Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: The British funk band Simonde released their self titled debut
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy two. The album's deep calypso and reggae grooves
Speaker 2: are inspired by its members West Indian roots, and decades
Speaker 2: after its release, samples taken from Simnde's albums would find
Speaker 2: their way into songs that now define hip hop's Golden
Speaker 2: era from artists like Day La Soul, Gang Star and
Speaker 2: the Fujis. While the band had found a second life
Speaker 2: through sampling during the late eighties and nineties, its primary
Speaker 2: members bassist Steve Sippio and guitarist Patrick Patterson also found
Speaker 2: second lives as lawyers, but the desire to make music
Speaker 2: never left them, and last month Simonde released a new
Speaker 2: album called Renaissance, a project their label describes as a
Speaker 2: spiritual and sonic follow up to their nineteen seventy four
Speaker 2: album Promised Heights. On today's EPISO, I talked to Steve
Speaker 2: Cipio and Patrick Patterson about their early band days in
Speaker 2: London and about the early calypso track that helped launch
Speaker 2: Simonde's sound. They also reminisce about touring the US and
Speaker 2: opening for Al Green in the seventies, and how they
Speaker 2: came to collaborate with artists like Jazzy B and Celeste
Speaker 2: on their new album This is Broken Record, Real musicians,
Speaker 2: real conversations. Here's my conversation with Simandae.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 2: I remember hearing your guys' music for the first time
Speaker 2: and just being completely blown away. I mean, I knew
Speaker 2: James Brown, I knew Parliament Funkadelic. I even knew to
Speaker 2: some degree, Fela Kuti, But just like the way you
Speaker 2: guys had this original sound that was I mean, those
Speaker 2: those three off felt similar to me, like, and you
Speaker 2: guys too, like, but you could tell that Fela in
Speaker 2: Parliament Funkadelic were doing like a version of James Brown,
Speaker 2: like a very good version of James Brown. But you
Speaker 2: guys just had this whole I don't know, it was funk,
Speaker 2: but it also was these really complex melodies and it
Speaker 2: was just guys. I don't know what was your guys'
Speaker 2: musical upbringing, Like Stephen Patrick, what were you guys listening
Speaker 2: to growing up?
Speaker 1: Well, I left I left the Caribbean pretty late. I
Speaker 1: was thirteen when I left the Caribbans, so I was
Speaker 1: pretty much into Calypso's obviously as the indigenous misic of
Speaker 1: the Caribbean, and at the time, you know very much
Speaker 1: you had lots of Natkin Cole and Brooke Benton's and
Speaker 1: those those those guys were really big in the Caribbean
Speaker 1: at that time and the sixties, and I think that
Speaker 1: might still be big in the Caribbean because you know,
Speaker 1: that music just connected with the people, with the people there,
Speaker 1: So that was the music I was listening to, the
Speaker 1: indigenous Calypsos and so on, and on top of that
Speaker 1: the stuff from America. A lot of that that of
Speaker 1: that period, you know, to say, Napkin Code and those
Speaker 1: guys there. So when I went to the State, when
Speaker 1: I went to the UK at thirteen and sixty three,
Speaker 1: I still had that very much with me, but then
Speaker 1: gradually started listening to the other stuff that was happening
Speaker 1: happening in the UK at the time, you know. So
Speaker 1: there there was Solomon Burke, I think was mid sixties.
Speaker 1: I really got into Solomon Burke, very much into into
Speaker 1: what he was doing. So I was still very much
Speaker 1: into the soul, you know, of that of that period.
Speaker 1: But at the same time I also started listening to
Speaker 1: a lot of jazz around the mid sixties, you know,
Speaker 1: Miles Davis and Coltrane and and those guys, you know,
Speaker 1: but on top of that also Jimmy Henjacks, you know,
Speaker 1: So it was varied. I wasn't kind of stuck in
Speaker 1: one particular groove and just listening to that, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever struck me, whatever took my fancy. I didn't have
Speaker 1: any any elitism, you know, real music is concerned.
Speaker 2: What were some of the calypsos growing up that you
Speaker 2: listened to? You remember any specific songs.
Speaker 1: Well, one was very important for the image of the
Speaker 1: band and the name of the band, and that was
Speaker 1: a calypso that was called Dove and Pigeon. It was
Speaker 1: a big hit in the Caribbean and I think around
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two. And it was about a competition. The
Speaker 1: eclypso itself was about a competition between a dove and
Speaker 1: a pigeon as to weis could eat the most pepper?
Speaker 1: Who could eat the most pepper peppers? Yeah, peppers, hot pepper,
Speaker 1: raw hot peppers. So they had this competition between them
Speaker 1: to say who is the better pepper? Eata and uh.
Speaker 1: And the dove the dove was smart. So the dove
Speaker 1: had this it was. It was the kind of hook
Speaker 1: of the eclypso and it went something like, what the
Speaker 1: dove did is that it found a way to ease
Speaker 1: the eating of the pepers. So while the pitcher was
Speaker 1: continually eating the peppers, the dove found the way to
Speaker 1: ease that bag. So it used to saying this this
Speaker 1: refrain in the ECLIPSEO which went something like, I think
Speaker 1: didn't go again. Oh yeaht Nettie, Yeah, Nettie, Nettie ban
Speaker 1: simande wyo wyo ban simande. And you mustn't say, you
Speaker 1: must not say, you must not say. And that is
Speaker 1: how the dove is the pressure of the heat from
Speaker 1: the pepper barb ca.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And all the time the dove was doing that,
Speaker 1: the pigeon was continually eating. Wow, it was that the
Speaker 1: pigeon had so much just eventually it just collapsed because
Speaker 1: it just collapse from eating too much peppers. You know,
Speaker 1: but you would have heard that refrain I just did. Nettie,
Speaker 1: Nettie band Simandi. What's familiar there? Wow, that's the clipso
Speaker 1: it came from. That's the clips from which we took.
Speaker 1: We took, we took the name from. We don't know
Speaker 1: what Simandy needs Really you don't know, no, never know
Speaker 1: what seman they means. It was just a refrain that
Speaker 1: was sung by the Dove. We liked the song of
Speaker 1: it and it connected us with that were roots in
Speaker 1: the Caribbean, so we said let's go with that for
Speaker 1: the name of the band. Patrick.
Speaker 2: So, Patrick, you remember the song as well growing up?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 4: Sure, sure, I mean I left the Caribbean quite early,
Speaker 4: but yes, it was a popular It was a popular
Speaker 4: song and we you know, as the years went by,
Speaker 4: we kind of translated or found it, I feel like
Speaker 4: a way to express the to utilize the name to
Speaker 4: mean other things. So it's like, you know, you would
Speaker 4: say Simander, which is kind of if you like Jamaican linguo,
Speaker 4: instead of just associating it with that one no Shell
Speaker 4: Lord Nelson's song. But Steve Brightley says that it reflects
Speaker 4: our Caribbean heritage and so it should.
Speaker 2: Are you two both from the same place in the Caribbean?
Speaker 1: Yes, Guyana.
Speaker 2: What what was the Caribbean community in London in the sixties, Like,
Speaker 2: were you guys spread out throughout Like where did you
Speaker 2: guys all live in a specific place where you spread
Speaker 2: out throughout the city?
Speaker 1: Like, what was the diaspora of.
Speaker 2: The Caribbean community in London in the sixties when you
Speaker 2: guys got there.
Speaker 1: What was that like?
Speaker 4: Yeah, just back a little, because some Caribbean people went
Speaker 4: to London. Caribbean people from other places went to different locations,
Speaker 4: So you'd find petitions for example in Leeds, it'd find agwillains.
Speaker 1: For example in Slough.
Speaker 4: But our community, and it was a tight community when
Speaker 4: we when we were there in those days, Guyanese, Trinidadian,
Speaker 4: to a lesser extent, Barbigian and Jamaicans.
Speaker 1: So it was it was mainly Guyanese and.
Speaker 4: Jamaicans in our community, but it was our community was tight.
Speaker 1: It's a I can't say that I see the.
Speaker 4: Same thing nowadays, but we had the privilege of living
Speaker 4: through a period where that sort of thing happened.
Speaker 1: You know, our street, Steve and I left five doors.
Speaker 4: Our families lived about five doors apart from the time,
Speaker 4: well I was there before him, but from the time
Speaker 4: he came in an event, we lived very close. His
Speaker 4: parents knew my parents, his family knew my family, and
Speaker 4: we've lived that way kind of.
Speaker 1: You know, for all these years.
Speaker 2: Which of you got into music first or were you
Speaker 2: both in the music.
Speaker 4: I got in the first, I used to play soul
Speaker 4: music with a band, you know, do little trips through
Speaker 4: German basic American bases in Germany and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: That was a bit of a you know, a travel.
Speaker 1: It was not quite a popular location for there, so
Speaker 1: for the bands at that time, certainly the the young bands,
Speaker 1: the bands, the developing bands, if I can put it
Speaker 1: that way. I used to play a lot on the
Speaker 1: American basis. We toured.
Speaker 4: When we did, I can't even call those things tours,
Speaker 4: you know, it goes spend too much a month or
Speaker 4: what have you, playing American bases in different kind of places,
Speaker 4: and then make a few pounds or dollars as the
Speaker 4: case may be, and.
Speaker 1: Then go back home. But I started quite early.
Speaker 4: You know, natural fact, I must have been tender sixteen,
Speaker 4: just going into my seventeenth year.
Speaker 1: That's when I started to do it. Were you doing
Speaker 1: American soul music or was it? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Absolutely, I mean that I think that's probably the music
Speaker 4: that I grew up on.
Speaker 1: The difference between Steve and I is probably that I
Speaker 1: liked a lot of.
Speaker 4: Rock music as well, and his rock music range is
Speaker 4: probably narrower than mine.
Speaker 1: But you know, all guys were rock rock people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what was the first rock and role you started getting into? Patrick, Well,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't, I wouldn't.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't say rock and roll, more more more rock
Speaker 4: guitar like you know, led Zeppelin ten years after Jimmy Hendrix,
Speaker 4: my all time favorite Claire main Maine kind of guitar
Speaker 4: guitar music, not.
Speaker 1: Not not the Jerry Leine Lewis and Little Richard that
Speaker 1: I mean. I like that, but it wasn't the kind
Speaker 1: of stuff that I was into. It was nice to
Speaker 1: listen to, not not for doing That's right. The other
Speaker 1: stuff was a little more fun, I guess.
Speaker 2: Right, at what point do you two decide to put
Speaker 2: a band together yourselves, like to say, like we too,
Speaker 2: we should do something together.
Speaker 1: First of all, had to develop some skills on on
Speaker 1: on an instrument. I mean Patrick had been playing the
Speaker 1: guitar for a while, so he was quite skillful on
Speaker 1: his on his instrument. And I experimented with a few
Speaker 1: instruments before I actually settled on the base. My first
Speaker 1: instrument was I I purchased a harmonica, and I still
Speaker 1: wonder what was the attraction of the harmonicas, But I
Speaker 1: think I think it might have been because TV was
Speaker 1: very much into the harmonica at that time, so it
Speaker 1: might have had something to do with it.
Speaker 2: I was gonna ask if that because that sounds more
Speaker 2: like maybe where your inspiration would have been from, rather
Speaker 2: than like a blues harmonica, more of like a Stevie wonder.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it might have been. You know Stevie's I
Speaker 1: really like Steve how Stevie used the harmonica, you know,
Speaker 1: the way it is phrasing, and it was almost like
Speaker 1: like a sex in the way that he utilized the harmonica,
Speaker 1: you know, really really attractive for me. So I think
Speaker 1: that might have been an influence. But I didn't the
Speaker 1: kind of skills that Stevie yet, so that do didn't
Speaker 1: last very long. Patrick's laughing.
Speaker 2: I liked that you didn't sound.
Speaker 1: Like Stevie Patrick, I remember his efforts. Then after that,
Speaker 1: I I I I like the trumpet. I was attracted
Speaker 1: to the trumpet skill of me, so I purchased a trumpet.
Speaker 1: But it was it was I mean, I couldn't buy
Speaker 1: anything at that time, you know, in my mid teens,
Speaker 1: I couldn't buy anything significant, no big name, brand, brand new,
Speaker 1: or anything like that. So it was a second hand trumpet,
Speaker 1: and I think it probably needed a good service in
Speaker 1: before I started use it, so the pads and everything
Speaker 1: were all born, so that didn't last very long. And
Speaker 1: then I tried the guitar a little bit more, and
Speaker 1: actually it was still still bit that and then to
Speaker 1: spatch it, he said, well, listen, why don't you try
Speaker 1: the bass. I'm on the guitar. If you get on
Speaker 1: the bass, then we could try and maybe try and
Speaker 1: put something together. So that was when I bought my
Speaker 1: first bass guitar. It was around maybe seventeen or I
Speaker 1: was around maybe seventeen or eighteen something like that. I
Speaker 1: did connect rate it pretty quick that way. I did
Speaker 1: connect with it pretty quickly. And maybe my style of
Speaker 1: my style also was very unique, even right from the outset,
Speaker 1: because I wasn't really listening to bass players as I
Speaker 1: suppose many people would do, trying to learn techniques and
Speaker 1: basic things from bass players who were around at the time,
Speaker 1: and right from the outset I developed my own arm
Speaker 1: style of playing.
Speaker 2: I always wondered about that because the interplay between YouTube
Speaker 2: between the bass and guitar is always even on the
Speaker 2: new record, from the very first record, all the way
Speaker 2: through until the newest record is always seems to me
Speaker 2: it have been the key to the music. You guys
Speaker 2: sound very much like you guys are are playing off
Speaker 2: one another when when you're playing, you know.
Speaker 1: Not possible, because I mean we started together. I mean
Speaker 1: the band really started with me and Patrick, even before
Speaker 1: we started thinking about get adding drums and other instrumentation
Speaker 1: was me and Patrick used the child basic ideas. And
Speaker 1: Patrick was always a kind of guitarist who didn't seek
Speaker 1: to fill every space. You know, you got guitarists who
Speaker 1: with every gap, every space, they would want to put
Speaker 1: something in. But Patrick has always been a guitarist who
Speaker 1: would seek the compliment. And you'll find out with my
Speaker 1: style of plan I use a lot of syncopatient with
Speaker 1: my BA explained. I developed that from very early, so
Speaker 1: I used that syncopation. And then then we got the
Speaker 1: band together. You know, we got a drummer who was
Speaker 1: also complimentary, you know, so that's three those three elements.
Speaker 1: I think we're foundational in terms of the sound the
Speaker 1: song that Simanda developed self, Patrick and Sam. You know,
Speaker 1: Sam was a was a complimentary is the drummer you listened,
Speaker 1: He was very much trying to play with the.
Speaker 2: Bass right, almost maybe more like like a ringo, more
Speaker 2: than doing like a backbeat, almost like a ringo. Like
Speaker 2: he was coming up with interesting parts, you know, like
Speaker 2: and really seemed like he was following what you guys
Speaker 2: were doing, and very very unique, unique parts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you'll find that those three albums, they're very spacious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, very specious.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back with more from simon day after
Speaker 2: the break we guys first got together. What were some
Speaker 2: of the early efforts you got. I mean, were you
Speaker 2: guys at first doing covers or were you guys starting
Speaker 2: to write original stuff at that point.
Speaker 4: We had a band before we did Simande, which is
Speaker 4: called Meta, and once again, you know, the focus was
Speaker 4: doing our original music. But we did a couple of
Speaker 4: covers with that Forgot, which was a Rollin Kirk track
Speaker 4: one Rolling Kirk track, one Miles Davis Thing Footprints and
Speaker 4: well look slavery if my memory serves me well, and
Speaker 4: that was about it. Because we always wantd to create
Speaker 4: our own original sound and our own original have our
Speaker 4: own original style, and we sort of achieved that with Mita.
Speaker 4: It was a four piece Na Steve really wonderful English
Speaker 4: drama and Saxon polk player god Ress is so called
Speaker 4: Pepsi Delgado.
Speaker 1: Did you guys ever record meter? Well if we did, none,
Speaker 1: I either think we did. But the tip, the tips
Speaker 1: wouldn't have survived in those days. It was it was
Speaker 1: your your real to real stuff. So it was unless
Speaker 1: it was properly it wouldn't It wouldn't have survived, man,
Speaker 1: because that's what I mean.
Speaker 2: If you guys doing fascinating you guys were doing Roland
Speaker 2: Kirk and volunteers, I mean that is that's that's a
Speaker 2: bugged out toune, you know, like that would have been
Speaker 2: incredible to hear.
Speaker 1: And you know, we did get some recognition. We started
Speaker 1: to get some recognition, not not not not from the public,
Speaker 1: but from within the music industry because I think it
Speaker 1: was probably unusual at that time kids have owed it
Speaker 1: to be so into jazz and not just and not
Speaker 1: just jazz, but really complicated stuff. You know, we were intimized.
Speaker 1: There is a lot of the time signatures that was
Speaker 1: going on, you know that Miles and Cold Train and
Speaker 1: those guys used to do. That's why we called the
Speaker 1: band meter because we were specifically focusing on different time signatures.
Speaker 1: Time signatures not just your four four, but you know
Speaker 1: your six faith, three four, five four and that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. So I think a lot of the older
Speaker 1: musicians at the time were fascinated by these these kids.
Speaker 1: You know that. I'm so involved with this type of jazz.
Speaker 2: With calypse and a lot of the music from the Caribbean.
Speaker 2: It was a lot of that, and four four was
Speaker 2: that stuff also in a little bit of a different meter.
Speaker 4: But mainly four four what I know of Calypso Calypso.
Speaker 4: It's another thing I love about Calypso is the lyricism.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know how much.
Speaker 4: You know about some of those songwriters or their music,
Speaker 4: but the lyric writing is absolutely fabulous.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And you know storytelling, Yeah, I think it's just incredible,
Speaker 4: kind of like Chuck Bay or something like that.
Speaker 1: Like the stories they tell.
Speaker 4: Well, let me tell you to what to do. You
Speaker 4: don't have to be a cabby a person to enjoy it.
Speaker 4: Listen to Sparrow, you know, listen to old Calypso and
Speaker 4: you will see and old Calypso is different from the
Speaker 4: stuff you have today, which is more popular, which is
Speaker 4: like Soca Eclypso storytelling stuff and you got some great
Speaker 4: stories there.
Speaker 1: M hm.
Speaker 2: So the meter stuff, so the odd times stuff that
Speaker 2: really came from your guys's love of jazz.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Were you guys going out to see a lot of
Speaker 2: music at the time, because London had, you know, there
Speaker 2: were a lot of as I understand, a lot of
Speaker 2: a lot of American jazz musicians coming to Europe to play,
Speaker 2: and of course London itself had like a pretty vibrant music.
Speaker 1: Still, you guys going out to see a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff or mostly it would be the American musicians. When
Speaker 1: I when I, you know, went out, it was mostly
Speaker 1: American musicians, but there were there were there were some
Speaker 1: are popular venues in our locality. There was one called
Speaker 1: ram Jam and a lot of musicians use American musicians.
Speaker 1: I think I saw James Brown there, if I recall correctly, Patrick,
Speaker 1: you used to more. Patrick was more outgoing in terms
Speaker 1: of going and listening. Way, babe, did you see Jimmy
Speaker 1: was not in the Western Marquie Mark Mark Marquee. That's
Speaker 1: what I was looking for, Yes, But tell me about
Speaker 1: that experience seeing Jimmy.
Speaker 4: I saw Jimmy when he first came to England at
Speaker 4: what was then the most famous rock club, which is
Speaker 4: the Market Club in Ward the Street. It's his you know,
Speaker 4: are you experienced trio kind of thing and it's a
Speaker 4: long time ago. And the thing I remember most is I,
Speaker 4: I don't know who.
Speaker 1: Believes me now, but it's true. Shook my hand. So
Speaker 1: that was a great great you haven't watched that hands since? Right,
Speaker 1: I was an Ardent fan. I've been an Ardent fan
Speaker 1: of you know, from then to an hour.
Speaker 2: Actually, it's really hard to beat, it's really hard to
Speaker 2: be Tell me about how the first the first album
Speaker 2: came together, the self titled album.
Speaker 1: You see.
Speaker 4: What you have to remember is that we rehearsed every day,
Speaker 4: I mean every day and much of the day and
Speaker 4: from the from meter days all the way through when.
Speaker 1: We finished meeting.
Speaker 4: We didn't work with Ginger Johnson, but we we were
Speaker 4: constantly creating what what eventually came to many music.
Speaker 1: We were absolute musicians. That was that was our life.
Speaker 1: Raison death. Yeah, that's kind of all we did, or
Speaker 1: we did.
Speaker 4: It was like one long stream of creativity that turned
Speaker 4: into Semandi music nineteen empty like nineteen one empty two.
Speaker 2: In the first album, it's the it's you know, the
Speaker 2: message ricks incredible, incredible stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were fortunate with having John Shoeder as our
Speaker 1: producer in the sense that he never saw t interfere
Speaker 1: with the music. He was fascinated with the music. School
Speaker 1: was quite unusual, I mean, looking back on it now,
Speaker 1: because we've only been together for about a year before
Speaker 1: we went into the studio, you know, and and to
Speaker 1: have that kind of how can I say, a rapid
Speaker 1: access to you know, to high quality recordings at that
Speaker 1: time was you know, it was unusual. Normally it'd have
Speaker 1: to be you on the road three four or five
Speaker 1: years building a profile before you get that kind of opportunity.
Speaker 1: We started to develop a following, you know, there was
Speaker 1: a following that you still come and listen to us
Speaker 1: whenever we were playing. But we were certainly not what
Speaker 1: you might call a big you know, a big name band.
Speaker 1: But John Shoeda liked the music and he wanted to
Speaker 1: get us into the studios as early as possible, and
Speaker 1: that's what he did. And he took us into the
Speaker 1: studio and just left us really to you know, to create.
Speaker 1: There was no real pressure on us. Okay, guys, start
Speaker 1: recording and that kind of thing. But we had a
Speaker 1: lot of freedom in terms of you know, or building
Speaker 1: our interactions and getting the right atmosphere, go in, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So that was my recollection. Well, I will put one word,
Speaker 1: you know, you ask us what it was like. It
Speaker 1: was very exciting.
Speaker 4: First time returned it to do any real recording of
Speaker 4: our own. John was in house producer for five records
Speaker 4: and it had all sorts of you know, hits with
Speaker 4: various people. So the fact that he saw us like
Speaker 4: us and loved the music I wanted to do something with.
Speaker 1: Us was fortunate us. So it was a good bit
Speaker 1: of fortune that we were introduced to him and.
Speaker 4: He to us and rapidly moved from there to chest
Speaker 4: Janus Records in America and touring America with agreed.
Speaker 1: What was that tour like? Really excited I. I mean,
Speaker 1: we've been on the road, as I said, we've been
Speaker 1: existed for about a year, and and to be moving
Speaker 1: from small venues and I can't even cause some of
Speaker 1: them were just very small clubs in the UK, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, and then to be going in the States
Speaker 1: and being playing in football stadiums, you know, twenty to
Speaker 1: thirty thousand people. Yeah, to be playing a week at
Speaker 1: the Apollo. I mean the Apollo was even in the
Speaker 1: UK that was like the holy grail you know for
Speaker 1: soul music and that that that kind of stuff. And
Speaker 1: to have the opportunity of going and played that for
Speaker 1: to do a week there was was something. You know,
Speaker 1: It's just it was a mind blowing experience. Really. Yeah.
Speaker 1: How was Al as a performer on that Well, I
Speaker 1: was into his element at the time. You know, I
Speaker 1: love it. The guys used to be throwing the girls
Speaker 1: were throwing their things at him.
Speaker 2: You know, you got shock seeing that stuff, Like how
Speaker 2: the girls are responding to Al.
Speaker 4: We got shot now we we We finished with Church
Speaker 4: long before that, man.
Speaker 1: Great, got you got you man? That's wild. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: I was big, man, I was big. The girls would
Speaker 1: do anything to get the moment without I mean anything.
Speaker 1: They were offering anything to if you could get the
Speaker 1: maccuster out because it was really that big. It was
Speaker 1: just a ginormous It's probably difficult to imagine now you
Speaker 1: know just how big how big he was at the time. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you first went into the studio for that
Speaker 2: first album, was it then, like Dove is almost eleven
Speaker 2: minutes long. Were all your songs at that point like
Speaker 2: that you would play like in your sets, were they
Speaker 2: all pretty long like that? And when you got to
Speaker 2: the studio you thought, I'll bring them down or or
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 4: Just everything in the same way we had been doing
Speaker 4: it before. And because it's so much improvisational stuff and
Speaker 4: you go divide in a sense, I do I think
Speaker 4: we knew it was that longer we were cutting it.
Speaker 1: But we never enough. Yeah, we never operated in with
Speaker 1: the kind of commercial restrictions on on on on songs.
Speaker 1: You know, your three and a half minutes. We never
Speaker 1: worked a three and a half and a half minute
Speaker 1: kind of limit for the songs. However, the songs developed,
Speaker 1: that's how we we went with them.
Speaker 2: So like with with the message, for instance, you guys
Speaker 2: didn't have a longer version that you get in the studio.
Speaker 1: Dot, let's get it closer to four. That's just kind
Speaker 1: of what it was. So we did it.
Speaker 4: John just captured what we were doing on the on
Speaker 4: the table.
Speaker 1: Those were the songs.
Speaker 4: There were some that we you know, there was some
Speaker 4: improvization going on, so they might be a little longer here,
Speaker 4: a little shorter there, but those are the songs.
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm. I think it's because of the jazz element
Speaker 1: and the music. You know, we always wanted to make
Speaker 1: space for the sex players, you know, we Devil wanted
Speaker 1: our sax players to be just accent accent players, and
Speaker 1: that's why you'll find a leader of them. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as much as part of the I feel like
Speaker 2: the sound of Sinandi was like the way you guys
Speaker 2: played together. Steven Patrick as a bass playing guitar player,
Speaker 2: there were wonderful songs that would just be drum, you know,
Speaker 2: and it sounded almost more Jamaican in that sense, you know,
Speaker 2: like NAVINGI kind of where it wasn't even reggae, but
Speaker 2: just with the kind of spiritual with the drum. Was
Speaker 2: that something you guys were also listening to or was
Speaker 2: that more of the Jamaican members of the group or what?
Speaker 1: How did how how did that enter the sound.
Speaker 4: From That's more from Pablo and Mike at the time,
Speaker 4: and I know it was at that time. It was
Speaker 4: really quite important because that gave us a slightly different
Speaker 4: tilt to our music that rasted are.
Speaker 1: Underpinning.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think maybe it was the first album
Speaker 4: or first and second album. We have about four raster
Speaker 4: songs on there, and.
Speaker 1: It was very important on music.
Speaker 4: Pablo as a as a percussion players, a bungka player
Speaker 4: had is a really original style. It would we interacted,
Speaker 4: you know, musically, and they brought to Bablo and Mike
Speaker 4: book much of the Rastafarian element that Simandi was to it. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that was all part of Samandai's make up. The percussive thing,
Speaker 4: the styling of the guitar and bass.
Speaker 1: It was better what we did. You know.
Speaker 4: It wasn't it wasn't it wasn't contrived, you know it
Speaker 4: it was organic with that way so beautiful.
Speaker 2: Even in hindsight, you listen to these records and you guys,
Speaker 2: I want to talk about the new record because you guys,
Speaker 2: I feel like you guys have figured out how to
Speaker 2: keep that. But you guys, really I don't know how
Speaker 2: you guys did it. But even just the way the congas,
Speaker 2: that the just the sound of those so crisp and
Speaker 2: just like you guys really captured something just magical, you know.
Speaker 1: So yeah, John John John just allowed us to He
Speaker 1: allowed us to be ourselves in the studio.
Speaker 2: After the flast break, we're back at the rest of
Speaker 2: my conversation with see Monday. Were you guys shocked over
Speaker 2: Over the years, after a while, you guys kind of
Speaker 2: just retreated into civilian life. But you know, through the
Speaker 2: nineties and two thousands, you guys' music became revered, you
Speaker 2: know in a sense, and it would just pop up
Speaker 2: in movies or in other people's music. How did that
Speaker 2: feel when that sorted to happen?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, never, we never ceased being musicians. You know,
Speaker 1: It's just for a while because nothing was happening for
Speaker 1: the music, we decided to go down another avenue and
Speaker 1: something to some extent that probably you know, we always
Speaker 1: felt we'd do at some point, But we never ceased
Speaker 1: being musicians. But certainly with the interest the new interests
Speaker 1: in the music, I think started in the eighties or
Speaker 1: it might have been the nineties. Certainly, the first the
Speaker 1: first sampling and I heard of the song was brought
Speaker 1: to my attention by my my older children at the time,
Speaker 1: was the Della Soul sample. And then after that, I
Speaker 1: think was the Fujis And then you know, I became
Speaker 1: aware that something was happening with the music. I think
Speaker 1: I told Patrick also that something was happening with the music,
Speaker 1: and you know, we saw the development. Unfortunately for us prior,
Speaker 1: just prior to that, when all the activity with the
Speaker 1: music that was being generated by the younger generation, we'd
Speaker 1: also got all our copyright back for our songs, so
Speaker 1: that that that coincided nicely with what what was happening
Speaker 1: with the music.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's great. Was that like a pretty tough processing
Speaker 2: the copyright back?
Speaker 1: Yes? That well?
Speaker 3: I think I think we had to just have sufficient
Speaker 3: nows to know what to do, and sufficient interest to
Speaker 3: realize that something had gone terribly wrong with the music
Speaker 3: that we had written and seemed to be owned and
Speaker 3: divided up, you know, between all kinds of people except us.
Speaker 3: Was that what we got to that point, you know,
Speaker 3: it was kind of time to go just take it,
Speaker 3: take it back because it was ours, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, got to clean that up a little bit.
Speaker 1: We didn't have to, fortunately, end up in any big
Speaker 1: hearings before the courts or things like that. I think
Speaker 1: people recognized pretty quickly after we had instruct did attorneys
Speaker 1: to you know, to represent us and communicate to them,
Speaker 1: you know, how we felt about what was happening. I
Speaker 1: think people recognized pretty quickly that they didn't really have
Speaker 1: a lectus stand on and it was best to get
Speaker 1: the thing resourced. Let's talk.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about renaissance guy. I mean I was saying
Speaker 2: a bit earlier, like the new album. I was shocked
Speaker 2: because in some way I thought it sounded a lot
Speaker 2: like the classic lineup. Even the drums sounded so similar
Speaker 2: to to Sam Kelly and and and the way that
Speaker 2: you guys still create that space which doesn't exist in
Speaker 2: a lot of modern music. It's still present in your guys' music.
Speaker 2: When did you guys start collecting these songs? And when
Speaker 2: did you guys decide to go record a new project.
Speaker 4: I think it's it's kind of an ongoing process. We
Speaker 4: never stopped writing. We never killed off the Simandi project.
Speaker 4: We were always working in some form or fashion. The
Speaker 4: hardest thing was deciding what Samanda twenty twenty four was
Speaker 4: going to be.
Speaker 1: But much of what we did.
Speaker 4: Is if you liked the end product of a lot
Speaker 4: of work coming towards at that time and that space.
Speaker 4: We didn't write to go into the studio to record.
Speaker 4: We've been writing, and we could seelect material from the
Speaker 4: stuff that we had written, and we selected about maybe
Speaker 4: there was a from about a bunch of shortlists of
Speaker 4: maybe fifteen twenty songs.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 4: And I must say that the ani Man and Gene
Speaker 4: was really very helpful in, you know, in our latter
Speaker 4: process of deciding which tract to go on the album,
Speaker 4: because he was he was openly enough to say, I
Speaker 4: really like this, I think it's good that sort of thing,
Speaker 4: and not something and I'm going to just not they
Speaker 4: shouldn't be faid any money doing.
Speaker 1: But it was from being Patrick. Patrick passed over it
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. But it was a difficult it was. It was.
Speaker 1: It was not as as easy as Patrick probably makes
Speaker 1: it sound, you know, because there were lots of things
Speaker 1: we had to be thinking about, you know, the band
Speaker 1: that that at that time, and now, you know, people
Speaker 1: were now exposed to the three albums, they knew what
Speaker 1: the sound of the band was, you know those days.
Speaker 1: What would they expect now, Yeah, you know, are they
Speaker 1: going to expect us to try and recreate something that
Speaker 1: we did in the seventies, or are we going to
Speaker 1: do something now that maybe so far remove from what
Speaker 1: they're expecting that you know, it disappoints them. So it
Speaker 1: was it was quite a difficult process for us. Actually,
Speaker 1: even Patrick and I had a differences with all of
Speaker 1: the some of the material in terms of what we
Speaker 1: think would be correct for the album or and so on.
Speaker 1: You know. So it wasn't it wasn't it wasn't uneasy.
Speaker 1: It wasn't an easy process. We wanted a connectedness bit
Speaker 1: the seventies, but we didn't want it to appear as
Speaker 1: were we're trying to recreate the seventies because we're in
Speaker 1: different places now forty years the past. You know, we
Speaker 1: different people. You know, we are not kids anymore. We're
Speaker 1: were big, grown men. So all of those those considerations
Speaker 1: played into the into the selection process.
Speaker 4: We've always gone in the same direction. Really, that's that's
Speaker 4: my old Yeah, he has his writing style.
Speaker 1: I have kind of my writing style.
Speaker 4: We don't write as much together s ifing down as
Speaker 4: we did in the past, but our direction is, especially
Speaker 4: to Semantha's, much the same, you know, to that extent.
Speaker 4: It wasn't that that had a task to achieve a
Speaker 4: body of sums that we go both.
Speaker 1: We're all happy with.
Speaker 2: Have your guys's taste, I mean, you're listening habits changed
Speaker 2: from the seventies to now, Like I guess when you
Speaker 2: go to listen to music now, what are you listening
Speaker 2: to and has it changed since you know, the seventies.
Speaker 2: I'm still very much into jazz. Jazz is still my
Speaker 2: favorite medium for listening to music. I don't listen to
Speaker 2: music that much anymore, to be honest, I don't don't
Speaker 2: get the opportunity.
Speaker 1: Really. The most might be now if I'm traveling, you know,
Speaker 1: in the air, then I might take out my phone
Speaker 1: and put a couple of tracks on. But most of
Speaker 1: most of the albums on my phone would be jazz,
Speaker 1: and mostly it would be the traditional jazz stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: not not the not the modern too much of the
Speaker 1: modern stuff. There's a lot of you know, musicians now
Speaker 1: even based play now you know, they're they're into this,
Speaker 1: displaying their skills. It's almost like beast players are now
Speaker 1: guitar players, you know. And I when I when I
Speaker 1: hear some of them, and it's nice stuff. It's great stuff,
Speaker 1: very technical and whatever, but it doesn't have that I
Speaker 1: mean like ron KRT and some of those guys, they
Speaker 1: play one note, yeah, put it in the right place
Speaker 1: and it just hits you. It's you more than than
Speaker 1: twenty notes that some of these guys would would now
Speaker 1: be playing so these guys know, they display their skills,
Speaker 1: they display their techniques and their abilities and so on.
Speaker 1: But I find that that knowing where to just land
Speaker 1: the note or put or put a particular groove there,
Speaker 1: I find that lacking much with some of some of
Speaker 1: what I'm hearing. I don't listening enough listen. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: listen to more.
Speaker 4: But when I do listen, you know, I'm a I'm
Speaker 4: a big fan of good song, right thing, and I
Speaker 4: like to hear stories, so.
Speaker 1: I kind of will listen to that.
Speaker 2: So like if you like, when you say you want
Speaker 2: to listen to more, like, what's something you want to
Speaker 2: you might mis listening to that you if you had time,
Speaker 2: you throw it on.
Speaker 1: When I go home.
Speaker 4: The albums I listened to generally are the two Herbi
Speaker 4: Haandcock albums, the one that he has, the Johnny Mitchell.
Speaker 1: The Johnny Mitchell songs Yeah the River, Yeah yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: River River River, Yeah it's river, and the one would
Speaker 1: Imagine on it. So I listened to that. I listened
Speaker 1: to there's.
Speaker 4: This compilation there's not really a compilation, but Bob Marley
Speaker 4: songs played by other artists and now it's simply listened
Speaker 4: to that a great deal with India.
Speaker 1: I Rea, I think it's on it. Maxie Priest.
Speaker 4: I really don't listen enough, but I listened to to
Speaker 4: those things when I when I'm home and get the
Speaker 4: listening opportunity.
Speaker 2: M hm. How did you guys select the new personnel
Speaker 2: in the band when you had to put some new
Speaker 2: people around you? How did you guys figure out who
Speaker 2: the right people would be?
Speaker 1: Monday?
Speaker 4: Most of these guys we have known for ages, and
Speaker 4: they have known each other for ages, you know, and
Speaker 4: it's a very It's actually, when I think about it,
Speaker 4: it's quite strange. Ray who is our singer? Now, this
Speaker 4: is a funny looking story. He was a kid coming
Speaker 4: to watch us rehearse in Brixton when he for a
Speaker 4: sex help.
Speaker 1: Really had his own career as a solo singer, did
Speaker 1: some and he's also a good songwriter.
Speaker 4: I worked did some work with him in the mid
Speaker 4: mid mid eighties. Going towards the nineties, he worked with
Speaker 4: Jazzy b. He worked with many other people. Then the
Speaker 4: piano player I've known since the mid eighties. First time
Speaker 4: I encounted him, Jian Reid. He used to work be
Speaker 4: in a band with a guy that used to play
Speaker 4: drums with me, and in other places the rest of
Speaker 4: people either agent and brought them or we knew of them.
Speaker 4: For example, the drummer Richard Bailey, he's been around almost
Speaker 4: as long as us. He's a bit younger than us,
Speaker 4: but he's almost because we had there were some really
Speaker 4: nice bands in England in the early days, and you
Speaker 4: know he used to play with some of them. We
Speaker 4: are very pleased to say that we think we have
Speaker 4: the cream of the crop.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, that goes to show I mean, really
Speaker 2: is that you guys really are the key to the
Speaker 2: sound I mean. And then it's like, no matter what
Speaker 2: era of the group I'm listening to, it's like, what
Speaker 2: the way you guys sound together. It sounds like you
Speaker 2: guys aren't even writing so much together anymore. From from
Speaker 2: Patrick was saying, but you guys still have a interplay
Speaker 2: between one another. That's just it just sounds like the band.
Speaker 1: You know, well, we formed the band. The band is
Speaker 1: the band, our creation.
Speaker 4: The music that you know that the band plays to
Speaker 4: a great extent is decided upon between us. And you
Speaker 4: know the thing about the twenty fifteen albums, Steve might
Speaker 4: have a different view, but for me, the important thing
Speaker 4: for the twenty fifteen album was bringing the original six
Speaker 4: players back together to do that album. Very important that
Speaker 4: we could do that, and I mean every man was
Speaker 4: ready to do.
Speaker 1: It, and we did it.
Speaker 4: And in fact John also came back on board, John Troda,
Speaker 4: and the original engineer also came back on board, Alan Florence.
Speaker 4: So that's the original Semandic project. It's not exactly the
Speaker 4: same as it was in the first three albums, but
Speaker 4: that to me is a very important thing. And Steve
Speaker 4: mightn't have to write together in the way sit down
Speaker 4: in the room any longer. We know what it We
Speaker 4: both of us know what it is that we want
Speaker 4: some Mandy music to be. And we each have a
Speaker 4: and and what is crafted at the end of the day.
Speaker 4: That's just how it's always been, I suppose how it
Speaker 4: always will be.
Speaker 1: We might not have that long, but that's it. But
Speaker 1: a lot of the songs, you know, although the developmental
Speaker 1: process is when the band comes together, so you'll have
Speaker 1: the ideas, the genesis of the ideas and whatever. But
Speaker 1: the real can I say, the completion of the songs
Speaker 1: or when the band comes together and we start, because
Speaker 1: lots of changes take place in that process. I mean
Speaker 1: a lot of the songs on the album when we
Speaker 1: presented them as demos, you know, they're in a form
Speaker 1: that is different how they were presented as demos. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a number of a number of the songs. Because when
Speaker 1: you start, when we when the band is together and
Speaker 1: everybody is putting in there a little bit, you have
Speaker 1: the drama it is isn't put the keyboard players so
Speaker 1: you know, and that all comes together, it impacts the
Speaker 1: song and it it sometimes also dictates the direction of
Speaker 1: the of the song. So although myself and Patrick will
Speaker 1: be there, I have my my style of plane obviously,
Speaker 1: which will remain an influence on on the sound. Patrick
Speaker 1: will have his style of plane also that isn't remains
Speaker 1: an important influence on the sound. But the audio instrumentation
Speaker 1: also has an impact in terms of the direction and
Speaker 1: the flow of the of the minister.
Speaker 2: Tell me about bringing in some of the get jazz.
Speaker 2: You mentioned Jazzy B earlier. I think you were saying
Speaker 2: that your singer Ray with jazz B. He's on the record,
Speaker 2: Celeste on the record, incredible, incredible singer.
Speaker 1: I agree with you. Guys familiar with her before, I
Speaker 1: only she she did the TV Edward that that plays
Speaker 1: a lot. But I hadn't seen or heard much of her,
Speaker 1: but I yet see her.
Speaker 4: Being interviewed one time on Jules Holland's show a couple
Speaker 4: of years.
Speaker 1: Drew Holland might get to explain to you, Fami a little bit,
Speaker 1: jews Holland down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean somehow that his stuff ends up I
Speaker 2: know it's a BBC thing, but somehow it ends up
Speaker 2: here all the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I've seen plenty of jewels. I just assumed
Speaker 1: it was, you know, everybody kind of knew about it.
Speaker 4: But he did a kind of series where we interviewed
Speaker 4: artists and she was one that he interviewed, sat down
Speaker 4: and discussed the work and stuff.
Speaker 1: I've seen her do that.
Speaker 4: And our management and her management had gotten together some
Speaker 4: way Former Passion.
Speaker 1: Sheest did that.
Speaker 4: We link up, and so we did while we were
Speaker 4: in New York and we started the same song, started
Speaker 4: working on that, and when we came back to the UK,
Speaker 4: we completed it and then she recorded it with us.
Speaker 1: And you were quite right. She's a she's a wonderful singer.
Speaker 4: She's she's an artist, you know, she's not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, a wonderful voice. Wonderful voice.
Speaker 4: But yeah, Ray worked with Jazzy quite a bit, and
Speaker 4: I like, I love that linkage when we did how
Speaker 4: we wrote and the issue of Jazzy joining us came up,
Speaker 4: you know, there was a kind of a direct link there,
Speaker 4: and they worked together for Quinn.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think those are really great too. I mean,
Speaker 2: I like that it wasn't it was nice to have
Speaker 2: a couple of those touches. But I like that it
Speaker 2: was wasn't you know, full of features. It's just these
Speaker 2: really you know, Jazzy b which made sense, and Celeste
Speaker 2: was just like a really wonderful addition. And I love
Speaker 2: I love and the song. I love that you guys
Speaker 2: did a Cold Train. So the Cold Trane is a
Speaker 2: great it's quite such a great song. And now I
Speaker 2: was gonna ask, I didn't really know that you guys
Speaker 2: were such jazz fans. It makes sense to me now
Speaker 2: that you guys did that contribute to to John Man.
Speaker 1: That's a tribute to.
Speaker 4: Great musicianship, leadership in our community. You know, it's a tribute.
Speaker 4: It's it speaks the Cold Train. But you know, we
Speaker 4: had so many people that are honored metaphorically through through
Speaker 4: that I remember.
Speaker 1: The days as a young fellow.
Speaker 4: He and Steve well remember this too, and we'd sit
Speaker 4: down and watch TV and Mohammad Ali would come to
Speaker 4: England and be interviewed.
Speaker 1: I mean you would, you would leave.
Speaker 4: Your job and go sit down to what's to tell
Speaker 4: you for that?
Speaker 1: What an inspiration? What an inspiration?
Speaker 4: And it's in that kind of vein that you know,
Speaker 4: I would approach col trade something that we said, Jesus,
Speaker 4: this is all mine, this is all.
Speaker 1: My community, and this is it's just fabulous.
Speaker 2: To have that amazing. Well, guys, I'm so excited. I'm
Speaker 2: excited that you guys are coming back to La. I
Speaker 2: was telling Steve before we got on Patrick that I
Speaker 2: saw you guys in La back in twenty sixteen. I
Speaker 2: lied to my wife to get out of the house
Speaker 2: to go see you guys. So I'm excited excited to
Speaker 2: come back. I won't lie this time though. I'm going
Speaker 2: out for all confidence and all right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, thanks thanks for the to us, Thanks you guys,
Speaker 1: Thank you for the music. Come on, y'all, thank you
Speaker 1: for the music.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much to original Semon Daid members Steve and
Speaker 2: Patrick for talking about their legacy and their new album
Speaker 2: with Me. Here some of our favorite Semon Day tracks.
Speaker 2: You can find a playlist and episode description or on
Speaker 2: our website at broken Record podcast dot com, and be
Speaker 2: sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod.
Speaker 2: You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken
Speaker 2: Record is produced and edited by Lee A. Rose, with
Speaker 2: marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer
Speaker 2: is Ben Tollinay. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
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Speaker 1: Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.