CLUBS

Their new album may be entitled 'No More Idols', but after crashing the charts, London production duo Chase & Status are fully fledged British stars in their own right. Adam Anonymous joins the dots between Rihanna and Bristol's own Redlight.

Despite a reputation for thumping out sometimes thuggishly unsophisticated dancefloor fillers, nobody who has conversed with Chase & Status could suggest they're anything less than smart operators. Much has happened since debut album 'More Than Alot' – a success in everything but its word spacing – announced the pair's arrival in front of wider audience in 2008, after five relatively unheralded years spent tearing up clubs. Snoop Dogg declared his love and remixed 'Eastern Jam', after which they hooked up with Jay-Z's Roc Nation empire, getting behind the desk for several tracks of Rihanna's fiery LP 'Rated R'. Far from chumming it up with their new transatlantic buddies, when it came to the sophomore C&S record, Saul 'Chase' Milton and Will 'Status' Kennard opted to get good ol' Blighty back in their veins for 'No More Idols', unleashed in January.

“We really wanted to make this a British event,” asserts Milton. “The album is very punky, very UK. Will and I are massive Anglophiles. We love being British and being from London. We're very passionate about it and also very passionate that the UK has the best music in the world; the most cutting edge, innovative and exciting. We didn't snub Rihanna, give her the finger and say 'Bugger off!' It was more we didn't want to follow up on any possibility of working with our American links. We wanted to show the world the best of British. I'd like to think we've succeeded in that task.”

On the likes of stand-out cut 'Heavy', with the irrepressible Dizzee Rascal spitting one of his grimiest cameos for a notable time, that evaluation rings true. It's not all street-tough speaker-testers, however, welcoming the likes of Clare Maguire and, on ghettoblaster-celebrating cut 'Brixton Briefcase', sweet-voiced solitary US mouthpiece Cee Lo Green.

“We just didn't want to flex our American guest list muscles,” Milton continues. “I'm not going to say we're not going to have a whole heap of Americans on the next record. Who knows right now? Why did we have Cee Lo on there? He's talking about London, about colloquialism, about UK slang. He's not talking about honeys or swagger, he's literally just talking UK. He talks about going to 'the ends', which is a very London phrase. Even I was shocked when I first heard that.”

Factor in additional guests Tinie Tempah and Plan B, and 'No More Idols' is, contrary to its mantle, rather full of chart heroes. There are two meanings behind that title, however, as Milton explains.

“These days, there's been a lot of throwaway, five-minute music that's not going to stand the test of time. It seemed to me gone are the days of the Bowies, Jaggers, Hendrixes, Nina Simones, and there hasn't been much of a new breed of idols. But it's 2011 now: there's a lot of great new artists on here that we think could potentially be people's idols for the future. Also MC Rage, our [live] frontman, has come up with a nice connotation: Chase & Status are just like everyone else, like our fans. There's no need for any idolatry. We're just here trying to push great music forward.”

The next move is a series of UK dates, calling into Bristol with a student of the city supporting: Redlight, aka the man formerly known as Clipz (“He's a talented young man and it's great to have him on board” is Milton's verdict). As soon as C&S are off the road, though, it's back to the studio grind...

“The American ethic of work is get stuff done like there's no tomorrow. We wrote 'Wait Your Turn' for Rihanna and were dancing around going mad, really happy about it. We were pulled aside like 'What are you doing? Get back in the studio and write another hit!' There's no time to reflect: if you want to be a success, you get stuff done.”

CHASE & STATUS PLAYED THE O2 ACADEMY, BRISTOL ON TUE 15 MAR. FFI: WWW.CHASEANDSTATUS.CO.UK
 

Copyright Adam Anonymous 2011

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