Chatting down the line from somewhere near London, Rob Swire recounts the difficulty in packing up all his gear and leaving his native Perth to relocate overseas. “Yeah, it was hard packing everything up – leaving family and friends and all that. We left to go somewhere we didn’t know much about, but it’s a lot easier to get our music recognised over here, if we tried to do it in Australia, I’m sure the results would have been different”. Certainly, if their past success is anything to go by, this Aussie drum and bass super-group deserves to be brushing shoulders with the most recognised names in the business. Perhaps the most recognised work of the troop is Vault – a smash hit that put Rob Swire, Gareth McGrillen and Paul Harding on the worldwide radar of influential drum and bass. “Before Pendulum, I’d been producing for a while before I met Gareth at school and through the band. We had each done tracks and one night in 2002 we were meant to perform a live set and my hard drive decided to blow up! So Paul did a mix of our tunes in the club and it went really well – and it all worked from there”.
Later, they would be contacted by Fresh who was so impressed with their work, he along with Adam F summonsed the group as the first signed to their new label, Breakbeat Kaos. Their debut release on the imprint, Another Planet received even more acclaim that Vault and got considerable support from Radio 1, reaching #43 in the National Charts and #1 in the Dance Charts. It went on to sell over 20,000 copies worldwide. Yet Rob tells me the fanfare they created came completely by surprise. Regardless, Vault remains their debut winner and was donned Best Single at the 2003 Knowledge Awards and exposed them to all who were watching. Furthermore, they would go on to release on a number of the world’s leading drum and bass labels including, Renegade Hardware, Timeless and Uprising. Following their relocation, they have also had some high profile releases on Ram and Virus Records. Interestingly too, the boys have been bestowed another convincing honor – the chance to remix Voodoo People for the infamous Prodigy. “The guys were looking for remixes for their Greatest Hits album and via a hookup at Excel, they asked us to pick a track, so…it’s done!”
Nevertheless, their new album, Hold Your Color, released on Breakbeat Kaos, is the hot topic of today’s discussion. The boys began producing material for the LP in early 2004 and the process has continued ever since. “We started writing more mellow tracks because we didn’t want it to be as upfront as stuff we’d done before. In total, we did about 50 tracks and from that, saw which got the best reactions when we played”. Certainly, the opportunity exists for the crew to summon their unreleased material and get an immediate reaction from the crowd. “Really, we wrote it in a different sort of way – we didn’t want to let what was currently popular in the U.K affect how it turned out. Nor did we want it to sound like were still in Perth. We wanted it more advanced, newer”. Likewise, Pendulum is clear on what influences them and it isn’t other people’s music. “Believe it or not, we don’t listen to a lot of drum and bass. Paul likes punk, I like anything from hip-hop to nu-jazz and rock. If you spend too much time listening to the music you produce, then you become inspired by stuff that’s already been released”. Hoping now to take their party around the world, the trio has laid low while putting the finishing touches on Hold Your Color. “We try not to tour as much when we do an album, maybe 1 of us tours. When the 3 of us play DJ sets we rotate, other times we do our live set – and that’s something we definitely want to pursue. The other guys enjoy the DJ thing but I’d rather be playing live. Playing an entire set of your own material is far more interesting for an audience and we’d love to take it to a big festival – say like Big Day Out.” Indeed, this live show sounds like something to behold. “There will be 5 people in it, along with the core elements of a band – a drummer, guitarist, vocalist and keys. And with that, you can translate it into whatever type of music. I guess we try and make drum and bass but we’ve made sure that people who aren’t normally into it still come along and enjoy the music.” And seeing the reactions of punters when they play something for the first time continues to be the groups overriding motivation. “We are constantly trying to find a sound that people haven’t heard before and it’s amazing when you see the floor light up with that special track”. In 2005, Pendulum return to Australia for a national tour on the back of their new album. The album features some 13 diverse tracks and promises to be a much of a success story as everything else the trio have put their hand to. Overnight success maybe, but let’s see if we can’t hang out for a long term success story.
Pendulum’s Hold you Colour is out now through Inertia.
