After seven years in the music industry and releasing three albums, some music listeners still don't know what Mint Condition is all about.
On their current album "Definition Of A Band," the members of Mint Condition have set out to clarify what their music is all about. "I think we're definitely trying to let a lot of folks know that we're a band, you know. This is our third album and a lot of people don't know that we're a band. We just try to let them know the different flavors we have," said keyboard player and percussionist Keri Lewis in a recent telephone interview with The Michigan Daily.
Mint Condition, a six-member band, consists of Lewis, guitar player O'Dell, bass player Ricky Kinchen, keyboards / saxophone player Jeffery Allen, keyboards player Lawrence Waddell and lead vocalist / percussion player Stokley.
With the exception of Ricky Kinchen, these St. Paul natives first came together in high school. "Most of the group, everybody except for Ricky, went to the same high school, St. Paul Central. And a lot of us kind of hooked up there and they had a recording studio there also. We kind of met each other through music in the high school," Keri said. "In about '86 we got together and decided to put together Mint Condition. After that, Mint Condition went through a couple different little things. This cord came together in '89. In '89, we went after a recording contract," O'Dell added.
Mint Condition is a self-contained entity. The band plays all of its own instruments, writes its own music and sings all lead and backup vocals. Another trait that sets Mint Condition apart is the unique and diverse sound expressed in the band's music. Mint Condition mixes R&B, jazz, rock, funk, Caribbean and African rhythms in a style the band refers to as "gumbo."
"Everybody just comes from a different background," Kinchen said. "Jeff, you know, his dad had a jazz collection. Everybody just grew up listening to different types of music. Keri was into more of, or probably started out listening to, the Luther and Stevie and the Teddy Riley and Babyface and L.A. and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. I'm from a family of brothers who listen to everything like Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Hendrix, Band of Gypsies, the Rolling Stones, Parliament and Funkadelic. Everybody grew up listening to all the bands of the '70s, so all of them are basically our influences.
"You hear some of our influences on our album, but you also hear Mint Condition too," Kinchen continued. "You don't just hear us, you know, copying everybody's tunes. You hear some of the flavor, but you know, I think we also just naturally put that together, being six people in a group.
"If someone comes with a different style, we don't say, 'Nahw, we don't want to include that,' whereas another R&B group might just say 'we just want to sound like what's on the radio right now,'" Lewis added.
Mint Condition has also begun to spread its musical wealth to other artists and groups around the music industry. "Well, we're starting off our new production company, Mint Factory Productions, and we've just really dabbled into the outside production so far," Lewis said. "The group Sultry, we did a couple songs for them. Jesse Powelle, we did a song for him. Co-wrote some stuff for Karyn White and stuff for ourselves on soundtracks. This summer, we just really got the production company started. Once we get stabilized with the new album, then we're gonna start doing a lot more production. Also, with the success of the new album, we started to get a lot of calls from artists, in the business, that wanted songs from us."
The band members attribute the continued success of their music to the refreshing sense the music provides to their listeners. "People want to hear something different. Some people don't want to hear five songs in a row that sound the same. They feel happy to hear something different," Lewis said.
"I guess one of the other things people like is that they're basically getting us - our feelings, our thoughts," Kinchen said. "They're not getting a bunch of producers who put together a package for some group or artist. They're basically getting everything that we go through."
In parting, O'Dell added, "I was kind of raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I want to send out some love to my family and people in Michigan in the hood."
