beat, the Selecter and Madness. But as quickly as the movement caught fire in the late '70s, it faded just a few years later.

The Specials had their first hit in '79 with the single "Gangsters." But in '81, Jerry Dammers (keyboards), Terry Hall (vocals), Roddy Byers (guitars), Neville Staple (vocals), Horace Panter (bass), Lynval Golding (guitars), John Bradbury (drums) disbanded, leaving behind a legacy of politically and socially minded hits like "Rat Race," "Message to You Rudy" and "Ghost Town." Hall, Staple and Golding formed the short-lived Fun Boy Three, Dammers went on to release the hit "Nelson Mandela" under the name Special AKA and the others branched into varying projects.

In '94, Staple, Golding, Panter and Byers reformed the Specials and began work on an album, but struggled to get a deal until the recent explosion of ska's third wave. Guilty Til Proved Innocent is the band's first studio album in fifteen years -- save for a recent covers album the band would rather forget. This new album, which features vocals by Rancid's Lars Frederiksen and Tim Armstrong on the CD's spotlight track "Fearful," is a mix of their old sound with dabblings of everything from country to mariachi trumpets. They've also been busy burning it up live for a new generation.

Rolling Stone caught up with Neville Staple at his new home in California and spoke to him about the Specials' prickly past and the arduous road to their current resurgence in the '90s ska scene.

Was it hard to get back in the studio?

I won't lie and say there were no problems from the word go. We haven't written stuff for a long time together, so therefore everyone's musical tendencies were a little bit one way or a little bit that way. There was a slight little tension, but I guess that's why the album turned out how it has, because I guess the Specials always recorded under a bit of tension.

There's speculation that the reason you came back is because of the resurgence in ska.

Not true. When we came over to the States three or four years ago, we tried to get a record deal and it was like, 'the Specials? Don't know the Specials. Oh, they can't sell this.' At the same time they were saying that, we were selling out 2,000- to 3,000-seat places as the Special Beat [a hybrid of the Specials and the English Beat]. [The Special Beat] was also on tour with Steel Pulse and with Sting ... When we went onstage, they'd look at us for two numbers and go, what the hell have we got here? Then after two numbers, they'd start standing up, they'd start dancing and they'd get into it. They used to come back after the show and say, "Where can I get your record?" So right now, the record companies have jumped on it only because somebody else has done it. It's safe now.

How was that different from when you started out trying to get your first record deal?

It was the same thing all over again. Regardless of what people know you as or what you've done, you've always got to be proving yourself. You're as good as your last record.

How is the third wave of ska different from what you guys did with 2-Tone music [the Specials' influential label]?

Most of the bands now have listened to us as the Specials from way back, or they've heard the record through their brothers and sisters. So they decide now that they want to form a band because they like this music, it says something to them. So when they form their band, the third wave, they're playing it with the music that's around them, that's influenced them. So maybe that's why you're hearing it's not like our ska or the hepcat ska. They might like us, they might like Rancid. When you hear their type of music, it's more fast, American rock.

Do you talk to Jerry Dammers and Terry Hall or John Bradbury?

No, I've got better things to do than sit around a table and argue with guys. Whatever they're doing, good luck to what they're doing, and I mean this sincerely. I'm not pissing about. That's water under the bridge to me ... It's not that I'm frightened of being taken to court again. It's just if I can forget the guys that were in the band and just concentrate on the people in this band.

So you don't let that bother you with this band?

If it did bother me, I wouldn't be doing it. I'm going to have to have an operation on my knee. I've got cuts and bruises all over my body. I would be saying why should I be out there breaking my legs to make money for somebody who is sitting at home? Even when we couldn't get a deal, we were still working. So it was creating a sale for the back catalog. That's why I really don't have anything to say to anybody else. Once they've been running around onstage in my shoes .... When interviews say what was the trouble about the last band, I just try and keep away from it. Because I want to do this differently now than how I was when I was in the original Specials, because that was so negative.

What' s the biggest difference now?

Everybody gets a chance to put their own music, their own songs in. There's not a monopoly on songs in this band. Three or four people write, and if the songs are good, we'll use them.

Was there a problem using the name the Specials?

No. We didn't think anything of it when we were going to call ourselves the Specials, because we were the Specials, we were the majority. So the sound's still the same, the vocals are fine because I used to do vocals as well. And the kids now who buy the old records, they're not like, "Oh that person's not there," they're just there on the night enjoying what we're giving them. It's maybe the old farts who are stuck in the old-fashioned way, "Oh where is what's his name? Where did dooda go?" Those are the old farts stuck in their ways. I don't have time for them, I really don't.

Why do you think your music has lasted?

We were putting over this music, this energetic music, this dancing music, feeling music. At the same time, we were saying something. After you listen to it, you go 'that's nice.' But once you got the album you started listening to it and you started listening to what the words were saying. So it still applies now as when it did then. I think that's why it still carries on. It was a powerful thing.

MARLENE GOLDMAN