Interview – Pendulum
Amongst the drift and tide of the musical realm, it is a rarity for an electronic music group to have mass market appeal, and yet several years ago, three guys from Perth embarked upon a journey that would take them not only to the top of the drum and bass charts, but also into the living rooms of anyone with an interest in cutting edge music. No stranger to fans since breaking out with their seminal album, Hold Your Colour, Pendulum are now poised on the verge of being one of the few bands who have been able to escape their niche, as their upcoming new album, In Silico, is sure to prove.
Having relocated to the U.K. to further the group, the group hasn’t looked back, and, indeed, as Rob Swire points out, it may have been impossible to have attained the success they have garnered if they had not done so. “The thing is that Australia has a very tight knit scene,” he explains mildly, without a hint of disparagement. “It’s a lot less inviting to newcomers. Even though Triple J has a bit of new stuff and they have their Unearthed thing, regardless, it’s still a pretty closed environment. Either you’re an indie-something guitar band or you are already pretty well known and get pushed by a major. What I really loved about the U.K. when we first went over, was the BBC Radio 1 connection. They literally have teams of people dedicated to going out there and finding as much new music as they can. Anything that’s popular within any scene at all they will go out and want to hear it and maybe put on some shows. The amount of new stuff that they will play, even just mid-day, is pretty cool.”
The group have since made the most of their opportunity, so much so that find themselves in the envious position of being signed to a major record label. In such a transition from an independent label there is often an association of trepidation, yet he admits that any fears over artistic freedom were paltry. “From the get go,” he remarks, “we were sort of thinking, if do move to a major we need to be moving to one that’s going to let us have as much freedom as a major could possibly give you. So we made sure that we signed up with people who ran a major label pretty much like a large scale version of an Indie one.”
A major part of the move on behalf of the band in recent years also been the shift from a studio based production outfit to the live performance realm. With members already having a strong background in live music, however, it seemed an obvious direction, and yet with such a progressive sound needing to be translated into the live arena, it was not without its complications.
“The biggest hurdles, the biggest things we have had to overcome, have been technological issues,” he explains. “That is, in the case of things that we need to do a live show, there are things that haven’t been invented, or not being produced anymore. Live, we are running nine computers on Linux, and they basically load the same or similar effects that wed use in the studio, but this time they are being used live. That turned out to be the best way for us to work, but there were just so many other technological hurdles. We didn’t really want to go down the path of the Prodigy, which was pretty much three guys behind the mic and Liam behind the keyboards. We wanted to just kind of head away from that.”
Taking on career based musicians for the ensemble may have also meant an increased perspective, and yet as all creative endeavours between people prove, it was a many-wayed street. “With the individual musician, when you are getting other musicians involved in a project, they are bringing their influences into it as well. You kind of compromise to an extent, but the good thing is, is that we all learnt from each other. We were teaching them about the technology we needed to do it, and they were teaching us about some other stuff about how to play live and what a good live performance means.” After over two years of honing their craft, their efforts have paid off. “I think when we played Belvoir amphitheatre that was the third or fourth show we had ever done, and over the last UK tour we have tightened up quite a bit, ” he enthuses confidently. “We also have a much better team making this a bigger production, so hopefully it should be a much better show.”
With all of these things at the forefront, the pressure to produce chart sales for a label from the fruits of a bands labour is often high, but he thankfully admits that hasn’t been a driving force behind the album. “Obviously when you are dealing with the majors, they do care about having a few tracks that will hopefully go well in the charts. For us, personally, I don’t know if we mind so much, we just hope that it finds a receiving audience. I do know that a lot of the more strictly drum and bass people who like our music might be disappointed by this one.”
There unto, with the success, comes the inevitable controversy. With a constant running “I like your old stuff better than your new stuff” debate raging around the group, it seems as if the purists are now firmly out numbered by those who are appreciative of the groups move away from the, at times, narrowed sub-culture of drum and bass, a fact which sits comfortably with the group.
“I know we have pissed off more than a few people in the drum and bass community,” he concedes, noting that it was once an issue of concern for him. “At first I did [care], because I was worried we’d be going out on a limb and finding ourselves like a fish out of water, but you know, the further time goes on the less I care. They can have their thing, they can keep it. We just want to do ours.” His ease at this position is confirmed when asked if he considers the music they are now producing is still drum and bass, and he answers, bluntly and with laughter in his voice, “No. The further away we get from drum and bass, the happier I am.”
With such convictions, and with the sky as the limit, it seems that Pendulum may truly be on the cusp of hitting a status that a couple of guys from Perth could have only dreamed, and yet in he realises that he has been a little oblivious to the impact that their music has had. “I only really woke up to that about a year ago,” he says, somewhat amused and elated “I don’t know, we never really thought about it, we never imagined that anything would be very big and then at the last moment it pushed through and exploded, and we are hoping that that trend continues. It’s really been amazing, looking back on it.”
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Tags: drum and bass, drum magazine, drum'n'bass, inpress, pendulum, perth