It’s been four long years since British funk/soul/jazz virtuosos The New Mastersounds graced the shores of the U.S., their preferred stomping grounds, but after starting their first tour back with triumphant performances before adoring crowds at Whippersnap Music and Arts Festival in Brookesville, FL. and Jam Cruise last month, it seems as though they haven’t skipped a beat. Twenty-five years together will do that to a band.
Founding members Eddie Roberts (guitar) and Simon Allen (drums) began gigging together in 1997 and formed The New Mastersounds two years later with bassist Pete Shands and former keyboardist Bob Birch. Current ivory master Joe Tatton connected with the group in 2007. Despite working tirelessly in Europe to perfect their unique form of Meters-inspired funk, jazz, soul, and boogaloo, local audiences never quite caught on. It wasn’t until they ventured across the pond to open for The Greyboy Allstars at Chicago’s House of Blues in 2004 that they found their appreciative fanbase. It’s been a mutual love affair ever since—a romance that was only interrupted by the start of the pandemic in 2020.
With the band’s members scattered across two continents and several countries (Simon Allen is still based in the group’s native Leeds, England; Eddie Roberts lives in Denver, CO; Pete Shands makes his home in Menorca, Spain; Joe Tatton resides in the Derbyshire countryside), the strictures of Covid-era travel and the slow-grinding gears of the visa process rendered The New Mastersounds immobile for years. During that time, the bands’ survival instincts kicked in and each member found new ways to survive despite a myriad of unknowns.
As the world gradually started to open up, The New Mastersounds—along with vocalist and frequent collaborator Lamar Williams, Jr.—converged on Floki Studios in northern Iceland’s Fljót Valley to record The Deplar Effect, their 17th album, released in September 2022 via Roberts’ Color Red Music. In early 2024, they released organ-driven instrumental “Do The Sausage Roll”, the first taste of their forthcoming 18th LP, Old School, due out on March 29th.
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Although the recording studio has kept them active in recent years, a handful of 2023 European engagements have comprised their entire post-pandemic tour schedule. All the while, fans in America anxiously awaited their return and wondered what the band has been up to. During a conversation the day after The New Mastersounds’ first gig back in the States at Whippersnap, Eddie Roberts, Simon Allen, and Joe Tatton filled Live For Live Music in on what we’ve missed in their world the last four years.
[Note: The transcript below has been edited for length and clarity. Enter here to win a pair of tickets to see The New Mastersounds at Cervantes’ in Denver, CO on March 29th or 30th.]
Live For Live Music: Thanks for taking the time out to talk and welcome back to the States after four long years away. I’m here not only as a journalist but as a fan representing all your fans who want to know what you’ve been up to—as a band and as individuals. Simon, let’s start with you. What have you been up to? And please tell me it’s stand-up comedy because you are funny as all get-out.
Simon Allen: That’s very kind of you. The other guys are not going to be happy that you said that. That just stokes my ego.
Eddie Roberts: Don’t encourage him.
Joe Tatton: It gets tiring.
Simon Allen: I’m not insane enough to do stand up, but I wish I was. I’m happier to be funny when it’s not necessarily part of the joke.
Eddie Roberts: Yeah. I was going to say you’re funny unless you’re called on to be funny.
Simon Allen: Then, it’s tumbleweeds.
Live For Live Music: In all seriousness, the pandemic was a very scary time for everyone but especially for artists. Some didn’t make it through. Some barely made it and are still struggling. Then there are those who used it as a time to reset. You’ve been together for 25 years and like any long-standing relationship, there are times it can get stale. Was the pandemic a time for reinvention for you all?
Simon Allen: It definitely was for me because I didn’t have any other outlet for drumming other than this band. So, when I realized, ‘Oh, we’re not going anywhere soon,’ I felt I can’t just define myself as the drummer as the band anymore because the band doesn’t really exist. If it’s not meeting and making music, it’s not real. So, I have a side hustle as a photographer [Simon K. Allen Photography]. I’ve got into cinematography. So, my reinvention was doing a cinematography course, buying some gear, and starting to shoot things for people.
Live For Live Music: Is this paid or passion?
Simon Allen: I’ve earned money. It’s still a passion. I haven’t earned enough money to spoil it for me. And I made a short film. It’s called “Burt and George.” They’re two old fellas who communicate via letter. And Joe did the music for the film. We also shot it in his kitchen because he lives in a beautiful cottage.
Joe Tatton: I was going to say my reinvention was doing some construction work because I didn’t have any gigs or any work. But then we also built a studio which we just recorded the last album in. And then I recorded some music for Simon’s film.
Simon Allen: …and you became an Airbnb landlord.
Joe Tatton: Yes. That’s less interesting.
Eddie Roberts: I didn’t have the luxury of reinventing myself. I had to just play private parties and hope I didn’t die of anything. … The good thing with Colorado—there [were] a lot of music lovers who could no longer see music who were desperate to have music. So, they would just, like, contact me through social media saying, “I’m desperate. Could you come play our house party?” The house parties kept me alive.
I actually started enjoying playing music again because I’d got so jaded with the whole ticket sales, the pressure to sell out, the pressure for this, the pressure for that, that I was losing the joy of playing music. And all of sudden, I was playing private parties with friends who were in Denver with no worry about selling tickets and it brought the joy of playing music back.
Simon Allen: The patronage model.
Eddie Roberts: Yeah. And I was just like, “Oh, this is actually really fun playing music with my friends.” And so we try to keep that going now.
Live For Live Music: You’ve been very busy with other projects like Color Red.
Eddie Roberts: Yeah. I kept busy doing lots of different musical projects. Like I said, I rediscovered the fun in it. As everything started opening up I starting dreading getting back on the treadmill and getting to the same point. But I feel that after that reset, now I can pick and choose what I do.
Live For Live Music: How did you reset as a band?
Eddie Roberts: When you’ve been going for so long and you’re on this treadmill, you don’t know how to say no because you don’t know anything different. So, it’s scary to say, “Well, maybe we don’t want to go do this six week tour.”
Simon Allen: Yeah. Because they might stop asking.
Eddie Roberts: Well, yeah. Because that’s the only income source you have at the time, because that’s all you’ve been doing.
Live For Live Music: There’s a real tension between the art and making it work financially. I don’t think fans realize how hard you work on the road.
Eddie Roberts: I’d say for the last 10 years—at least five years—guarantees were staying the same. Clubs were paying the same but all expenses were going up—for transportation, for flights, hotels, everything. … So we were earning less money doing the same thing we were doing 10 years previously. And that’s kinda changed now because it’s new rules now. We haven’t played in the U.S. for four years, so now it’s, “Okay, this is a model that works for us now.” The booking agents were like, “No. You can’t pay them what they were paid five years ago pre-pandemic.” Because everything’s changed now.
Live For Live Music: In reading about your journey, it surprised me that there’s not the same circuit for this type of music in Europe that there is here.
Eddie Roberts: Yeah. The gigs there are actually fun. But like you said, there’s no circuit. We only play in the U.K. once a year because there’s like four venues that are interested in booking us over there.
Joe Tatton: Three.
Simon Allen: Two, really.
Eddie Roberts: Yeah. We can play in London because London is the capitol of millions of people. You’d of thought there’s at least 400 people that want to see us in London. We can also play in Leeds, because it’s our home town and at this point it’s nostalgia once a year.
Live For Live Music: That surprises me. Historically, Europe has accepted jazz with open arms for a century.
Eddie Roberts: American jazz. We’ve always suffered from being too close to home for Europeans to give a s—. So, we’re not exotic enough. We’re exotic in the U.S., which is why it’s worked for us, and Americans are exotic in Europe.
Joe Tatton: Yeah. That would be it.
Simon Allen: It’s such a shame because if we could just trade, we could keep the costs right down [laughs].
Live For Live Music: Joe, you’ve been playing in some of these same venues with your Joe Tatton Trio, right?
Joe Tatton: Yeah. There’s a Spanish guitarist called Lucas De Mulder, who Eddie produced an album for, and I’m doing some things with him in Spain. Yeah… Talking about exotic—I’m finding it really easy to get gigs in Spain. England is so difficult.
Live For Live Music: Are the Spanish more receptive to your music?
Joe Tatton: Yeah. They love funk.
Eddie Roberts: Absolutely. They love the kind of genre that we make. There’s always been a pretty strong scene in Spain.
Joe Tatton: They’re the most like Americans in Europe, the Spanish are. They love fun, partying, and dancing.
Eddie Roberts: It’s cool. It’s refreshing. I nearly moved to Madrid before I moved to America. I tossed the coin on it. Similar to what Joe’s doing now, I was doing that 15 years ago. I had a band in Madrid called The Fire Eaters. We did release one album back in probably 2010. So, I was strongly considering moving out to Spain because I was having so much fun. But again, I realized that I was kind of reaching the limit of opportunity in Spain at that time and I was only scratching the surface in America. There was so much more opportunity and infrastructure and everything…
Joe Tatton: Every town has a music venue here.
Eddie Roberts: You could play every night, for sure.
Live For Live Music: Still, mounting a tour here as a foreign band is quite the financial, physical, and emotional undertaking. Now that you’re getting older, have you made adjustments for the challenge of touring?
Eddie Roberts: Well, because we haven’t really got back at it to the same level that we were doing it before, we’re about to do a five week tour… we’re about to find out [laughs].
Simon Allen: I’ve been training. Like, really taking fitness seriously because I thought I’ve got to do these two 90-minute sets and that felt like a massive big deal.
One of the other things I was doing to keep music alive in my life was playing covers in a duo singing and playing piano. It was called Simon and Tim because the other guy’s called Tim. We made a decent amount of money during the pandemic. One day after one of the nonsense lockdowns was lifted, all the people in a suburb of Leeds hadn’t had anything for months. They were just, “Yes! Live music!” I probably made more money on that than I did most Mastersounds gigs. And it was just a local bar [laughs].
Live For Live Music: Joe, you released Big Fish (Joe Tatton Trio) in 2022. Can you tell us about it?
Joe Tatton: It’s very different from the usual Mastersounds. It’s my little tribute to Mose Allison. I recorded that in America, actually. Yeah, in a little town near Nashville called Franklin. I’ve been digging that a little bit now that I’m doing this trio.
Live For Live Music: Speaking of albums, can we talk a little bit about your new album, Old School, coming out in March. The new single “Do the Sausage Roll” is out now on both Color Red (in the States) and One Note (in Europe and the U.K.).
Simon Allen: Yes. It’s coming out on One Note Records, which is the label I run.
Live For Live Music: This is the label that you established in Europe that you and Eddie both ran at one time?
Eddie Roberts: Yeah. Starting in 2003.
Simon Allen: And then Eddie came over here and set up Color Red so the last couple of releases have been handled by them.
Eddie Roberts: It’s hard to distribute from the U.S. to Europe because of the import costs and things like that. So basically, Color Red is handling the physical part of it in the U.S. and One Note is handing it in Europe.
Live For Live Music: Is it difficult wearing so many hats?
Simon Allen: No. I could do with more hats, to be honest. I’m often quite bored, so it’s been nice to have something to concentrate on to make me feel like I’ve got a worthwhile purpose [smiles].
In the past couple of months, having not done it for about five years, I had to relearn the process of preparing an album for release, and handling all the assets, and dealing with the designer and all that kind of thing.
Live For Live Music: And Eddie, you’ve expanded Color Red to include music communities around the world, which I suspect is quite demanding.
Eddie Roberts: Yeah. I wear lots of hats now. So, it’s nice to hand one back [chuckles].
Simon Allen: I’ve plenty of time available. So, I’m quite happy that it’s being pressed at the moment and we’ll release the vinyl LPs in the next couple of weeks.
Live For Live Music: Can you tell me about your songwriting process for all this new material?
Eddie Roberts: We go in with some very vague ideas and let it write itself, really.
Simon Allen: That’s certainly how Old School happened. There were very few little, basic ideas that had been circulated a couple of weeks in advance.
Eddie Roberts: Some of them, it was just a case of like, “Okay. Let’s just get the guitar sound.” And I’d just start playing something. And it’s like, “Oooooh. That’s cool.” And everyone jumped in and suddenly that’s a track.
Live For Live Music: So, is this little family of yours a benevolent dictatorship or a democracy?
Simon Allen: A benevolent dictatorship. And I’m extremely grateful.
Joe Tatton: I’d say it’s an irrelevant dictatorship [chuckles].
Eddie Roberts: It’s not even benevolent (laughs).
Simon Allen: The reason I’m still in this band is because there’s somebody in charge of the music and it’s not a committee.
Live For Live Music: And is that you, Eddie?
Eddie Roberts: That is me. Yes.
Simon Allen: When we first started, it was your tunes. You’d written them so they were yours, really.
Eddie Roberts: We also realized quite quickly that if we let everyone have an opinion, we’d never get anything done.
Simon Allen: And my opinion can’t be trusted. When the album [Old School] was first recorded, I listened to it and just thought, “I don’t like any of those tunes.” And then I thought, “Oh, no. I’ve got to get behind this because I’m releasing it.” So I had a bit of a psychological wrangle. As it’s got further toward the release, I’ve been listening to the tunes again and assessing them and now I really like them.
Eddie Roberts: I think you’ve done that on every album [everyone laughs].
Simon Allen: Exactly. So I’ve learned that I can’t trust my own opinion and that it will change. And it’s because I need some space, some distance from having been on it before. I can appreciate it as a thing.
Eddie Roberts: And you like to hear it mixed, as well. That’s the thing.
Simon Allen: Yeah. When it’s not mixed, I think, “Oh. That’s just some noise.”
Eddie Roberts: You don’t see the end vision.
Simon Allen: Eddie’s got a great vision of what it will sound like before it even exists, and I don’t have that imagination. That’s one of the reasons I appreciate working under Eddie’s iron fist.
Eddie Roberts: I mix all the albums. I’ve mixed every album we’ve ever done.
Live For Live Music: So this album kind of continues a conversation—and music is about conversation after all. I watch the four of you on stage having a “chat.” Are those “conversations” different for each performance?
Eddie Roberts: There’s a certain framework and then there’s things we can mess around with. I get called the DJ. I get to make some choices kinda like a DJ would on a set. I cue people to drop out or extend sections, or go from one tune straight into another tune.
Simon Allen: It was great DJing last night.
Eddie Roberts: I mean, we wrote a setlist but we didn’t stick to it at all. As we get into it, I get four tunes out and I was like, “Nah, I don’t want to go there next. I want to go skip and jump here.” And then I’ll jump back.
Simon Allen: He’s monitoring the energy of the crowd and trying to manipulate it. … As the band [was] evolving over the last 25 years, I was able to choose between locking in initially with Eddie or Pete, or going from one to the other—just figuring out what’s inspiring my groove more. And I do it with Joe as well, just hear little rhythms that he’s coming up with. Then without saying anything, we can repeat that and turn it into a new groove.
Live For Live Music: That certainly comes across in your performances. Anyone who has seen you live in the States is hooked from the first one.
Eddie Roberts: When we first came out, we were used to playing 45-minute sets, which is kind of all you were allowed to do in the U.K. because we were essentially a warm up for the DJ. The superstar DJs would play, so we’d have 45 minutes to warm up the crowd and the DJ would play for the rest of the night. We came out here and all our songs were like three or four minutes long and everyone was like, “You need a jam!” And we were like, “What? Really? You want to hear us just turning over a groove for fifteen minutes?”
We kind of understand [from] watching The Greyboy Allstars, and they would just sit on a groove for ages. And we were like, “We need to believe in the groove more. Believe the groove!” So, being in America and playing for American audiences, we definitely changed our approach. This is how we were able to end up doing long sets, especially when we went to New Orleans for the first time. We were playing like four or five hours until the sun came up, but we couldn’t have done that before because we only played 45-minute sets.
Simon Allen: No, because we were too uptight. We would have felt it was really self indulgent because we brought this kind of British uptightness with us, which has been dissolved by the American openness.
Live For Live Music: Clearly the jam community here has embraced you. Why do you think that is? What differences do you see between an American audience and a European one?
Simon Allen: I think it’s the cult of the musician. Musicians seem to be revered here—sort of shamans. That doesn’t really exist in Britain.
Joe Tatton: [Musicians are] your homeless heroin addicts, you could say [to loud guffaws as he gets up to leave for a massage].
Eddie Roberts: It’s more of a consumer, commercial thing [in Britain] where you’re either a pop star on TV or you don’t really matter. Obviously the forerunners for these music communities [in the U.S.] were the Dead and things like that, which we didn’t have in the U.K., and a lot of the U.K. bands came to America to get their fame and fortune anyway.
Live For Live Music: Last question—what advice would you give to a younger version of yourselves, as a band and as individuals, that you wish you had heard back then? Let’s start with you as individuals.
Simon Allen: I suppose I would have said just do a bit little more work on the instrument. Take it a bit more seriously because it will pay off. If you put some work in, you get out what you’ve put in. So, I’ve started recently studying the drums a little bit more in terms of the technique. But all I wanted to do was perform even before I was even ready to perform, because that was the appeal of it for me.
Eddie Roberts: I probably would have been the other way around. I’d be like, “Chill out. Don’t be so serious. It’s all going to work out [laughs].”
Simon Allen: So we’d give each other the opposite advice of what we actually did. It might not have worked out, though, if we didn’t.
Live For Live Music: And what advice would you give the band?
Simon Allen: The thing is, I sort of don’t think there is anything we should have done differently than what we did. Because we didn’t give up.
Eddie Roberts: I agree
Simon Allen: So, the advice is, “Respond to opportunity when it comes knocking,” which we did.
Eddie Roberts: There [were] definitely a lot of times where it didn’t make any sense. I remember we were digging a ditch one time and we’d been offered the New Orleans first show [in 2007] and we were like, “This doesn’t make any sense, but obviously we’re going to do it. How can we say no?” But it didn’t make any sense—financially, logistically. It was this kind of weird belief that we were doing something right, and if we just said yes to things, then something would work in the end. Here we are 25 years later.
Simon Allen: And the purpose of it now that we’ve all converged on is spreading joy. Because that is the biggest buzz—just connecting with other humans—especially after the nonsense of the last four years when we were all forced to not connect. That is even more precious and even more obvious as the reason for doing the whole thing.
The New Mastersounds are currently on tour in the U.S. For a full list of the group’s upcoming shows, head here. The Deplar Effect is available to stream now on the platform of your choice here. Old School hits streaming platforms on March 29th. For updates on the band’s tour dates and new releases, follow The New Mastersounds on Instagram or Facebook.
Old School is being pressed and distributed in the U.K. with limited distribution in the U.S. However, you can guarantee your copy by signing up for the Color Red Vinyl Club, which sends high-quality 180g vinyl records straight to your doorstep every month featuring music produced and curated by Eddie Roberts and the Color Red team. Vinyl club members are treated to an exclusive experience often receiving special colored vinyl available only to vinyl club members, signed covers or inserts, and more to make the experience extra special. Color Red Vinyl Club members have access to the label’s vinyl releases before anybody else and Color Red ships records as soon as they hit their doorstep, even if it’s before the official street date. Color Red Vinyl Club members also get 15% off of everything in the Color Red online store. Sign up during March to receive a free copy of The New Mastersounds’ first 2001 record, Keb Darge Presents: The New Mastersounds, in addition to Old School.
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