Shazam Meets… Magnetic Man
At the start of each year, inevitably the music world offers up a wave of potential new acts that attract varying amounts of attention. One of the more intriguing of these was Magnetic Man, the dubstep supergroup consisting of Skream, Benga & Artwork. All members in the trio hailing from Croydon, South London, were instrumental in the early days of the genre and were also involved in the Big Apple Records scene where dubstep was conceived. It seems only right that they should be part of what is likely to become the genre’s biggest cross over band. Arguably interest in the group has risen ever since Skream lent his inimitable bass frequencies to La Roux’s ‘In For The Kill’, which combined with the fact that they appeared on the front cover of the NME before releasing any track has made Magnetic Man one of the most hyped bands of the year.
Their debut single ‘I Need Air’ saw the light of day this week. Pushing forward the boundaries of bass driven dance music, the track sees the trio collaborate with Angela Hunte; who originally composed the colossal ‘Empire State Of Mind’. It proves a great taster for the album and shows – if we had any doubt – that Magnetic Man will more than justify the praise they’ve already been given. We caught up with Artwork to chat about living up to the pressure of hype and to discuss how they found time to record an album in between their hectic schedules.
The idea of Magnetic Man seems to be one that has been hyped for a while. When was the original idea conceived?
Well basically, both the boys (Skream & Benga) were DJing all the time and we were making tracks between us and we were looking for something to try and push the DJ thing further. We were talking about because the music (dubstep) was quite basic: drums, bass and top line. If you could do it live, you could keep the top line going and mess about with the others. We were just joking about it and messing around. Then the arts council contacted our manager saying ‘we’re looking for a live act, have you got anything?’ and we were like ‘Yeah!’ It worked out really well.
You were on the front cover of NME before you even put a single out. Did that pile on the pressure when you were recording the album?
Nah, we don’t mind a bit of pressure. It’s all good! It’s been surprising the amount of interest there has been in it, you know what I mean?
Your first official single ‘I Need Air’ is out this week. How does it represent the album as a whole?
The album is all over the place. We just sat down and tried to make really good music, you know? Some of it turned out like songs and some turned out like real underground dubstep stuff. It’s quite a weird one. (I Need Air) isn’t really what the album is all about, but it’s a big part of it.
On the single you collaborate with Angela Hunte. How did that come about?
Our manager is a friend of hers and has known her for years. She (Angela) was really interested in the project. We were kind of shocked as we didn’t know she was the person who wrote ‘Empire State Of Mind’. It was like ‘Wow!’, but she’s really cool. We originally only aimed to do the writing session, but her vocal worked so well we couldn’t bear to leave it off.
Can you let us know what other collaborations you have lined up for the album?
There are a few little surprises. That’s all I can say at the moment!
Can you tell us the title and release date?
It’s called ‘Magnetic Man’ and it’s out October 4th.
You recorded the album in Cornwall. How hard was it to find time to fit in recording between all three of your schedules?
We did actually take two months off to record and get out of the way in Cornwall. We went down to the middle of nowhere, hired a mansion, took our own studio and put it in there. It was good because it stopped all the other stuff; the boys took a break from DJing and it was good to have all that time to focus on writing.
You guys played a headline slot at Glastonbury this year. How was that?
It was good; we were pretty worried as we were up against some great people. Orbital were on and Stevie Wonder was on, we were pretty worried! But we got a good crowd and we went down well. Glastonbury is a great crowd as they’re always up for new stuff, which was good for us as we were playing quite a few new bits from the album.
For your live set up you have three laptops synched together through Ableton Live, with the three of you controlling different parts of the sound. Does that mean each Magnetic Man performance is different?
Yeah, totally. It’s roughly set up the same for each performance. One laptop has bass, one drums and one the topline. So each person can mess around with each one, keeps parts going or drop them out. So yeah, it is different. There is a structure and we do move it round from gig to gig. But then anything can happen when it’s live!
Have you been working with any visual artists for your forthcoming tour?
We are. From the start the whole project has been done with a guy called Elliot from Novac who’s really amazing. He does lives visuals. He picks up drums or bass from our set and can choose what to set the images to.
DJ Zinc mentioned on Twitter that he’s willing to bet that the Magnetic Man album will go to number one. What do you think about that?
I’d say he’s got enough money that he can gamble on it! But, it sounds like a good bet to me.
Having been round since the start of Dubstep, how satisfying is it to see artists such as yourselves, Rusko and Chase & Status to name a few really crossing over and gaining recognition?
If music’s good then it’s always gonna get popular. It’s nice to see; it’s been a long time – it’s almost been ten years since this whole sound started back in Croydon. Through all the people at FWD and Rinse it’s been crazy to see it go so far up to this scale.
‘I Need Air’ is out now and is available on iTunes. Magnetic Man will embark on a UK tour later this year.
