Imperial Leisure headline Portsmouth charity's day-long Tonic Fest (Never Mind The Stigma) at The Wedgewood Rooms

Twelve acts are due to appear across the day, taking place in The Wedgewood Rooms, Southsea, on Saturday, November 26 from 1pm until late. From local favourites like South Coast Ghosts and Emilyah and The Mightyz All Stars to national cult acts like Will and The People.

The day also marks the launch of a new suicide prevention programme by Tonic Music For Mental Health. Any profits from the day will be used to set up trust funds for the children of the three people who have recently died by suicide.

Topping the day’s bill are ska/rock collective Imperial Leisure, who recently returned to active duty after calling it a day in 2019. Frontman and co-founder Denis Smith says: ‘We had ended it – there was no intention of coming back. Initially it was going to be a break, but that manifested into a permanent change and not doing any more band stuff.

‘Weirdly enough, the forced break everybody else had with Covid changed everything. For some people it changed things with their bands stopping, in our case, it actually made us have the enthusiasm to do it again.

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‘Two things happened – Scott (Vining, co-founder) and I got together, just chewing the fat. I'd just opened this new shop in Brighton, and I was just going to work in there, and I had this little basement studio downstairs. So we sat in the front of this shop and just got drunk for days on end, because we had nothing else to do. We couldn't open the shop, so we used it as a place to drink gin and tonics and watch the world go by. We just became our own live art exhibit for a bit!

‘Then we started making tunes, but not with any idea where it was going – it was just making music for the fun of it because we both knew we'd like to make some music. We weren't talking Imperial Leisure – it was just random music we were making for fun.

‘Then Covid hit again with the second wave and we realised this thing's here to stay. A lot of stuff went down in both our personal lives – not to go into too much detail – but things got pretty dark. Combined with this oppressive environment everyone was under, and this forced life change everyone had to deal with, it put the shockwaves through us. It was like having a defibrillator attached to the carcass of Imperial Leisure, and it brought us back to life.

‘About a year after we had our boozy get togethers, we were back in the studio recording ideas. We were still thinking, “what is this?” but it was definitely heading in an Imperial Leisure direction.

‘The second time we were in the studio, we ended up doing this small gig down the road from where we were recording in Cornwall, and although it was only the two of us, it was like, “This is us getting the band back together, isn't it?” After that we made the announcement that we'd been in the studio and people started asking us to play shows again.’

With band numbers flexible, there are currently 10 in the touring posse.

‘Imperial Leisure's always been a bit of a squad scenario,’ Denis chuckles, ‘borrowing someone from over there, and adding on and taking off from the original core group. Scott and I are the founders – we're the brain and the spinal cord of the band if you like, then we have a bit of muscle which brings it all to life. At the moment we've got a nice big brass section and we've gone with a couple of synths this time round. And in the past we've had two or three vocalists, but we've decided to just go with one this time. We've got a viola player in there too. It's still a big band!’

There’s also a new album, their fourth – Through the Mountain. But they’ve opted for a tiered release, inspired by festival ticketing systems.

‘One of the main reasons we stopped in the first place was the way things worked – we had hit a dead end – we weren't happy with it. We'd been knocking around for a few years, released a few albums, but there were a lot of things in the music industry we just don't like. And the way albums get released is one of them.

‘We've never wanted to do things the way other people do, so we came up with this idea of following the way festivals release tickets in tiers.’

Early adopters, the hardcore fans in tier one, got to hear demos and exclusives, being involved from early on. The album’s final tier will see it released to everyone next spring.’

But for now, they’re looking forward to playing Tonic Fest.

‘We've done a lot of work with charities, particularly mental health charities, but this is the first time we've done anything with Tonic. We've been playing on the same bills as bands like Dub Pistols for many years now, so when I heard they were the ambassadors for Tonic, we thought, cool, that's a good link. And mental health is something we're very passionate about. Our music is all about being aware of oneself as much as possible and making the most of life, so it definitely lines up with our ideals and is why we were really keen to do it.’

Tickets £15. Go to wedgewood-rooms.co.uk.