January 2009

Tom and I met through a mutual friend in 2002 and began jamming when it appeared we shared a taste in music and a bizarre sense of humour. A few years later I was asked to put together a band for a video launch, so I called Tara, a singer I was at university with and Michael Kamara, who I remembered from school as having an outrageous personality and some unbelievable natural talent. We’d talked about putting together a band to play live RnB, so when the drum shop I was working at wanted to start a jam night I offered to provide a house band.

I found Alexei Elfenbein and Chris Webb at a jazz night in Shoreditch and two more singers, Ella and Adanna, at music school and we played Stevie Wonder and Jill Scott covers to open up under the name ‘Nexus’. We started rehearsing and writing a bit for the jam and a few other house band slots we acquired but it wasn’t easy having four singers in the band and after some disagreement we were left with the four musicians and Michael; the other singers moving on to solo careers.

Now a bit more focused, we wrote the Pop/Soul tracks: ‘Soulfly’, ‘Change’ and ‘Time to Move On’. ‘Soulfly’ got us a lot of attention and we managed to pick up more regular slots, but rehearsing for these and trying to make money got in the way of writing. Alexei soon stepped down from the keys and left the band to become a bass player, but remained a close friend. David joined the band ..s after having sung with us on a few gigs and in true Nexus fashion we threw him in the deep end, recording these songs within a week.

In early 2008, the five of us took some time out of London on a what was to be a productive writing session, during which a few of the songs on the forthcoming record were born. Once back in London, Chris left the band on good terms and we were without a bass player. For most of that year we focused on individual projects, coming together only for a few gigs and a trip to Cuba. Cue Harry Tarlton.

I found Harry while advertising for bass players on the internet and after hearing his playing and production, we got him down for a gig. He turned out to be exactly what the band needed, not only musically but in his overall enthusiasm and ridiculously eccentric personality. After a few ice-breaker gigs including a trip to the Royal Albert Hall to appear in a Bollywood film, we began work writing and producing the record which, as I write this, is being recorded. As we moved away from the straight up Soul of the earlier songs, a new sound began to take shape, drawing influence from Funk and Rock artists like Prince and Jimi Hendrix.

The new material is set to be out by late spring this year and plans for a tour are motion. I guess after a couple of years of finding our direction, we have put something together we are all proud of and that truly stands out from anything out there today. Not to forget we’ve had some great experiences playing around the world and some ridiculous laughs.

Nudgements all around!

- Mehdi

Promo photo's by Elizabeth Franks