‘MY MIDNIGHT OASIS’
Brand New Heavies star Andrew Levy has many memories of his London flat
IT WAS hard to go to a bar in the 1990s without hearing the Brand New Heavies, or a celeb party without seeing them. From lock-ins at the Met Bar with Björk, playing at Stella McCartney’s fashion shows, switching Mark Ronson on to soul music and even getting Mick Jagger moving like Jagger on the dancefloor, founding member and bassist Andrew Levy has seen and done it all. Now the acid jazz pioneers are back with a new lead singer (millennial Angela Ricci), a new seven-figure record deal and a 44-date UK tour this year.
When did you buy your first home?
Back in 1991 when most of us were fresh out of university and in our early twenties, sick of renting, we had a competition between everyone in the band about who would be the first to buy a house. Jan, our drummer, won. I finally bought one in 1993, I think I was second or third, but either way we were well trained, probably by our parents, not to fritter away all this money that was coming our way from the success of the band.
We just had a big hit single, Never Stop, on the US Billboard charts, which triggered us to sign to Warner Brothers in the UK. There was a lot of energy around us, high expectation and that’s when you seem to get a lot of attention from touring companies and record labels, and to have enough money for a deposit. A lot of money was thrown at us quite quickly, which allowed us to become homeowners so young.
What was the place like?
I bought a maisonette with an enormous back garden in Stoke Newington through a friend of mine, architect Jo Hagan. I’d taken a Fine Art BA at Middlesex University, so I had spent a lot of time in that area and it felt good to stay there for a while. The house was amazing because the bedrooms were on the lower ground floor, which left the upper floor available for the main living area. I had a balcony at the back leading down some spiral steps to the garden. The first thing I noticed was all the coving was painted gold and other little touches like the stripped doors, which were just coming into vogue in the early 1990s, maybe. I thought ‘someone’s really thought about the detail here and it’s so unusual, I’ve just got to get it.’
Did it change your life?
Definitely for the better, to buy this place. I built a studio in the front room and spent all the time I wasn’t on tour in there writing, or partying. It was here that I wrote You Are The Universe – which became one of our biggest songs – with Siedah Garrett, who wrote Man In The Mirror for
Michael Jackson and toured with him on the Bad tour. [Bandmate] Simon [Bartholomew] would come over and jam, the same way we’d been doing since we taught ourselves how to play as kids.
Did anything go wrong?
Not really. My first house made me grow up a bit because I now had a mortgage and responsibility to get that paid every month, but I still had enough left to enjoy lots of sports cars and dinners in some pretty cool restaurants. I think it’s good to really get everything out of your system and enjoy life before marriage and the pitter-patter of tiny feet, which for me didn’t come until I hit 40. The purchase itself went fine with no complications.
How much did it cost?
It cost me £93,000 and I sold it for a larger place in Highgate in 1998. I hosted lots of parties there, one of which Jay Kay from Jamiroquai came to and my old friend Stella McCartney, and we had a barbecue for my birthday in the garden. It was fun because the day after, we got our first Top 20 single in the UK for Midnight At The Oasis (reaching no 13). Life was very good.
What is your best memory of that first property?
I remember feeling so proud inviting my parents over to see this house and I spent the next three or four years in The Conran Shop every weekend finding lots of cool additions to the interior. That first home more than doubled in price in the four to five years I lived there and I thought I’d see if I could buy another place in addition to my main home. So I bought two seafront flats in Margate when the market was very, very low in 2001 and I sold those after a few years and some refurbishing at a decent profit. I also bought a lovely warehouse flat in Shoreditch in 2001 and the house next door to me in Highgate in 2002, and rented them out until we sold up in 2008.
Where do you live now?
I’m married now, with two very young boys, so education and being close to the right school is important. We decided to live in East Sheen to have some good schools nearby.
What have you been up to during lockdown?
As well as getting a new record deal and new music, we’ve been rehearsing for a year of 44 live tour dates in the UK, plus a few dates in Europe that we hope will go ahead now we’ve got past ‘Freedom Day’. Just before lockdown I started a property development company with a friend of mine who runs a hedge fund. My wife had found a plot near a great school in Barnes that we knew would appeal to families wanting to live in south-west London, and after a few weeks of research I convinced my now-business partner to help purchase and develop the site from one house into two-to-four bedroom houses. I’ve also just started on a new residential development just around the corner, which is less complicated but equally satisfying.
Have the BNHs been
reborn, too?
Definitely. We’ve been hard at it keeping the band on track, releasing new material and keeping busy on the road. I feel now with our new, incredible singer Angela Ricci and our new record deal with Edel Records, which is one of the biggest we have signed, we’re at the beginning of a new, exciting time for us. Acid jazz and funk seems to be on the rise in the cool bars in London. This is the music we pioneered back in the late 1980s. It feels like it’s our time again. You’d also be surprised how many different kinds of artists love our music. Mark Ronson, who we first met when he came to see us live in New York in 1991, asked us to play at his 40th and there was Mick Jagger on the dancefloor, doing his moves, and he tells me he’s a big fan.