root salad f30 Banter
Stompy English dance music in a new suit of clothes. Simon Jones braves the wisecracks.
“W
e obviously had the ‘what shall we call our- selves?’ conversation and it involved rather a
lot of derisory laughter at each other’s sug- gestions. In fact, the name Banter was a direct result of the inability to decide on something sensible. It’s almost more of a band mantra than a name.” Simon Care mulls over the reason for choosing the tag for a fresh venture into what John Spiers waggishly described as “Think Bob Cann meets Chas ‘n’ Dave meets La Bottine Souriante and you might be getting some- where close.” Care’s Bantering mates, Nina Zella (keyboards, vocals) and Tim Walker (percussion, brass) concur.
I ask how they met, given Zella’s back- ground in soul and jazz, as well as a freshly minted solo career (check out her download single Sleepwalking.) Tim’s off the mark first. “There wasn’t really any plan to start all this. It just sort of happened. Nina and I needed a melodeon player for some book- ings when the box player in the band we were in fell ill. I guess we ought to tell Simon his probation period is over and take him on full time.”
Nina’s away with the tongue-in-cheek angle already; the joshing’s started. “We thought about a carer for Tim for a while, but we can only fit three people and the instruments in one vehicle. Seriously though, we did think about other members for a bit but our sound is big enough with three. It doesn’t need anyone else.”
Simon, whose quest to expand the hori- zons of English music takes in The Albion Band, later Morris On, Tickled Pink, Whap- weasel and of course Edward II, says that “I’d always wanted to be in a ‘trad English- type’ band – think Flowers & Frolics, New Victory Band. So the chance to work with a percussion player that used wooden skulls was too much to resist.”
How do you ‘Banterise’ familiar materi- al? “Great question. One of the things that I have tried to do is bring along well-known, possibly hackneyed English tunes and see if Nina likes it or if it evolves within the first few times of playing it. A lot of what we do is improvisation. Though from an audience’s perspective, if they recognise the tune then they have something immediate to lock into,” Simon informs me.
which is exactly what Banter do. Everything that has entered our brains since birth has contributed to Banter’s sound,” Nina adds.
“I
Their debut album is simply titled Yes; you can hear a track on this issue’s fRoots 68 compilation. “We liked the ambiguity that a single word title gave and the positivity of it,” says Tim. “We’d been itching to get into the studio and when we did it was so easy. We knew we’d got something really special playing live and we were hoping that trans- lated onto a recording. There was so much energy in that room, we poured everything into it and I think the result captures Banter as Banter is. We just knew we wanted to end up with something special. The track order must have changed and evolved half a dozen times through the mixing and mastering part of the process until we were all happy. The choices of tunes and songs were shortlisted from our favourites and from ones that had left us with big buzzes when we’d played them live. We didn’t overthink it.”
I got my first exposure to the beast that is Banter on a specially created memory stick from Simon Care at Cropredy, at what he terms “the annual update.” Yes is all at once familiar yet innovative, rekindling fires long gone out in the common place. Jump At The Sun and The Rochdale Coconut Dance are two examples, whilst Zella’s poignant songwriting gets increasing expo- sure both in live and recorded scenarios.
Does this present them with any chal- lenges, ceilidh versus concert? Tim again: “We have already grown beyond that. We are as much about concerts as we are about dances. With the addition of Nina’s songs and given audience responses to our con- cert sets so far, it feels like the sky’s the limit. We love the freedom that concert sets give us in being able to deviate from the regular rhythm that’s so essential for dancing.”
They all nod sagely when I ask if they specifically want it to be heard as English. Nina says, “We all love that stompy English dance music sound and the tunes on the album are mostly English. I know the three songs definitely are!”
2018 festivals include Sidmouth, Cam- bridge and Shrewsbury as well as a trip to Ibiza. “That’ll look good on the tour t- shirt,” quips Care, who also lets slip that “Interestingly we’ve been booked for a few alternative/indie clubs, so we’re excited to see how they work out.”
www.banter.band F
think that, having Simon in the band, people instantly know it won’t be run of the mill or cliché. It will push boundaries,
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