Jammerzine has an exclusive interview with Mamma Freedom member and producer Alexander Johnston. Mamma Freedom are set to return with their new album dropping in early 2024 via Grand Northern Recordings.
With a full and surrounding sound, Mamma Freedom is obviously a band that knows how to fill a room, both sonically and physically, and take a listener to places they never expected to go. Their latest single, ‘Seren‘, shows this all too well.
Steeped with as much history as it is musical experience and stylistic flair, Mamma Freedom has worked with the likes of Alexander O’Neal, Damon Albarn, Robbie Williams, Rudimental, John Newman, Wiley and CASisDEAD and have emerged with a sound that spans the genres and covers the listener with that timeless sound that can only be described as signature.
And, in this interview, we talk with Alexander about that sound, there upcoming album, and what is in store for Mamma Freedom in the near future.
Check out our other features with Mamma Freedom HERE.
About Mamma Freedom
The band returns after 2020’s ‘Anthems for an Empire’ with a brand new sound which sees Alexander Johnston take the lead vocal and the group deliver a joyous electro soul / dance fusion that is beautiful, uplifting and full of the feelings of summer, passion and forbidden love. ‘Seren’ tells the story of 2 lovers who meet on sun drenched island but can only be together at night. They spend the end of their evenings lying on a beach looking up at the stars. On the final night, knowing they will never see each other again, she tells him that the star they have been looking at every night will be their star and every time he looks up it will remind him of her. She is his ‘Seren’ (Celtic for Star).
Alex explains “J and myself had been writing a lot both for Mamma Freedom and other clients and I’d written these 2 songs and finished the lyrics and melody which I don’t usually do. One was ‘Seren’ one was ‘Athena’. I played them both to J with the intention of him singing them both but he heard ‘Seren’ and said that I should sing it because it really suited my voice.
So then naturally I had the same Don Henley / Don Felder ‘Hotel California’ scenario run through my head of when Felder wanted to sing it Glen Frey said, “you don’t sing it yourself when you have Don Henley in the band.’
After the release of their second album ‘The Voodoo Suite Session Vol I, the band embarked on a 30 date UK tour supporting Soul legend Alexander O’Neal in 2017/18.
The band hit it off that well with O’Neal that they went on to re-record and re-arrange million selling album Hearsay 30 for the 30 year anniversary and then wrote and recorded his brand new album ‘Testament’ which is out in the autumn of 2023.
They spent all of 2018-20 in the studio and in that time wrote and recorded music with Damon Albarn, Robbie Williams, Rudimental, Wiley and CASisDEAD before they set to work on their 3rd album, the stunning ‘Anthem for an Empire and they are finishing up the as yet untitled 4th album that is due for release at the end of 2023.
LINKS:
https://www.facebook.com/MammaFreedom
https://open.spotify.com/artist/58kxIjpwxvJxo0E3uiG0Ri?si=TNWP4Mh_QzSFnu1aIPpFjw
https://www.instagram.com/mammafreedom/
