Magnetic Man Talk To MTV!

Formed in South London by scene pioneers (and mates) Skream, Benga and Artwork a few years back they’ve now made one of the albums of the year. MTV spoke to the group on Benga’s birthday and sat down with the band for a celebratory mojito, and a chat, of course…..

 

 

Artwork: It was about 3 or 4 years ago when we started making Magnetic Man tracks together. We wanted to make something a bit more electronic.

 

We hid behind the name ‘Magnetic Man’ so no-one knew it was Skream and Artwork and Benga, and that lasted about a week. We were talking about making it live on three laptops. One of us on bass, one drums and one the toplines.

 

Then the Arts Council gave us some money and we started doing it live.

 

 

Benga: It’s mix and match, we don’t have a way of making music we just do it. We spent two months together in one studio in Cornwall.

 

Skream: The rule is we’ve all gotta agree on each track, if one person doesn’t agree it’s out.

 

 

A: Mental

 

B: I wasn’t allowed out cos I’m black. They let me down there but I wasn’t allowed out of the studio.

 

 

A: We just had a rule- that it would just be good music. We were lucky with the record label (Sony/ Colombia). When we signed to them, they’d seen the live show and told us to ‘keep doing what you’re doing and we’ll worry about the rest’.

 

 

S: During the ‘bidding war’ we looked at the approach from each label and from Colombia it was “we’re not gonna tell you what to do.”

 

B: We never watered it down. We’ve got vocals on top but that’s just like adding another instrument. They didn’t tell us they wanted 7 vocal tracks, they gave us a vote of confidence and said ‘just make the album you want to make.’

 

S: That was almost harder.

 

 

S: We were messing around on a glockenspiel and it was originally something we had Ben(ga) playing on. We decided to record it and it turned into that.

A: Cos it goes off!

 

S: It’s a smasher and it’s already huge.

 

A: I played it in a set when we first made it. We put it on the end of the set because no one knew it. It sounded amazing and we were worried about the reaction and it went off! Everywhere we played it.

 

S: We were playing Leeds (festival) and I dipped the music and everyone was singing it. I couldn’t believe it.

 

 

B: It’s about her writing. She’s so young and she’s writing incredible hooks. That’s special man.

 

A: She’s an amazing person. Some singers we worked with on this record have been harder to work with, but with her she’ll go away spend a whole day and come back to you and go ‘how about this’ and it’s brilliant.

 

When we did the video (for Perfect Stranger) she was up at 6am and working till 9 at night in 40 degree heat in Romania and didn’t complain once.

 

A: The whole point is that everything started from (the shop) Big Apple Records in Croydon. The list of people that came through: us three, Hatcha, DMZ, Plastician, Kode 9, Chef, N-Type, Caspa, even Wiley. Everybody in the dubstep scene was in that shop. People would bring in records and bounce ideas around. It was an amazing place.

S: I think the hooks stem back to Garage which was big where we're from..

 

B: We were all into garage and the bounce of the drums comes from that.

 

A: We’ve got the best publisher in the world and he has the best phone book. He’s so cool that if you mention someone he goes “I’ll give them a call.”

 

S: We had four or five versions with different vocalists. They were all UK and approached it as a dubstep track. In the states he approached it as a soul record. It adds so much depth to the track.

 

A: All we’re thinking about is the tour. The amount of work that goes into it is mad. Our lights guy syncs live visuals to our laptops. It’s all completely live and tidy. It’s gonna be mental.

 

S: Also we’re doing three shows with Deadmau5. His live shows are out of this world.