Rudimental: 'living for the weekend? We still feel like that as adults'

In Rudimental’s eyes, 2025 needs a major dose of rave therapy. “The world's always in pieces and we're probably more on the brink of World War III than ever,” says Piers Aggett, stroking at a lustrous beard as he considers the fundamental message of “Nights Like These”, the Hackney drum and bass trio’s new single. “But being with the people you love and enjoying the moments you have is what speaks to me.”

“Nights like these be the ones that make us,” croons guest singer Rag’n’Bone Man over the track’s muted piano, gospel choir and frenetic beats. And an earlier, 2023 single “Dancing is Healing” - the first sensitive D’n’B volley from their forthcoming fifth album Rudim3ntal, and a Top Ten hit - cut even closer to the band’s central ethos. “What Rudimental represents is going out and enjoying yourself in this mad place that we all live,” Aggett explains, lounging via video call in the back seat of his car. “[Dance music] has been great therapy for me in my life.”

It's definitely a time for comfort zones. Since these three childhood friends from East London – Aggett, Kesi Dryden and Leon “Locksmith” Rolle, plus former bandmate and producer Amir Amor – rocketed to Number One in 2012 with their breakthrough fourth single “Feel the Love” featuring John Newman, they’ve become a formidable modern London success story.

Giving an early chart platform to guests including Ella Eyre, Anne-Marie, Jess Glynne and Raye, they topped the singles and album charts twice, sold 3 million albums and racked up 5 billion streams, all the while expanding their live show from the decks-jockey set-up of their pre-fame DJ/producer years to a 20-piece live band extravaganza complete with cavalcade of celebrity singers.

(Sullman)

“Our label actually booked us a show,” Dryden recalls of the immediate aftermath of “Feel the Love”. “We thought it was a DJ show, but ten days before we found out it was live, so we had to get a rehearsal together very quickly.” At their first weekend of proper live shows, Rudimental played to over 10,000 people. “We all got off stage and realized how fun it was playing live as a band, and how much the crowd enjoyed it,” Dryden says. “We saw a whole new vision for the band after that moment.”

‘The new album takes you on a journey, goes into the harder, darker elements and comes out the other side.’

Sailing wasn’t entirely smooth. “Rollercoaster is a word that I always use,” says Aggett, admitting to burn-out around 2016. And following the amicable departure of Amor in 2022 to concentrate on solo work (“It felt like the right time,” Aggett says, “we grew apart from each other”) the remaining trio have returned to their roots behind the decks for recent shows, trying out new tracks pirate radio style, with guests such as Khalid, MIST and Glynne largely contained to synced screen cameos. A fitting way to celebrate a new album they consider a tribute and love letter to the history and impact of drum and bass.

“It's an important part of our musical heritage,” says Aggett. “It's gone through so many different forms, and it stays strong. I love the soulful elements, the liquid elements, but the album takes you on a journey, goes into the harder, darker elements and comes out the other side. It is an exploration into that genre for us.”

(Sullman)

Having originally emerged into the mid-‘00s pirate radio scene (Kool, Rinse, Mystic and Déjà Vu among their FM stations of choice), in thrall to LTJ Bukem, Shy FX and the jungle greats, their early years are a time Rudimental remember as idyllic. “I love that era for the DIY ability,” says Aggett. “It was very self-sufficient. We would make a beat or make a song, and we would press it to acetate which would be the dub plate if you needed to DJ out your records. That was our way of testing our records.”

As the band’s prime vinyl junkie, it’s been satisfying for Aggett to watch the rise and fall of CDs and USBs in dance music, and the return of the crackly old dust-magnet 12-inch. “It's been an amazing thing to see it come back in,” he says. “It's just something tangible. You can put on a vinyl record and you'd be focused on what you're listening to, whereas the [streaming platforms] are a bit, like, ‘Alright, let's move on to the next tune, let's let Spotify DJ for us’. It's a whole different world. It's definitely part of the makeup of the band - pirate radio, vinyl and self-promotion was part of London culture.”

The band were also keen to honour drum and bass’s debt to the Jamaican sound systems. Artists such as Mystic Marley (granddaughter of Bob) and dancehall phenomenon Popcaan were crucial collaborators, and the basis of “Chop Dem Down” was recorded in Jamaica ten years ago with Wailers horn legend Ronald “Nambo” Robinson. “It was something we always had there and always remembered,” says Aggett. “Unfortunately he passed away a few years ago, but what’s great about music is his spirit will live on through the sound of the horns.”

Rudimental’s Reading Festival set (Luke Dyson)

Befitting the band’s maturing years – they’re all thirtysomething dads now – Rudim3ntal tempers its demented beat frenzies with plenty of introspection, vulnerability and emotional support. “There's a togetherness in D’n’B that's really amazing, and probably like no other scene,” Aggett explains. Occasionally, though, anger broils. “London Burning”, featuring a show-stealing rap from Idris Elba (“He's just such a talented all-rounder,” says Dryden, “he puts his all into everything”), was written a few years ago in response to the rise of far-right protest in the capital.

“Around the time that we wrote that there was the far right versus the far left going on,” Aggett recalls. “Rioting in London, Tommy Robinson and his gang versus the BLM protests.” Polls suggest the far right might be winning, I suggest. “Yeah, I mean, Corbyn’s set up his alternate other side…” Aggett sighs, a little hopeless. “We live in this weird country where it's really expensive to live, and the far right…who knows what's gonna happen in the next few years. It's quite a scary place to live.”

‘Growing up in Hackney, we were surrounded by all cultures, all types of dance music. There’s not the segregation you have in places like America’

Yet as Elba closes the track declaring “London, the home of the greats”, a hometown pride rises above the brawl. Rudimental salute Loud LDN’s Charlotte Plank, Peter Xan and producer 1991 as rising stars keeping the city’s dance scene vital and vibrant. “When you grow up in London, you are exposed to all these different elements,” says Dryden. “There's not the segregation that you have in places like America. Growing up in Hackney, we were surrounded by all cultures, all walks of life, all types of dance music. And it's something that we've grown with, and it's all we've ever known. London has that very special feeling when it comes to dance music, it's just approached in a different way.”

Hackney itself has evolved dramatically since the band first met there from the age of five, living within a few streets of each other. “I grew up in Clapton and I still live in Clapton now,” Dryden says. “You mention it now and everyone's like, ‘Oh, wow. You live in Clapton. It's so cool, amazing’.

Whereas when you used to say that when you were years younger, it was, ‘Oh, I'm gonna keep my distance from you’.” And three decades of touring the world together, first on their teenage football team, then as a trailblazing dance phenomenon and pivotal platform for rising stars – “We've always had a keen eye for an amazing singer and new talent,” says Dryden – has only strengthened and deepened the trio’s bond.

Crowds at Rudimental’s Reading gig (Luke Dyson)

“We're like brothers,” Dryden says. “We go way back and we know each other inside out. You have the understanding of when your friend needs some space, when your friend needs a chat, mentally how they work whilst touring - you build up that complete understanding.”

And with Dryden and Aggett starting families long after Rolle, whose children were young when they started touring, they’ve only learned more. “I thought I knew Kesi and Locky, but seeing Leon miss his son's birthday and understanding that, now I'm a dad, there's levels to how we've all grown,” says Aggett. “I look back at it with a very different feel now,” Dryden agrees. “What he must have been going through being away from home a lot of the time. Okay, you are living your dream, but also your dream is to be there for your kids. There’s a fight you have with yourself about how you balance the two.”

They still benefit from a hefty session of rave therapy, mind. “Living for the weekend, to be honest, as adults, we still feel like that now,” Dryden says. “There's nothing wrong with looking forward to letting your hair down and having a good time.” The world might end tomorrow; let’s go Rudimental.

Rudim3ntal is out August 22; Rudimental play HERE at Outernet, August 2