Clean Bandit have yet to release a song they recorded with Sir Elton John “a long time ago”.
The ‘Rockabye’ hitmakers have a “huge catalogue” of material they have recorded but kept under wraps, including collaborations with both the ‘Tiny Dancer’ singer and Sam Smith.
Grace Chatto told Principle magazine: “We’ve got one with Sam Smith and one with Elton John, which we made a long time ago, but most of them don’t have the artists singing on them, because we tend to write with a songwriter/lyricist.
“So most of the demos don’t have [singers] – normally it’s the final stage when we consider who’s going to sing this.
“But the one that Sam Smith we wrote together, and the one with Elton we wrote together.
“That’s always really cool when the singers are writers as well because it’s much more of an organic process for them than when we DM people saying, ‘Do you want to sing this?’ And then it’s a bit hit and miss, whether the lyrics will resonate with them or not.”
The trio have previously worked with the likes of Jess Glynne, Anne-Marie, Zara Larsson and Demi Lovato, but Grace explained they try not to go into the songwriting process with a particular vocalist in mind.
She said: “Normally DMing is how we do it. We normally think about the voice after.
“When we try and write for a specific voice, it always ends up being a kind of pastiche of what we think they might like, whereas if we just make the song in a pure way for how the song’s supposed to be, and then just listen to it, it’s quite quick to hear who would sound good. It’s normally just Rihanna.”
Fans of the ‘Symphony’ group will have some time to wait before they get to see them in action again.
Grace said: “We’re creating a really exciting new show at the moment.
“But we’re not going to be performing in the UK and Europe this summer, because we’re focusing on making music videos, and songs.
“Probably towards the end of this year, we’ll do one special performance in London. And then next year, we’ll be touring again.”