It's hard to believe that Mint Condition has been around for so long; close to 20 years to be exact. With 8 albums now under their belt, you can best believe that these guys are no rookies. Signed to Perspective Records in 1989 by Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis; who have been responsible for producing hits tracks for artists like Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey and Fatboy Slim to name a couple, Mint Condition can easily be described as a fundamental part of quality music, they have always been a band that does not readily slot into any particular genre or type of music and it could be this diversity that has managed to keep the them going strong after all these years.

I caught up with Mint Condition here in London on the last leg of their European tour and hung with the guys before their Jazz Cafe show and tried to get the latest scoop on the group that would rather be defined as a band, or in their own words; a democracy.

The break up of groups is normality in the fickle music industry, think Destiny's Child, The Spice girls, The Temptations, The Supremes... I could go on forever, but it seems as if Mint Condition have found a winning formula to keep them going strong that they could perhaps bottle and sell to music industry big-wigs. Lawrence Waddell, keyboardist / pianist, explains; "So many groups do break up because one guy is making all the money and also making all the decisions, he's writing all the songs; doing everything whilst the other guys are getting crumbs. So we lay it out and we share it, we did it this way for a while and it's worked".

Lead singer and drummer Stokley Williams attributes the group's resilience to their democratic approach; "...in business. You have to work as a democratic, so that makes it a challenge. We vote on stuff, so sometimes it takes us a long time to make a decision, which is frustrating but sometimes necessary. Sometimes we've missed out on opportunities too, that's the horrible thing because you never want to miss an opportunity". Other things that keep them together is their music and space, Stokley continues; "...space is important in any relationship. You always have to have that intake and outtake, that's just the law of nature. Like inhaling and exhaling, you gotta have both things in order for it to work."

Spending time with Mint Condition, their mixture of personalities are more than evident, for example; Ricky Kinchen, bass guitarist is the joker of the group, he is quick to say what's on his mind and have his voice heard. Some of the others may have a more diplomatic approach to things - Rick on the other hand, will tell it like it is. The only Chicago native amongst four other Minneapolitan's, he tells me that initially the other band members were apprehensive about him being in the group;

"...They wasn't gonna hire me because of my attitude; I still have an attitude problem, but it's all good. I'll get over it (laughs). Like I said, they wasn't gonna hire me, but these guys told the rest of the guys to come and check me out. I was doing the splits and had the tight Prince pants on... looking like a guy / girl kinda. Everybody in the 80's was rocking that stuff, Prince was king back then. I didn't want to wear that kinda stuff, but in order to get into the band I had to."

Gone are the Prince-type tight trousers of the 80's, Mint Condition are back with a new album, entitled 'E-Life' and ironically I literally had to pry saxophonist / keyboardist, Jeffery Allen, away from his laptop to have him explain the vibe of the new Mint Condition album;

"This is our first record that we had more of a concept upfront before we (had even) recorded music; not all of it -but some of it. This was a change because usually we have the music first and then figure out a title after the music, but this one we kinda went into with the E-Life concept and we tried to just build around that. The concept of the album, E-Life is basically our interpretation of things like relationships and communication, in the context of today's information age."

When asked about the three things they would take with them if stranded on a dessert island, guitarist Homer O'Dell is quick to step in with his island necessities; "Hale Berry, and her baby....and a nanny who can watch the baby while we have some fun." This brings laughter from the rest of the group as someone asks whether Aubrey (Hale's model partner) will come too. Stokley lists his necessities as; "...a computer, a good book and a good woman."

The 'woman' idea is one that sticks with the other members of the group - however, in addition, Jeff throws an all in one weightlifting machine and access to cable TV into the mix. Lawrence goes on to add a piano and his fully loaded computer to his list (this is a hypothetical question remember, they can have anything they want!) and Rick adds his kids to the experience, O'Dell cuts in; "...let me give you my real 3 things: Hale Berry, computer... he stole my thunder with my kids, these guys know that those 2 girls are the closet things to me. They are the 2 reasons why I'm still in this group; I would (have) probably done something crazy and ended it; my girls are defiantly my reasons why, so they would definitely be with me chillin', helping to babysit Hale Berry's kid whilst me and Hale have the computer off to the side chilling... E-Life".

Mint Condition's new album 'E-Life' is available to purchase from www.mintconditionmusic.com.

Written by Christy Black