Keith Allen has revealed he still earns a five-figure sum each year thanks to England anthem ‘Vindaloo’.
Actor and presenter Allen, 70, was one third of the British band Fat Les, whose debut single was an unofficial song for the Three Lions ahead of the 1998 World Cup. He wrote it as a parody of football chants.
But it fast became popular with fans and reached as high as No.2 in the charts, behind only the equally-iconic Three Lions. It still re-emerges for every major tournament 26 years on.
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And that makes Allen, who also co-wrote New Order’s smash hit World in Motion for Italia ’90, a pretty penny. Asked if he still gets royalties for his footy-related records, he told The Telegraph: “Oh God yeah, a lot, probably about £20,000 a year.
“I mean, I get more money from Vindaloo than a lot of things. I’m always earning money off Vindaloo. The song gets used for all sorts of things and various campaigns. In fact it’s going to be used for one for Deliveroo.”
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Allen joined forces with Blur bassist Alex James and Pink Floyd member Guy Pratt to form Fat Les, and added: “Guy played bass on it and he’s earned more money from Vindaloo than anything he’s ever done with Pink Floyd.”
He previously gave his views on why it became so widely liked in an interview with PA. “The thing about ‘Vindaloo’ is that it is what I call a close proximity tune,” Allen said.
“It is not sung in stadiums. You don’t get 60,000 people singing ‘Vindaloo’, but you do get 20 million people in pubs singing ‘Vindaloo’. It is a pub folk song. That’s what it is. So as long as we have got pubs you will have ‘Vindaloo’.
“We knew immediately that it was going to be big because it ticks all the boxes. But the most coveted thing about ‘Vindaloo’ is it captures that unique England sense of humour.
“And the video certainly captures that. It is very quintessentially English and I think people like that.”
