In Conversation: Brand New Heavies

In 1994, The Brand New Heavies shot from underground acid jazz favourites to mainstream success with Brother Sister. The album, packed with hits like Dream On Dreamer, Midnight At The Oasis Back To Love, and Spend Some Time, balances sophisticated musicianship with insistent soul grooves, enhanced by vocalist N'Dea Davenport's gorgeous soul tones and the band's shimmering live feel. Ultimately, Brother Sister became their highest peaking album, with a #4 UK Chart position leading a strong selection of international chart placings. Its success continued with a BRIT Award nomination for Best Dance Act and an MTV MVA nomination for Dream On Dreamer.
 
The Brand New Heavies are now celebrating the impact of Brother Sister with the release of their 30th Anniversary Remastered and Expanded Editions on September 27th. They launch the album by sharing one of Andrew Levy’s personal favourites, Put Yourself in My Shoes (Demo ft. N’Dea Davenport and Jan Kincaid), which really highlights the splendour and power of N’Dea’s voice.
 
Tom Parker has freshly remastered the original Brother Sister album for the 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition, ensuring it feels as fresh and invigorating as it did all those years ago. CD1 is completed with three additional tracks: Los Burritos from the US version of the album, as well as two exemplary B-sides from the era—Baby Don't Use Me and Touch of Your Love—both of which demonstrate just how deep their inspiration ran.

We caught up with the band ahead of the release and tour.

Hi there, how are you all?

Simon: We're pretty good! We're looking forward to an amazing UK tour in the winter (November) and a phenomenal show at The Albert Hall next year. There's also talk of a world tour coming up.

We are excited for the tour later this year. What have you got planned?

Simon: Well, the difference is we're gonna be playing the whole of the Brother Sister album, our second album. Some of the tunes we haven't played live before, so we're looking forward to that in our own special way. It's going to be amazing. We'll be playing some other hits as well from other records, but yeah, it's a great whole album.

It's been nearly 40 years since you first formed. Do you remember your initial ambition?

Simon: It was just a love of music and funky music that we were hearing for the first time. All the old James Brown stuff and dancing around to that. Then we started the band, and the ambition grew organically from there.

Things were happening for us in the London club scene, the Rare Groove scene. All bands like Soul II Soul, The Heavies, and Jamiroquai and Mother Earth, this whole scene grew. Our ambition was to make a record and do well with it, but we didn't really have a clue about the business like we do now—how you have to promote it and do stuff. We were fortunate to get noticed in America and go out there at quite a young age, and Los Angeles was our home, and New York and other bits in between.

You mentioned James Brown. Who were your other significant influences?

Andrew: We loved a lot of jazz fusion. Al Jarreau, Chaka Khan, but definitely James Brown, because he was quite an instrumentalist. A lot of his music was all instruments, like it was in those days, so it was quite good if you wanted to learn how to play funk. You'd listen to his stuff and try to mimic it, but then do something original with it, which is what The Brand New Heavies are about.

How has that changed over the years? Who are your current inspirations? Who do you listen to? Have they changed over the years?

Simon: I think one always has an ear to what's going on in the world, you know, from all the rock and stuff, the underground stuff, to the new stuff that's coming out. Now that Top of the Pops is finished, it's not easy to know what's going on for an old fella like me.

However, listening to the radio, for example, always provides a sense of what's happening. Things are shared online these days, aren't they? Rather than a national number one. Everyone knows what's going on musically.

I go and see all sorts of stuff. I've got kids, so I went to see Mitski and a bunch of other amazing new bands in Victoria Park. And that's really interesting to see the following on that. I bet no one's ever heard of Mitski out there, have they? But she will sell out two nights at Brixton Academy. It's a different terrain now.

Andrew: Influences are funny because when you're just getting into the music business or just getting into your career, all your influences are right there. You stop being influenced because you've got your education; it’s done there at that moment in your timeline. I always go back to jazz because there's so much stuff out there I've never even heard. I'm always excited when I hear something I've never heard from the 70s or 80s.

I love classical music as well. It might not be an influence, but it's good to listen to stuff that you know that you’re probably not able to play yourself, because then you listen to it objectively. I like classical music. You know, I love my country. And then you get inspired by your children as well, a little bit.

 Simon: Yeah, that's right. I go back to comfort zones and stuff like Jimi Hendrix and things like that because I play the guitar, so that's nice to me. And with YouTube, there's all these concerts you can find that I haven't heard before, which is kind of mind-blowing. I think a lot of the stuff we listen to is played by people playing instruments over programmed, computer-based music.

Your lineup has altered over time. How does a new lineup alter your output?

Andrew: It’s mainly our singers that’s changed over the years. The biggest differences are how quickly they learn the songs (laughs). When people join us, they’ve got to get into the Bartholomew-Levy world. We do like to keep a certain sense of tradition in the band. I think that's why people still like to come and see us, because we're still trying to be as similar as we can be with our stage shows and everything, as we were in the 90s. So if you join the band, you must also join the band.

Now on to Brother, Sister. You're re-releasing it this year. Does it feel strange to be marking the 30th anniversary?

Simon: To be rereleasing Brother Sister is a phenomenal thing. I feel very lucky and privileged to still be doing music and to have that kind of relationship with the fans who have been coming to see us live, you know, which is obviously very nice and a testament to what we've done, and I think our music means a lot to people. People cry at our concerts to some songs; they have memories with them. It's amazing to be performing it because we still have energy in our concerts; everyone in the band is chomping at the bit. There's no one reading notes and turning a page of musical staves. So it feels fantastic to be re-releasing it. We're playing the whole thing live in November, so come and check it out!

 How did you decide what additional elements to add to the re-release?

Simon: We did A Greatest Hits in 2023, and a lot of our material was digitised from the archive. There were loads of 12 inches of unreleased remixes and stuff that weren't available online at all. We even found a demo that didn’t come out—Put Yourself in My Shoes. We thought, if you've already got the album, you’d want some extra value added to it. It's also historically interesting. So that's how we kind of did it. We just amassed all this stuff through the digitisation and future-proofing of the catalogue.

If there's one more thing you could achieve with the album, what would it be?

Simon: I think I would have worn different shoes on the sleeves. So higher heels and bigger hair.

I think I might have sold a few more copies.

 Andrew: I think to perform it again with the original line-up; that's risky to say, but that would be sweet to do. With N’Dea and Jan, I think, just for the fans' sake.

Simon: Generally, we were quite pleased with the album, and we were quite prolific at the time. We put everything we made on the record, I'm pretty sure. I think it's quite comprehensive and provides a good record of where we were at the time, isn't it?

THE BRAND NEW HEAVIES BROTHER SISTER 30 TOUR

NOVEMBER
1st - Sheffield, The Foundry
8th - Cambridge, Corn Exchange
9th - Coventry, HMV Empire
16th - Newcastle, Boiler Shop
22nd - Brighton, Dome
23rd - Cardiff, Tramshed
30th - Frome, Cheese & Grain

DECEMBER
20th - Birmingham, Town Hall

MARCH 2025
12th - London, Royal Albert Hall (JUST ADDED)