Pandering & The Golddiggers

Pandering & The Golddiggers are a British electro glam trio of vocalists, songwriters, composers and theatrical performers. They are also known as the 'Superband', a phrase which they coined to describe their status as “three individual superstars come together”. The band are known for their particular emphasis on high powered singing, arresting dance moves and vocal harmonies. Influenced by acts such as Grace Jones and the Scissor Sisters, the band cite their love of high end fashion and the London and New York voguing scene as major sources of inspiration for their style and performances. They are also known for their avant-garde styling, for which they are solely responsible.

Beginning

Tamer and Francine met aged 18 when they attended the BRIT School but neither studied music; Francine studied Media and Tamer Theatre Studies. The two didn’t know each other well at school, and Francine is quoted saying in a Love Magazine article, “we thought we were too cool for each other”. Their mutual love of fashion and music led them to become inseparable after college, though not before Tamer had secured a degree in Marketing and Francine had studied English at Cambridge University, the first and only BRIT School graduate ever to attend.

The two were part of one of London’s most notorious voguing houses when the London club kids scene reached prominence in the early noguhties and it was after a Vogue Ball that they met Christie who had been moonlighting nearby. Sources state that the three first met and sang together in an alleyway outside a sex clinic in Soho. “I wasn’t going in or coming out of it” Christie insists. Shortly after this meeting, the band recorded their first demo, much of which had been written by them individually before forming.

Name

Although there has never been a formal definition of the band’s name released, definitions of the words 'Pandering' and 'Golddigger' can be found on the band’s Myspace, and Tamer who came up with the name, has often alluded to the band’s desire to please their audience and their love for glitter and glamour as the formative components. It may be wrongly assumed that ‘The Golddiggers’ and ‘Pandering’ are characters adopted by Francine, Christie and Tamer, however the band have said that the name ‘Pandering & The Golddiggers’ is “not a member inventory, but a concept”. On the band’s website and the trio are referred to as ‘The Panderers’ which is the correct definition for the members.

History

(2007 – Present)

Adopting a ‘for the love and not the money’ approach, the band worked part-time, scraped together whatever little money they had and called in favours to make early recordings. For the demo of symphonic track ‘Parisian Café’ they advertised for instrumentalists to form a ‘voluntary orchestra’…. “We were so overwhelmed that all these people had turned up, ready to play to this little score we’d written. We couldn’t pay them but we bought them cake and they were so impressed by that, when we were just shocked they’d even turned up.”

After uploading select tracks onto their Myspace page, the band attracted attention from leading London venues and went on to headline at Favela Chic, Heaven, Bar Music Hall, The Monarch and Soho Revue Bar.