I wanted to to address the band first of all obviously this is a a you know it's got this the film has this beautiful story arc of um what is the the Mark Ronson quote history The Arc of History bending to the just uh and I I wonder if that feeling has sunk in for you all yet are you used to you know this feeling of validation which is finally can't I don't think we ever lost that feeling ofation because I think when we started out we had such confidence in the product we were making the music w
e were playing um that even when we came off the road came off the road purposefully and we knew at some stage we put the band back together yeah and we did that you know but what is wonderful is the appreciation over the period of time um of the band and its music and coming back we came we reformed in um I think it was 2011 cut a new album in 2015 15 released it in 2015 and started to do a lot of gigs and you know we've we've been all over the place and the appreciation has been stunning yeah
so we love them yeah how does it feel I mean you know seeing all of those I feel like samandi is one of those bands it's not just a band that people like you know it must have made things easy for you Tim when you're making the film because I get the impression there's so many people who you spoken to in the film who were like yes I want to talk about Sande finally I have the opportunity there was one sat right next to well yeah I know I mean not sure about my contribution but yeah certainly wha
t you talking about no it's it it was uh you know very interesting and and quite joyous thing to to email and call people up and they immediately said yes that's never happened to me before yeah you know I came from doing sport documentaries where people like how much it cost how much you going to pay me you know and uh so to have people who love the music and who desperately wanted to be part of it also kind of a lot of them said because they wanted to know what happened so they wanted the film
to actually exist so that they could find out what happened with the band because they loved the music but didn't know anything about the story you know yeah it's an interesting point I mean it's quite a responsibility that you took on telling that story because you're right I think it's a story that's been waiting to be told what was your journey with that and what's your relationship to the band well it was a long journey um it started in the '90s um with a mixtape that um a good bunch of guy
s at College were passing around and there was no track listing on it there was two tunes on there that I absolutely loved and I had no idea who they would by I thought they were you know an Amer an American outfit that that had done it but I moved in with a greater mate of mine who's a record collector who who should be here tonight but couldn't make it OT bit of a legend in in our circles he he had the records and he was playing them to me and I was oh my God this is the tune I've been listeni
ng to for 5 years and had no idea who it was by and then he said you know these guys are from South London and I'm like what we were living in stram at the time and you know the more I found out the more I asked the question well what happened to them why don't I know about them and so it became a bit of a it was our thing you know we had parties every Saturday night and we'd be playing some manday music and people invariably people would all either go why don't I know about this this is brillia
nt or they'd be like oh that's that sample from here sample you know and so what we're doing here is really what I've been doing for 30 years just doing it in a larger scale really yeah yeah yeah and for the band you know I know you've all seen the film a few times now how is it watching all of these people you know talk with such reverence uh about your music well it's it's it's really fantastic and I I use the word fantas fantastic deliberately um to because when we came off the road okay we i
ntended getting back together at some time um but we intended perhaps it being maybe two three four years after we came off the road just happened that it turned out to be 40 years but but uh you know when we came back and we saw um that the music was being given a new life through through a young audience um that's that that was really what was striking about it you know because music of that of that era you know yes they you know you have your tra your your radio stations that specialize in th
at kind of old music and you know um a kind of traditional kind of thing but this this music had a currency today and I think that's what surprised us is that you know there were young people of today that were buying into the music as though it was music of today mhm uh which really which really uh surprised us and that's why um we have no issue with the sampling uh of the 80s and the 90s of the music because that is what uh lent itself to the currency that the music has today and why you here
interviewing us why Tim has done you know the documentary about this had it not been for the for the sampling that that that probably would not have happened were you aware at the time that that was happening as it was happening I I I was too busy um too busy in the courts representing clients no I I hadn't focused on that I think my first um I first became aware of it I think probably in the early 90s one of my uh one of my kids the the older ones I think brought it to my attention that they be
en listening to music and there was U bits that they recognized of our music but I think the first first the first um the first track that I really heard myself um significant track that I heard myself with the sampling of our music was the Fuji's the score and did you think something's happening I was going to say the law thing must be quite useful stage of your career you know In fairness In fairness I mean the two two of the major samplings we had was obviously the Fuji um and solar had a num
ber one hit in France with um and Europe yeah it was was with Europe not just France yeah Europe um but you know once we uh a lot of a lot of the the the the Samplers at the time uh they just bought as you saw in the documentary you know there was no no evil intent or anything these were people who really appreciated the music and probably were not some of them probably were not too attuned to the niceties of you know copyright etc etc or actually put yeah or they may have thought we died [Laugh
ter] and but uh when we made them aware that we were still alive there was no problem um going back to you know this film feeling like a a a story that you know that that needed to be told uh and you're feeling of of kind of watching I mean Sam you were saying to me just before we came on the stage that it made you quite emotional seeing this film you know for the first I mean I feel like it's probably quite emotional for everyone in this room watching a film like that because it is a film about
Redemption and like people who really deserve credit finally getting it tell me about your emotional experience watching the film unless that was a private thing that you didn't want you get a little bit mut di share it with the real it you are a part of what that got in what's made it what it is but I don't know how many times you've seen this film now but each time it's it as I was saying to you before you hear the track track after track after track and picture after picture and put the whol
e thing together and it's there every time and it brings out something in you you know which I think I think most documentar are supposed to do that to you at some point but it does it with me and I can um I can feel part of it and I feel separate from it because I live through it you know more credit to you man um obviously it's it's a few years since the film was finished you know and we leave you guys at a certain point on the ascent and from what I gathered from speaking to you all since the
n you know it's been quite the journey can you talk to me about what's happened since that moment where the film ends can I can I jump in for two for a second um because I'm I'm one of the later guys that join the band if You' been listening to what's going on I came quite late and I wasn't I wasn't playing music um so really sandy um and joining Sandy turned me into a musician um so but I've been extremely fortunate that I was able to join C catch up with these guys as musicians as well as peop
le didn't know them excuse me didn't know them as people but knew them as musicians and they helped me to become a musician and and that that's I would always be grateful for because I've moved not only playing with some I what did for me but being a I found what would work for me that's what I I should have been I think it's the same with bom yeah we couldn't have been anything else yeah yeah yeah yeah fam you still practicing by the way his wife says he yeah [Laughter] um yeah I don't know rea
lly what to say but what what what I'd like to say is that um a lot of people don't realize that um the unique thing about simand is that there are no keyboards any of the music and for a b to do that and still survive in this time they have a keyboard we have a keyboard player now but those those albums that we made and those rhythms those guys are dancing to it's all percussion as John Sher said it was fascinated by the Rhythm and we didn't have any keyboards which uh tells me something about
um the baseman and The Guitar Man and the drummer man see that yeah uh it it still um bewilders me as to how how did we do that with without a a piano player or a keyboard player in this day and age and I remember one thing that happened to us when we came back from America we did a gig at the Fairfield Hall in C and um we were supporting Edgar Bron well and um we went on they didn't allow us to use the um the PA because that was um reserved for the main band and uh when we came off stage and Ed
gar BR started it the whole place Shook You know I'm saying we we must have sounded like a transistor radio but um there is one thing I remember and um and another thing I remember to is that um when we first came together there was only one song that we did that was not um a simand the song you you know that song Patrick of course volunteer slavery by Roland Kirk and Roland Kirk was one of one of my heroes I must I must have seen him about nine or 10 times in Britain and um I saw him before he
had his stroke and I saw him after he had his stroke and he was us for BL a blind man am I talking too much this is what we here [Laughter] [Applause] for good things you can't start an anecdote about Roland Kirk and on finity come on come on tell us about the two saxes come two saxophones more yeah he played three saxophones simultaneously and in Harmony and um he he played two saxophones two different Melodies at the same time I still have a lot of um admiration for him he died some time ago b
ut um yeah one of our heroes yeah absolutely volunteer slavery but you asked what's been happening I suppose I should tell you well yes please yes please and also I heard a rumor directly from you Patrick that there might be some new material in the the off it can't be a rumor then well substantiate it for us please well that's quite true but let me take you back a little sure as we started we we regroup your formed in 19 um 20 11 went on to do the album a new album in 2015 in addition to um um
the original core members we added some wonderful players still with us um singer Ray Simpson saxophone Ray Carles and a number of these keyboards Adrian Reed and drama Richard Bailey all these guys are really Kevin and Kevin forgive me all these guys have their own careers well great but they fitted in to what we're doing and Tony Kofi has joined later we've done a lot of TS um we've made this documentary with Tim and we're now making a a new album started a new album with few weeks ago we're g
oing to Australia in two weeks time for a new first time isn't it first time yeah yes first time and uh the new album we hope will be finished before the end of March wow can't wait to hear that come on it's gone it's gone really well actually but the great thing is uh about coming back we you know we can see it kind of from a distance now despite our own um confidence in the music we've always done because we've always done original music we had our own way Sandy came out of a band Steve and I
had before that called meter we were playing jazz lot of the stuff that we did um was grounded in meter and we didn't want to stop there you so we brought all kinds of music in but from this distance what we see is something really wonderful the acceptance of uh new fans and people who loved us from way back but it also enables us to know that we were correct to stand that ground yeah yeah and we also you know we we must pay a tribute to although we we had a brief time here Ginger Johnson you kn
ow I think it was a it was an important period that we spent with it because as Patrick said with our first band was a four-piece band just a saxophone drums Guitar and Bas but our focus in that band was very much it was called meter which I think uh indicates the kind of thing you were focus on which was time signatures we exp experimenting with music with different time signatures um and when we transitioned from that band we we had the period with ginger Johnson and I think we we we became mo
re more attuned to the rhythmic elements um of the music through our experience with ginger John because obviously the African drums and coners and things like that and that's why we put candate together um that was one of the elements that we wanted to incorporate in the music that we um that we were um writing at the time yeah yeah I think from from from my point of view as I was saying earlier on Jo um I'm one of the the newer members um I wasn't formally trained so my influence my biggest in
fluence and I'll say every time we go somewhere is this guy here is not trying to play drums like a conventional drummer Melody is what he's always been interested we've never sat down and talked and said you know this and this um but that I think that that that helps with the way the music flows because for the first five years after Simi um split I couldn't listen to it because my drum my drumming had changed so much uh all I could hear was my mistakes and it was seriously you could hear it yo
u know you do it's there and you know it's coming in but don't don't tell him where it is or which one is is is listening to what I'm making is just make listening to the music from a different angle I wasn't set as a conventional drama was listening to to Melodies From these guys when they bring a song Down half done three qus done we put it together you know and we play and we play one thing this B did we rehearsed you can hear it a lot certainly but before you know before we you finish with u
s it's important for us to say how much um the loss of Pablo Ray carless Trevor White has meant yeah there were not just members of the band with deep friends yeah and I love the fact that um Tim has dedicated the would have noticed that the as a real s dedicated it to Pablo yeah he was really important you can feel his sort of light shining across the absolutely the whole film well uh um talk about the fear of people in Whitley Bay when they saw all these black guys came came out this do the th
e working men's club in the north was an experience uh I Mayan we we weren't a pop band we weren't a rock band we were doing the music we were doing at the time and I think that this probably they they were looking at us and probably saying what the hell is this certain were playing these up mother Brown so um no no it it was a difficult those kind of were it was a difficult difficult you know because you're not getting any kind of connection with the with the people that were there but that's t
hat's that's all part of the grill that we went through you know I take a different view from Steve actually because if if anybody's fortunate enough to find a tape of that show you would hear Sandy playing chuckberry music and the audience liked it so recall chry yeah was that when they weren't responding to our own music we're proud of him he's he did a wonderful job with us and the nice thing is that you know from 19 from the 1970s all the way through to John passing away we remain friends co
ntact more importantly when we decided to bring the band back together 2011 to make a record we called him and he was ready at the drop of a hat to do it both John and Alan Florence the engineer so we really appreciate John we speak about him all the time one of the wonderful things about John well to put his money where his mouth was and he loved simand and we remained really close I'm Glad You Came wonderful thank you but you know John is dear to us because um the experiences that we had at th
e time when we were trying to get record companies interested in our music was very very difficult um you know they they just couldn't connect with what we were trying to do um it wasn't sold music from the states it wasn't rock it wasn't Pop um and I suppose for a lot of the record companies at the time that just thought what the hell was this you know um but John he heard the music and to his credit he liked what he heard and he didn't try to tamper with it he wanted to capture exactly what he
was hearing onto Vin he didn't give us any directions in terms of sometimes you got producers that through inter fair and say okay do this do this or bring in other stuff in but John he liked what he heard and that's what he wanted to record and that's what he did uh with those three albums so we he he's held in highest steam by us before we let you go oh sorry there's going to be we can all have a little dance to some samand records and other great records wrong time is DJing in the bar after
this but some practical details about where we can watch this film again and release details in ETC to yes so it's out in cinemas on Friday so please tell all your friends all your family come and uh come to the bfi's website for details lots of Cinemas all around the country and then on the 26th of February it's going to be on Blu-ray double disc Blu-ray physical media come on just making a comeback come on uh and on BFI player as well so you can stream it um so yeah we're really excited tell a
ll your friends let's get this story out there and also see you in the bar thank you all for [Applause] coming
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