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Clean Bandit get away with porno parties and dangerous DIY videos – Metro US

Clean Bandit get away with porno parties and dangerous DIY videos

Clean Bandit may identify themselves as an electronic chamber music quartet but these Brits who gave us the infectious single, “New Eyes,” aren’t as stodgy as their genre of choice might imply.

“We all shout some Spice Girl lyrics before we go on stage,” says violin player Milan Neil Amin-Smith backstage at Latitude festival in Suffolk, England.

These University of Cambridge graduates – Grace Chatto (cello and vocals), brothers Jack (bass guitar and keyboard) and Luke Patterson (drums) and Amin-Smith – aren’t exactly ones for convention. Their music, which is a mix of Disclosure-style house and garage with classical flourishes of orchestral strings, might sound as opinion-dividing as chilli chocolate, but it’s in fact proving to be a floor-filler.

So apparently you met porn star Ron Jeremy recently in the US. What kind of parties are you attending these days?

I have to be honest with you and say I’m the only one who went to bed before we met him. But it came about because Grace peeled off from the group and went to a nightclub on her own in LA. I don’t know what took her but she’s quite headstrong…

Is she the party person of the band?

Not particularly, but she’s by far the bravest and by far the most confident. She ended up getting invited to some party at an amazing Beverley Hills mansion, so she rang everyone else [the band] and partied with Ron Jeremy.

Did he show “the goods,” so to speak?

Apparently in the boot [trunk] of his car, he had just like his full works: print and screen.

Did you take home some of the merch?

No merchandise, but I think one of our singers was left with a bite on her neck.

Would you do a backing track for one of his movies?

[Laughs] Maybe…

Speaking of making movies, Clean Bandit produces their own dangerous DIY music videos. Have you had any close calls?

Yeah, because we do them ourselves there aren’t any health and safety regulations involved in the way that there might be if it were done professionally. One of our friends built a wooden plank on top of his car and then Grace and I stood on it and played our instruments for the “Telephone Banking” video. We drove reasonably fast around the streets of East London near the Olympic Village where there were very few cars but there were tree branches.

I take it you hit a tree and took a tumble?

I had a pole behind me and a belt around my waist and that was literally it. And yes, I did knock into a tree.

Do you have many of those academic Cambridge moments where you struggle with everyday, real-life situations?

[Laughs] To be honest, having a tour manager makes you more not used to dealing with real-life situations than Cambridge. You turn up in an airport and forget how to read a departures board.