An absolute must for music fans of all genres, Relentless Ultra Presents Soundchain celebrates today’s most influential acts through a mixture of captivating in-depth interviews, exclusive live performances and videos.
Providing a compelling platform for host, Zane Lowe, to discuss diverse influences and the next generation of emerging artists, each show focuses on a different artist across the spectrum of rock, hip-hop and dance. From their personal journeys, grassroots to global stardom, to the key events that have shaped their career and obstacles they have had to overcome to reach the very top of their game, Zane’s passion and credibility as a music broadcaster, DJ and record producer ensures an openness and honesty that very few other broadcasters can reach.
Check out the quotes and videos below...
On Snoop Dogg and Rihanna:
WILL: The first big thing that happened for us was a MySpace message from Snoop Dogg. It was something like “Yo, I like your tune Eastern Jam. Send it to me. Church Ch-chow”. We sent him the track and two days later he sent it back – He did his own version, ‘Snoop Dog Millionaire’!
WILL: That was the first one. The way Rihanna got in touch was even more funny...
SAUL: Our manager, Joe, had been talking with Jay Brown at Roc Nation. I got a call from Jay Brown who said, “I’ve had a chat with Rihanna. You’ve got to do a session with us.” The night goes on and day goes on, then at 5am my phone rings and my girlfriend at the time is asleep next to me. “Hey Saul, it’s Rihanna” My girlfriend goes, “Who’s that?” and I whisper, “It’s Rihanna!” It was a strange time to get a call but Rihanna said she loved the tunes, particularly Eastern Jam. Within a week we were in the studio with her, Mr Hudson, Pharrell, Drake...
On early inspirations:
SAUL: I’d been playing guitar since I was a kid, since I was 13 or 14, so at an early age it was like, “I want to play Nirvana tunes”. After learning them all, [I thought it] would be quite fun to write my own Nirvana tune. Suddenly creating became quite exciting and then I fell in love with jungle as time went on. In ‘99/ 2000 I went to Uni in Manchester. Will went up there a year later and to cut a long story short, we dropped out of all the studies, got a studio and that’s where it all began for us.
WILL: I remember being 13 or 14 years old, going to a friend’s birthday party, with the goody bags and stuff. He’d just been given some Casio keyboard thing and I’d never seen anything like it. I walked into his room and he was like “check this out!” He hit the samba beat and it blew my mind! I couldn’t leave it alone and it fascinated me. I begged my mum for one but she didn’t get me one. I remember that idea of making music out of a machine – it got etched in at a very early age.
WILL: I don’t think it felt like we were ever working together. We went into DJing together because we’d go round to each other’s houses and mix, then we blagged some equipment and then it was just, let’s figure out how to make some music. It was never really a job. We weren’t making any money from it, so you just have a mutual interest and we were the only two people who could be arsed to listen to each other talking about this all the time!
On being part of a generation of music makers:
WILL: There was a nice sense of community [being around at the same time as Subfocus, Noisia, Pendulum etc.] It still hadn’t burst completely online. Forums were getting bigger but we all used to speak on this thing called AIM (AOL instant messenger) which is really old school and MySpace was everything! Every single producer and DJ on our scene was on AIM and this little window would pop up on our computer - you’d see all the guys up all night – no one else used it apart from that community, so there was a nice feeling of a secret little world bubbling underneath.
WILL: [We] sent music around. Now and again you’d get quite a big name sending you a message going “Yo, like your track, played it last night”. But we were all in at the same level, struggling to break through and get gigs and stuff. Pendulum set the pace. What they did was incredible and very inspirational for us, specifically from a producer point of view.
SAUL: [Pendulum] definitely changed the face of dance music, with the sounds and the sonics and the kinds of frequencies they were hitting...
WILL: Their music sort of transcended drum’n’bass. You had all kinds of people buying into their music – students – and they capitalised upon that very well and so did the labels behind them and suddenly it was big business. From an underground scene, which had a reputation for being a bit ropey or casual, the way business was done, you had real big business going on with proper branding, proper marketing strategies and sponsorships and the music to back it up.
