The Samurai Seven

“Sometimes you need to stop to realise how much you miss it”

25 years after their last performance, the Oxfordshire legends The Samurai Seven returned to the live music scene this May with a single launch night at The Bullingdon in Oxford. Having been involved in lots of other bands and live sessions over the past quarter of a century, lead vocalist Simon is glad to be back with the guys.

“Every day we find out different ways in which we are different but we find ways to make that work. We’re like four funny shaped jigsaw pieces that sort of slot together”. 

“The other thing that’s really surprised us is the public reaction. What’s been nice is the reaction to the new material. Plus, we’ve all got kids, and for them to be able to see me and us play, they’re still at an age where they think I’m good and cool, whereas some of the guys have older kids and maybe not so much!

“A lot of people have really fond memories of us and those memories have polished over time so we have a real responsibility when we’re playing not to stink out the place.”

Admittedly, a lot has changed in the time the Samurais have been away. Now, people with smartphones record whole gigs, and artists can put out entire records without even having to leave their bedroom. 

“When we did our first singles, it was a time when people started talking about things like file sharing! We started releasing music at a time when you had to have a record label to release records, and if you released records in Japan you had to have a Japanese record label, and we went through all of that.

“In terms of writing, I used to write chords on the back of an envelope, and now there’s things like Garageband which are really democratised and brilliant. 

“The smoking ban came in somewhere during our first flush and you realise how bad music venues used to smell!”

The launch single in question is Punching Down, a politically-aligned track which lays into how billionaires create a sense of otherness between citizens, even though those citizens have a lot more in common with each other than they do with the billionaires. 

“I used to write songs about frustration and bad relationships and all those minutiae kitchen sink kind of grievances, and when people were asking whether we’d write new material, I was thinking ‘what am I going to write a song about?’. Now I’m married and have two kids, life’s kind of good, and being happy doesn’t necessarily stir the creative juices. I don’t think people would want to hear music about that! You only have to zoom out a little to realise there’s a lot in life to be concerned about.

“It’s a fine line though. If you try too hard you end up being like Bono and I don’t mean that in a good way.”

Another band from the Oxford scene, Beaker, also returned recently after two decades away, led by Emma Hunter, who this magazine spoke to a few issues earlier. The two bands shared a lot of the same circles back then, as they surely will again now with their revival. 

Never say never again, eh?