Rudimental – “It’s An Achievement To Beat Daft Punk”

With so much success already it’s easy to forget that Rudimental is yet to release their debut album. Home is due out Friday, 3rd May and will, finally, collect together hit singles Feel The Love, Not Giving In, and most recently Waiting All Night along with a bevy of new material.

When Waiting All Night recently reached number one on the UK charts it not only became Rudimental’s second chart topper within a year, beating out will.i.am’s That Power (featuring Justin Bieber), but did so as Daft Punk returned to the chart’s with their comeback single Get Lucky.

As Rudimental member Piers Agget rejoiced to Music Feeds from a tour bus driving through Scotland, Waiting All Night going number one couldn’t have come at a better time. With their debut album out at the end of the week, Aggest explained why there’s no place like Home.

Music Feeds: Last year Feel The Love went number one and now Waiting All Night has done the same in less than 12 months. What’s the feeling at the moment within Rudimental?

Piers Agget: Well, we’re all really excited because we’ve got our album that’s getting released next week. So it couldn’t have come at a better time to help spur the momentum of the album. We’re all just really, really happy about getting the album out and touring and playing our album tracks live. We’re definitely at one of the good points of the band’s career and we’re absolutely ecstatic.

MF: Feel The Love was such a successful track. Did you think you’d be able to match it, or even top it?

PA: I’d like to say yeah. I think we’ve got to have belief in ourselves. We’d been writing well before Feel The Love so we knew that we had this half an album there and a sound. So we believed in ourselves and went ahead and did it and I think a lot of the shows inspired us to write Waiting All Night – because we actually had Waiting All Night written not long after Feel The Love.

We were still buzzing of what Feel The Love did and we were like, ‘We’ve got to do this again next year.’ Next summer we want people to come up to us and go, ‘That was the track of last year’s summer and now this is the track of my summer, now.’

So it’s definitely something we wanted to deliver and I’m glad we managed to do it. Maybe next summer we’ll have another one.

MF: Has Waiting All Night going number one been made all the more special considering it went up against Daft Punk’s Get Lucky?

PA: Yeah, I think so. We’re massive Daft Punk fans so to be up against them and beat them, it feels really like and extra achievement. But I think it’s one of those things we’re kind of used to now.

The last number one was battling Gary Barlow from Take That [who had Sing in the UK charts], so we’re quite used to hanging around with the pop stars now (chuckles). But we’re just so happy that we could do it.

MF: Listening to the debut album there’s quite a diversity of sound and style. For you what is the common thread that runs through Home?

PA: The thing that unifies the tracks is a soulful vocal and live instruments versus electronic. That’s what we’re about … it’s something that we’ve always wanted to do. Feel The Love gave us the licence to do that.

You’ve got tracks from Spoons to Feel The Love and then other ones like Baby and I think what you’ll notice on the album is there’s quite a family vibe. It’s singers that we’ve been working with for years and that we’re really good friends with, and been on the road with. So I think you get that from the album, definitely.

MF: Where does the variation in the music primarily come from? Is it from within Rudimental or does the distinction occur when a guest vocalist adds their part?

PA: It’s definitely from within us. We grew up with this kind of London rave culture and we’re into old-school garage, we’re into jungle, drum and bass later on – from my brothers and sisters, actually, because obviously we were all about 26 so we missed jungle, really.

But I think we grew up with all of those influences and we’re quite an eclectic band. We’ve also been producing for years so when we sit down and make a track, if a rhyme fits at 120 bpm better than 160 bpm then we’re going to do it in that vibe.

It’s the same way that any other band might make a slow tune in rehearsals, or make a fast tune. I think it’s definitely, you know, having grown up in London and being into loads of different sub-genres and having that in your blood.

MF: The album is called Home. Aside from various genres you just mentioned what impact did home have on the writing and record process?

PA: We’ve got a studio in Hackney, which is where we also live, and I think the great thing is that’s where we grew up. You walk down our street and you have reggae pumping out of one window, rock and roll pumping out another, you have garage pumping out of another.

So you grow up with totally different cultures, which is why we that peace mural we used, on the front cover, is actually a Dalston (Lane) mural from a peace carnival in the 1980s. And it just kind of sums up what we’re about, multicultural music that comes from a place where there’s never one style, it’s a mix of a lot of different people.

MF: You’ve captured that diversity throughout Home but what about within the album’s title track?

PA: … The lyrics definitely mean a lot to us. People like your mum have such big parts to play in family and in home. And they help you make the right choices so obviously that whole, ‘Mum always said I’d find my way back home’, is kind of like our little tip of the hat to how much influence our mums have had on us and to help us make the right choices.

MF: So it’s a record your mothers can be proud of.

PA: Yeah, definitely.

MF: All the members of Rudimental have been involved in community radio. Where there any lessons from leant from that time that were practiced on Home?

PA: We call it pirate radio in the UK because it’s illegal. We were DJing on pirate radio from the early ages of like 13, 14, me and DJ Locksmith, especially. We definitely learnt a lot about networking with artists.

In those days as well, when we were like 15, 16, YouTube wasn’t very massive and the only to get your music across is paying 40 quid a month, paying to go on a pirate radio station and DJ your own music. And it taught us a lot about networking and how to market your own music and how to put yourself out there, and to learn people skills as well. So it definitely had a big impact on us.

MF: Were there any particular collaborations on Home that surprised you in how they turned out?

PA: Emeli Sandé, not necessarily a surprise, I think the Emeli Sandé tracks are kind of amazing and I can’t believe that they’re that good. I’m so proud of them. She’s a such a great songwriter … that for her to come to us and want to work with us was a massive compliment.

And then when we got in the studio, I remember when we laid down the first vocal it nearly made me cry because it was so good. So there’s definitely some tracks that I kind of pinch myself a little bit when I listen to them.

MF: Both of Sandé’s tracks, More Than Anything and Free, they’re very soulful, slightly more subdued songs you can really sink into. Would either of those songs be something Rudimental would release as a single?

PA: Hopefully, we’d love to release one of the Emeli tracks as a single, I’m sure it’ll happen. We’ve been talking about it so I’m sure when the time is right we’ll get one of her’s out as a single and it’ll be great.

MF: When can we expect Rudimental in Australia for a full band tour?

PA: We were talking about it right now. I’m sure we’ll be involved in the festival season at the end of the year. And we’d like to come out and do our own headlining tour, you guys have just got to buy our album and I’m sure you will, man.

We always get a great vibe when we come out to Australia. Especially with Future Music Festival that was so amazing. That was actually the biggest crowd we’ve every played to and we partied hard with you guys.

‘Home’, the debut album by Rudimental is out this Friday, 3rd May. You can preorder your copy via iTunes.

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