“We grew up listening to music from various backgrounds and various influences, and that’s shaped us as musicians and as a band and as producers,” says co-founder Kesi Dryden. “We grew up in East London and we had the whole drum and bass culture going on and jungle culture and there was a big house scene going on, and then the garage and grime influence as well. But then at the same time we’d come home and our parents would be listening to soul music and Motown and funk and reggae. It’s basically a snapshot of what we grew up with all that shapes the Rudimental sound.”
In the wake of Home’srelease, Rudimental became global pop stars – topping the albums charts in the UK and Australia, scooping up Best British Single at the Brit awards, and nabbing a coveted Mercury Prize nomination. The album’s pervasive impact saw the band spend the last couple of years on a blockbuster world tour, which left an imprint on the new record.
“We The Generation is a snapshot of us being on the road the last three years,” says Dryden. “We’ve been all around the world writing the album. We didn’t have six months to a year to be in the studio – we’ve literally been doing shows, getting off stage, going into the studio the next day. So we’ve had studios in South Africa, we’ve had studios in America, we’ve had studios all around Europe, we’ve been in Jamaica in the studio. So the new album’s a snapshot of all the influences we had from childhood growing up and all the influences we’ve taken with us from touring for about three years.”
In spite of the broad spectrum of ingredients, the members’ production backgrounds allowed them to tie these influences together in a cohesive and exceedingly marketable manner. This could’ve been especially difficult given the assemblage of guest vocalists involved – along with omnipresent pop singer Ed Sheeran, who sings on lead single Bloodstream, the record features the likes of Bobby Womack, Foy Vance, Dizzee Rascal, MNEK and Lianne La Havas.
“We never like to limit ourselves or put boundaries on what we do,” Dryden says. “When we write music we don’t plan too much about where it will end up. But when we finished the album, we chose tracks that worked together. There’s another 20-30 songs that could’ve been thrown on the album but didn’t quite fit the whole feel of the album.”
While all of the guest vocalists sound at home on We The Generation, the presence of sadly deceased American R&B legend Bobby Womack is of particular note.
“We met Bobby Womack at Jools Holland. We was performing and he was loving our performance and after we finished he came up to us and was like, ‘Guys that was amazing.’ And we was like, ‘Wow this is Bobby Womack.’ You know, he’s a legend. So we exchanged details and always planned to get in the studio. Unfortunately his health deteriorated and we never got a chance to get in the studio with him. Then he unfortunately passed away, but his wife contacted and said he had this amazing song, an a capella called New Day that she would love us to work on. We worked around the a capella and made this amazing track. Such a honour to be able to work on a track with Bobby Womack’s vocals. It’s something we can look back in the future and no matter whatever happens, we were lucky enough to work with Bobby Womack.”
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
