Video Premiere | - Watch Rene LaVice's 'The Calling' Here First!

Take note of the name Rene LaVice, the Canadian drum and bass producer who's nabbed a Hottest Record play from Zane Lowe and got DnB honcho Andy C all excited. 

He's just dropped his music video for the monster that is The Calling Ft. Ivy Mairi and you can watch right here on mtv.co.uk first!

Signed to Andy C's legendary RAM Records and with 2015 shaping up to be a very exciting year for the producer we also took the time to probe him about what the future holds...

MTV UK: ‘The Calling’ has been added to the Radio 1 playlist – what’s it like knowing your track is being heard while mums take their kids to school?

Rene: It’s a really uncompromising piece of music so to hear it playlisted on daytime radio is inspiring to me. I want to reach as many people with my music as possible and Radio 1 reaches a massive amount of people so it’s outstanding. 

MTV UK: Some artists must worry about ‘selling out’ or sacrificing credibility if they look like they’re headed for the charts. Are you worried about it at all?

R: I don’t worry about things like that, I just make what I want to make. I just be myself 100 percent of the time. If other people like my music then that’s great.

MTV UK: You’re being tipped to have similar to success of breakthrough duo Sigma. What do you think of their newfound commercial appeal? Do you think they’ve got it right with their chart hits like ‘Changing’ and future hit with Labrinth ‘Higher’?

R: Well I mean, I guess I’m supposed to have some punk rocky pre-loaded answer to this because it’s not exactly stuff that’s going to scare your parents. It’s alright though, they’re nice songs. They’re really happy and uplifting and they’re about human emotions. There’s nothing wrong with making music with a positive message, something that’s sometimes forgotten these days…

MTV UK: I know it’s early days yet but is a goal to one day have chart success?

R: The goal is to make good music that’s authentic and real to me. Sometimes that means telling a story of lost love, other times that means being very literal about the fact that I wanna TURN UP right now and get crazy! I just express myself the way I want to and hope it connects with other people. If that translates into chart success then that’s wicked. What’s chart success anyway these days? Do they factor in piracy yet? 

MTV UK: We’ve had a lot of underground tracks crossing over into the mainstream over the last few years? Do you think the world is fed up of pop?

R: Do Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber exist? Of course they’re not fed up of pop, that’s insane. People’s ears are just open now. They have the capacity to love more than one type of music. They don’t want to hear the same thing 1000 times either, so it’s a perfect time to come in and push the boundaries again. 

MTV UK: What’s the best thing about dance music at the moment?

R: So many good things at the moment, it’s hard to choose… It’s safe to say that we’ve blown the doors off of the whole genre thing. Drum and Bass was created by breaking the rules in the first place. I like that way of thinking, so the best thing right now is breaking all the rules and getting away with it. 

MTV UK: …and what’s the worst?

R: Sleep schedules, and trying to make it to the bank during opening hours and play a show at 1AM, haha! 

MTV UK: We hear you’re a filmmaker too – tell us about that…

R: I got into film because my friends and I would film each other skateboarding and we would set the footage to music and make ’skate videos.’ Then me and my friends who didn’t skate would start messing around with the camera and making all kinds of really weird short films and mockumentaries just to made us laugh. Then a little later I started discovering music videos, and 1960s cinema, and other weird stuff that made me realize making films was a great artistic outlet. I spent a lot of time skateboarding, playing music and making films and recently the music has just taken off like crazy so music has become my main focus at the moment.

MTV UK: What’s the idea behind the music video? Did you have a creative input into it?

R: For The Calling, the song is about two people who are in love who are separated by the need to pursue their passion in life. It’s a story from my life that I wanted to express and I think a lot of people can relate to. It was hard for me to imagine directing the video though, I was so close to the work, it was literally tough on an emotional level. So I wrote out a creative brief which contained the story and what it all meant and when Patrick Chamberlain (film maker) replied with his take on it I knew he was the right one for the project.

MTV UK: When you were signed to RAM did you think ‘OK, this is the start of something good'?

R: Haha, I had no idea what to think at that point. I thought a lot of people wouldn’t even get what I was doing, musically. Then I took a trip to England and it all slapped me in the face, what a big impact it was having. Then I was like “yeah. this is good. this is something I should commit to.”

MTV UK: Has Andy C given you any good pieces of advice?

R: I can’t think of anything like a direct quote. But he’s always encouraged me to be myself and express myself the way I want to.

MTV UK: What’s the one piece of advice you’d give to an aspiring DJ playing live?

R: Play music that you think is good. Express yourself. 

MTV UK: Tell us about the worst gig you’ve ever played. What happened?

R: You’re not ready to hear about the worst one yet… One that was pretty bad though was when an MC spilled an entire drink on my laptop and I kicked off and kicked a hole in a monitor speaker and someone stole my headphones all in one go. That was a pretty lame gig.

MTV UK: …and the best gig?

R: Being like 23 years old and playing one of my first gigs in South London at the Coronet for Jungle Fever vs Pure Science along side absolute legends of Drum and Bass. I was the right mixture of terrified, excited and inspired all that same time and had an absolute blast. I went there thinking “If I can make it through this gig and do justice to the music that the people I’m on the bill with literally invented, then I’ve done OK.” As it turned out the gig went great and I’m still in touch with a lot of the people from that night.

MTV UK: What else have you got coming up for 2015?

R: I’m going on tour with Spor in late Feb/March! I’m also working on my next single, finishing my second album, playing lots of shows. It’s going to be very exciting!

‘The Calling’ Ft. Ivy Mairi / ‘Freudian’ is released March 1 via RAM Records.