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” ! o c s i d a e v o l e “W The rise of Clean Bandit: from Ka mbar to the top of the charts
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20 | February 13, 2014 | cambridge-news.co.uk | Cambridge News
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T’S quite exciting preparing to interview Clean Bandit: has there ever been another band dubbed the “Dostoyevskys of disco”? “I love that,” trills Grace Chatto, one quarter of the chart-topping quartet. “I’ve actually read Crime and Punishment in Russian!” “And,” she adds with a burst of laughter. “We love discos!” The four-piece – Grace on cello, Patterson brothers Jack (bass, sax, deck) and drummer Luke, and violinist Neil Amin-Smith – met at Jesus College in 2006, but, unless you’re an electro-classical-indie fiend, six months ago the likelihood is you wouldn’t have heard of them. Clearly that is no longer the case; not if you’ve got a radio and have ever turned it on, at least. To blame for things seriously kicking off – and gloriously so – is latest single Rather Be featuring Jess Glynne. It knocked Pharrell Williams’ schmaltzy Happy off the chart top spot in January and has stuck around for three weeks (and counting). They sold out their first headline tour in under an hour, found themselves booked for Wireless festival and topped off a rather successful month by announcing their debut album, New Eyes, which will be making your limbs and ears jitter happily from May 14. Oh, and they also tend to be mentioned in the same bracket as fellow Cambridge band alt-J who they supported on tour, and the likes of Basement Jaxx, Rudimental, Disclosure and London Grammar. So how do you go from studying Russian (Grace and Jack), and pottering about in a student string quartet (Grace and Neil), to all this? You can thank Jack for that. He spent his spare time helping out Grace’s string group by designing the posters and merchandise for their concerts and then “one day thought of mixing some of the electronic ideas he had with little snippets of classical music that he had taken from recordings he’d made of our quartet,” Grace explains. They gave themselves two weeks after that initial mixing session to pull together a collection of tracks (“That was probably our most productive week as a band!”) and then played live together for the first time at the now devastatingly-closed Kambar on Wheeler Street. “Such a shame,” Grace sighs. “I mean, that was such an incredible place.” In the space of just two weeks they’d become Clean Bandit, taking their name from a translated Russian phrase meaning “complete b*****d.” Coming up with a name for their sound has been a slightly more laborious task though, Grace admits. “One person suggested ‘electronic chamber music’ which I quite liked, but it’s really difficult to describe,” she says, citing garage, dancehall, house, electric, classical and folk as influences. “It’s this massive hotchpotch of different styles.” Simply put, they blend classical arrangements with house beats, and while in some hands that could result in a clamouring mess, with Clean Bandit, it works. “We like challenging ourselves to mix stuff together,
As they announce their debut album, ELLA WALKER talks to the Cambridge band’s cellist Grace Chatto about their first gig in Kambar, making their own videos and her dreams of collaborating with Craig David (yes, how amazing would that be)
Clean although it does come naturally,” says Grace. “It’s not like we decided to do this special fusion, we just write and the elements come in as we go.” They actually made their single chart debut last April with the bassy Mozart’s House, with vocals provided by their friend and fellow Jesus College graduate Ssegawa-Ssekintu Kiwanuka. It peaked at number 17 and, like the soul-driven Dust Clears, is grimier than the commercially viable ‘fusion’ sloshing around in Rather Be. But you do get the real sense that the commercial factor is a happy accident, not a deliberate intention. These guys aren’t in it for the acclaim or the cold hard cash: look at their history. Way back when they went so far
Editor: Paul Kirkley Writer: Ella Walker Email: ella.walker@cambridge-news.co.uk
as to run their own club night in Cambridge to avoid the cheese of mainstream music slush. “We weren’t too impressed,” Grace admits when asked what she thought of the music scene in the city. “But the classical music scene at the university was amazing.” They had the foresight to book the likes of James Blake, George Fitz Gerald, Pariah and Iconica (“people and dance producers that we admired,”), and “that was really the main place that I danced,” says Grace, audibly grinning. “Yeah, I didn’t really like Ballare.” Rather Be – co-written by Jack and Disclosure’s lyricist Jimmy Napes –has properly chucked them into the mainstream though, so much so you’ll almost definitely hear them
played at Ballare now. “I don’t think they had set out to do it, but it turned out to be a very romantic song about wanting to always be with the person that you love,” says Grace, describing where the track came from. “We were going for an old school vibe with the synths and the beats.” It starts with a jaunty string sequence that has you automatically hooked with Jess Glynne’s urgent, silken vocals arcing over the top of ramped up bass and electronica. It fizzes through you, and then comes the drop. . . It makes you want to dance and dance and, um, dance. It’s brilliant, brilliant stuff, but without taking into account the video, it’s practically half a story, and these guys take their music
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funny). funny When it comes to having a highlight though – other than hanging out in Tokyo and lolling about in Cornwall – for Grace it’s been their first Live Lounge experience at Radio One where they covered Lorde’s Royals (“It was an exhilarating experience having three minutes to play your song,”). p And of course, A there’s that number th 1 ssingle. Aside from the tour A and the album and rammed festival a ra season (we hope), seas future-wise, Grace is futur already daydreaming alread nailing some major of na collaborations. With collab who? “Shakira!” she says llaughing. “Craig David!” (still laughing), David and: ““Drake. Definitely Drake, Jack’s a massive fan.” Now that is N ssomething to look forward to.
“I’ve actually read Crime and Punishment in Russian!”
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Bandit: v videos very seriously. They produce, film and edit them themselves. Jack helpfully studied at the Moscow film school: “another Russian connection,” Grace, left, says ruefully. “I think when you’re a musician it’s really important m tto keep a varied life. If you’re performing the same songs p over and over again every day, life can get boring and iinspiration can slow down, but for us it’s just so amazing bu that we can go to Japan, film in tha fish market one day and then a fis next day be performing in the n Brixton Electric, you know?” Brix Rather Be features a Japanese Ra who, while singing along to fan w music, starts hallucinating the m that she can see members of the band popping up around Tokyo. ban It llooks like it would’ve been ridiculously entertaining to rid make, so much so, Luke’s taken m
to carrying around a ‘Learn Japanese’ book. “He seems to be taking it really seriously,” says Grace. “He really fell in love with Tokyo – he’s threatening to move there, so I don’t know what we’re gonna do!” Video is also expected to be a huge part of the album; they’re doing a Beyoncé and making visuals to match up with almost every track. “It’s so fun!” Grace buzzes. “We like to see ourselves as producers of music videos, not just music or videos; both as a combined thing.” She explains how the visual ideas often come at the same time as writing the music or sometimes even before that. For example, an early video for the haunting UK Shanty, which they shot with model Lily Cole as a mermaid. “We wanted to film in the sea in Cornwall and for that reason we wrote this sea shanty melody.” It was also a chance to don wetsuits and leap about on rocks smashing up string instruments (watch it, it’s very
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