By Rosine Alleva – Rock At Night EU Editor
The Jazz Festival is an expected event every year in Yecla and for this 2025 edition Rock At Night was present to discover the Swiss band The Next Movement in the beautiful Concha Segura theater.
An amazing trio, an explosion of groove, soul and funk. Their show is very well choreographed, with Sam, impressive guitarist and P. great funky bassist dancing together on the front stage or surrounding the astonished drummer and singer J.J. Some of their sounds remind Prince but not only. If you hear their music for the first time and discover them on stage … what?? With J.J on drums, vocals and samples, P. sometimes on bass, sometimes on keyboard, and Sam on guitar, the trio sounds like a lineup of five or six! A band to absolutely see live! And let’s not forget their subtil humor! Excellent!
Interview
RAN– When did this music adventure start and how did you all meet?
J.J– That’s a good question and it’s not a short answer. Okay, we started with the Next Movement playing our own music seven years ago. But before that, we have been playing together for 23 years now. The three of us, we backed a lot of other artists, we backed other singers or rappers as side men. And finally, we quit all that and we started our own band with our own music. We started releasing our own music and yeah, it was a very good decision for us. But it took a long time until we actually did our own music. Decided to.
RAN– And so you met 23 years ago, it’s quite a while! And what are your influences?
J.J– Oh, it’s pretty broad. We all, all of us studied jazz at some point. So obviously we did study Miles Davis and Charlie Parker and Herbie Hancock and all these things. But we have a wide range of influences. One of the top influences is definitely Prince also. Prince and The Time, the side projects Prince had. D’Angelo (†) is one of our favourite artists, the neo-soul singer. James Brown is our influence. Jimi Hendrix, even Sly Stone. But also more newer stuff, we love Wolfpack, we love what Snarky Puppy does, the more recent acts. Yeah, the influences are really, really broad. From rock to jazz to funk to soul to, yeah.
RAN– And I’m interested in, well, you’re using some computer sounds.
J.J- We’re using some samples, yeah.
RAN– Yeah, and how did you get to that? I mean, it’s wonderful. I really love the way you introduce it in your music. Tell me about it.
J.J– Thanks, thanks. That’s a really good question. We wanted to be a trio because it’s very flexible. We’re very fast in doing things and deciding things and working. But we also love the keyboard sounds. We love synth sounds, you know, like Prince would use them back in the day. And so that’s why our fourth member of the band is actually the sample pad that I use. So we play that stuff in the studio. P., the bass player, and I, we both play keyboards as well. So we play it in the studio and then I put it as a sample on my pad and then I can use it in the gig as if we had a keyboard player, but we don’t.
RAN- Well, you know, I just heard the sound check and I’m already very excited to listen to the concert.
J.J- Yeah. That’s why a lot of people usually say we sound like five or six guys on stage, but it’s because P. plays the synth as well and the bass. I do the samples and the drums. We all sing, so we try to get a big sound, but as a trio.
RAN– Well, your energy is breathtaking! Just the three of you!
J.J– Oh, it will be better tonight even hopefully.
RAN- Yeah, I’m sure! It’s incredible, you know, just three of you, you’re really grooving on stage!!! How can I say, well it’s breathtaking! And another thing is that you’re very, very productive because nearly every year, before Covid, you had an album and then an EP and then your singles. So, any project for a new full album?
J.J– Absolutely. We’re working on it actually, as we speak, I’m supposed to write, I’m supposed to be writing lyrics right now. We have another song that’s going to come out in three weeks, which is going to form an EP with the two other songs that came out this year. And then next year is going to be full album with vinyl and CD and all of that.
RAN– And, as a Swiss band, I don’t understand why I never heard about you. I’m sorry. And it’s sad because as a Swiss band, you know the Baloise Session. I’m covering the Baloise Session since approximately personally, 10 years with my colleague, Jose Oliveira, who knew already the AVO Session. So many, many years ago. I’m going to tell Beatrice Stirnimann “how come that I never heard about them?”.
J.J– I totally appreciate it. If you can tell her how wowed you were, and how breathtaking we were, if you can tell her that I would totally appreciate it. No, we would love to play. Absolutely. It would be a good fit for us musically. And from the thing that we do, just sometimes things take a lot of time till they happen.
RAN– But I hope it will! I’m going on the 6th of November. So it’s very close to now. I won’t forget.
J.J– A little subtle pressure…
RAN- Before my last question. It’s not your unique date in Spain?
J.J- It’s not our first date. It’s our unique date for now. We flew here extra just for this festival. Because it was a short notice thing, but it seems they really wanted us. They really wanted to have us first. We said, no, we’re not on tour and they really wanted to have us. And we’re absolutely flattered obviously. And now we’re here, but we played in Spain before, in Soria at a festival, we played that “Jazz Down South” and we played on the Canary Islands on three of the islands. That was last year. And now we wanted to come back because Spain is beautiful and we love it. And so, yeah, we’re happy to be here. And we’re happy to have you here.
RAN– Definitely. And I’m very happy to meet you because also for me it was funny. I lived in Alsace , I’m Belgian, but anyway, I ended living in Alsace at the border of Basel and I worked in Basel quite a lot. So I said, Oh, a Swiss band!
P.– It’s rare, right?
RAN– It’s quite rare that a Swiss band comes here, yes. I read somewhere that, you’re considered as music business veterans. Do you really think, do you really consider yourselves like this?
J.J- You read that somewhere? Oh, who wrote that? Really? The thing is that we don’t feel this way, but I can see how we can be perceived this way because we’ve been playing music for 25 years now. So we’ve been doing music, music, music. We played thousands of shows. So I guess we are veterans because we played a lot of places and a lot of, for a lot of people and with a lot of different artists. So yeah, maybe we’re veterans. We’re the young veterans. A lot of experience. I think that’s what they meant, right? Experience is a good thing, I believe. I mean, it took us a lot of experience till we actually finally started doing our own things. So experience is good. Outside of Spain and Switzerland, of course, cause you’re going back to Switzerland to have some gigs.
RAN- Where else did you play?
J.J- Oh, uh, all over Europe, basically. We played in Italy, in France, in Spain, in the Netherlands, in Germany, a lot in, uh, Czechia a few times in, uh, Georgia, the Black Sea Jazz. We played in Latvia, Austria, obviously Sweden.
RAN– And did you ever participate to any, uh, challenge, uh, you know, yeah, like international challenge, festivals or to get some award winnings because to me, I think you deserve it. Well, you should.
J.J– We’re, we’re not so much into that challenge thing. Uh, because I think sports is a challenge. Music is not a challenge and that I’m a little weird in that way, but, no we didn’t do that, but that’s probably the veteran thing. Now we’re almost doing this too long to go join the newcomers, you know?
RAN– Well, sometimes these kind of things can bring you to be known, more famous.
J.J– And that’s true. Okay. Anyway, we are very pleased to have you here in Spain!!
RAN- I’m very pleased personally to have met you. And I will give a word to the Baloise Session.
J.J- Ah, wonderful. Yes. Say hi with the warmest regards from The Next Movement. I would love to play. .What about the Kung Fu man?
RAN– The Kung Fu man. Oh, yeah, thank you, ha! Why do you call Sam the Kung Fu man?
J.J– I always announced him as Sam, the Kung Fu man. That’s a very old story. When we first met 23 years ago, uh, we had a show, uh, that we were supposed to play and it was, I guess it was a, a formal, a corporate setting. And I said, everybody needs a suit and a tie. And Sam didn’t have a suit back then. He was like 20 years old or so. He didn’t have a suit. And so he came with the Kung Fu dress. He had like a beautiful dress, you know, black and white, like a Kung Fu dress. And we were laughing. We had so much fun. And from then on, we said, it’s Sam, the Kung Fu man.
RAN- Oh, right. I thought it was more related to the way he was playing guitar.
J.J– I just wanted to say, it’s also his chops. He has great chops on the guitar. He can cut through audiences with his guitar.
RAN- I just heard a little bit and to me, it was like, wow.
J.J– That also comes together there, the dress and the guitar.
Okay. Well, thank you very much to all of you and well, looking forward to listen to the concert.
J.J-P- Thank you so much. Muchas gracias. Okay. Peace.
Many thanks to Tomas Martinez – We are Piccadilly for his collaboration and to the Concha Segura Theater team.
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From Belgian and Italian parents, I grew up with music, dance and big fun! I love singing since I'm a little girl, I still am, haha. When I was 14, I saw my first concert: T-Rex. Later it was FrankZappa, Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Fela, Canned Heat, Little Feat, Bonnie Raitt, Earth, Wind and Fire ....
I dreamed to have a chat with each of them 😀 Before interviewing bands, I used to sing (and still do) and met lots of great musicians. I had the chance to be the support band to Joe Cocker in 2007. I love to communicate and meet people (Italian blood).
Working for magazine, a few years ago, l met José Oliveira! We were working at the same festival in Colmar. 2 people from the South with the same passion just recognized each other...and we stayed in contact since then. Here I am! Enjoying concerts, covering interviews and articles with José for Rock at Night!!
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