Music > Interviews

Sigala

The Nick Rayns LCR, UEA

27/01/17

 

Boom! Turn on the radio and within a few minutes you are guaranteed to hear one of Sigala’s tropical, summery bangers. Norwich born and bred, he’s had a most excellent 2016, not only having chart topping megahits coming out of his 24 year old ears, but working with some of the hottest acts and producers around. I had a good old natter with Sigala (aka Bruce) about the talent show at Reepham High School, how it feels to get to number one with your debut single and making happy music for people on their way to work.

 

You’re from Norwich! You studied music at City College – do you feel that they gave you a good grounding for your music career?

City College was really good for the people that I met there, and the lecturers who went out of their way to get me actual work in the industry. I knew I wanted to do something in music but at that point I wasn’t really sure what, and the course I did, which I think was a BTEC Music, was broad so it gave me the opportunity to try out all sorts of different things. It was exactly what I needed at that point.

 

You also did a degree in commercial music at the University of Westminster – would you recommend this for young people who want to follow the same sort of career path as you?

Definitely. It was a similar thing to City College – I chose it because it was a broad course, and I still didn’t know at that point if I wanted to be a performer, or play keyboards in a band or be a songwriter or a producer, but that course allowed me to try all those different avenues. They have so many modules that you can just choose which path you want to take. I’d definitely recommend it.

 

You grew up experimenting with lots of different instruments and software – were you in bands in your teenage years?

Yeah I was in a band called Circus with a few friends from Reepham High School when I was about 13, and that lasted for four or five years. We were experimenting and didn’t really think about what people might want to hear which probably wasn’t a good idea! We were really into Prince, Queen, glam rock and funk and just mashed everything together. It was so much fun for us but I don‘t think people really understood what we were doing. I don’t think we really did either!

 

Did you go to many gigs in Norwich that have stuck with you in terms of inspirations?

My parents used to take me to UEA for gigs quite a lot, and there are a couple I remember very well. Motorhead when I was about 12 or 13 was one, and we went to see Thunder about three times there as well! I’ve got some great memories of that place and to be able to come back and play there myself will be brilliant.

 

 

One of our volunteer writers went to school with you and remembers you playing at the school talent show to a great response!

Yeah! I did Rock Around The Clock on this really crappy old keyboard and kept turning the tempo up so it got faster and faster and faster, til it was literally as fast as the keyboard would go. Then I put my fleece over my head. I don’t know what I was thinking – I think it was my mum’s idea! I was known as The Keyboard Kid for some time after that!

 

What was the turning point for you that got you out of the bedroom and into a professional studio working with people like Ella Eyre?

Since I was about 12 I’d been playing around with music software making joke songs and trying to record bands that I was in, probably very badly! I never really took it that seriously at the time. There were loads of rappers and MC’s on my university course so when I mentioned that I could produce they asked me if I could make beats, and I ended up making loads of hip hop stuff for the first year which was something I’d never done before. Suddenly I realised there was a need for me – beforehand I was just making music for myself and the people were asking me to do stuff for them and so I thought perhaps this could be a viable career. I didn’t say no to anything – any opportunity that came up I’d do my best to try to get involved, do lots of different types of music, that kind of thing. I don’t think there was one specific point where I decided that this was what I want to do, I was always happy making music and I was in bands all the way through uni as well. After I left I did two years grafting and trying to infiltrate the industry, and one thing I realised was that no course can really prepare you for what the industry is like. It’s very difficult to get noticed and for people to take you seriously. I finally met my managers, and they also managed Ella Eyre – my first big break was producing a song with her, and then from there it just snowballed. At that point I wasn’t thinking about writing my own stuff, I was just happy to produce for other people. I did a couple remixes for myself, my manager sent them to the Ministry Of Sound and they said they wanted to sign me as an artist, something I never thought about before, so I was like I’ll give it a go!

 

So after you’d done all that hard work, your very first single Easy Love went to number one and has had over 120 million views on YouTube! How did that feel?

Yeah, it was ridiculous really. I really struggled during those two years after university, I could barely get enough work to pay my bills, and then all of a sudden it went from nothing to everything. I was at number one, people were asking me to produce massive acts, I was releasing my own stuff which keeps on doing really well. Overnight everything changed at the moment that The Ministry of Sound got involved. It was crazy how quickly things changed.

 

 

How easy was it to get authorisation to use the Jackson 5 sample for Easy Love?

Ministry of Sound took care of that but it seemed like it wasn’t that difficult. They said that several people had tried to get authorisation to use that sample for other songs and remixes and been turned down. I don’t know what really happened behind the scenes but I like to think they liked the song or there was something different about it compared to the other ones. I didn’t think about it too much at the time but looking back on it now, if we hadn’t been able to use that sample I’d be in a very different place right now – Easy Love was the song that enabled me to then release everything that has followed it.

 

How have you managed to keep yourself grounded amidst such sudden success?

I think just the fact that it has been a lot of hard work, I’ve done the grafting and horrible jobs that I hated, and having done those things and trying to achieve something now that I’ve started getting to the point where I want to be I really value it. I’m really careful not to take it for granted and I think that keeps me fairly grounded.

 

Give Me Your Love was partially produced by Nile Rogers from Chic. How did you find working with such a legend?

Unfortunately I didn’t even get to meet him! After the song had been written and it was nearly finished, about two weeks away from it being released, we sent Nile the track, and he jumped on it straight away and loved it. He did his thing, put his guitars on it and sent them over. So it was all quite last minute – I got to speak to him a few times over the phone, he really knows his stuff, his music theory and he’s been doing it for a lot longer than me. It was really nice to speak to someone who really understands everything about music.

 

You’ve worked with some of the biggest names in commercial music at the moment including Ella Eyre and Craig David – who else would you love to work with?

I’ve got a few songs which I’ll maybe send to a few people, like Ellie Goulding, and I’ve been working with Tinie Tempah which should be an amazing collaboration, we just need to find the right song. I work with new artists all the time and am open to working with anyone, it just has to be the right song.

 

Are you working on an album?

Probably without realising, yes! I’m not really focusing on that at the moment. Because of the way that streaming works these days, for a dance act like me it doesn’t make as much sense to put albums out. I find with just releasing singles I can be a bit more fresh with what I’m putting out. If I put out an album and then released singles from that album, by the time I get to the third or fourth single we’re months down the line and for me it would start to feel old. This way I can literally put a song together and two weeks later it can be in the charts or on Spotify, which for me is way more exciting.

 

 

What’s your secret do you think, in terms of writing music that people just really want to get behind?

I think my outlook is to make positive music as people like to connect with that and also radio stations love to play positive music. People who are driving to work in the morning don’t want to hear something that’s going to depress them, they want to hear something that’s going to wake them up and get them ready for the day. I really want to have that impact on people – maybe if someone’s feeling down they’ll listen to one of my songs and it might cheer them up, and that’s a really powerful element to have in a song. That’s important to me. I find that if I really enjoy making a song people tend to enjoy listening to it – obviously I make tons and tons of songs and I can tell those which give me that feeling and really uplift me, and nine times out of ten that usually translates to other people as well. I try and go with my gut.

 

What are your plans for the next year – is your time pretty much mapped out for you?

We’ve left space for the major festivals so we don’t double book stuff. My calendar at the moment goes up to the start of April, then there are a few gigs after that dotted through the year, DJ sets mainly. Things change so quickly and release schedules are quite flexible so we try to keep things quite open – even if I had an entire week, say next week, completely empty in my diary, the likelihood is I’ll get to Monday and it will be totally filled up! There’s loads of exciting things coming up.

 

Your live show features you not only DJing but also a live band – will there also be some guest vocalists joining you?

Hopefully yes, I can’t say who yet because it’s still being finalised but most of the singers from the singles will be on the tour with me. The live show is kind of mostly band and then maybe a quarter DJ set, just to keep that vibe in there and do something a little bit different. It’s been amazing putting it together, it’s something I’ve always wanted to do but haven’t had the opportunity before to make a band how I want it. I’m really happy with it, and excited.

 

Has it been easy to translate your songs to be played by a live band?

Yeah, actually, because I use a lot of live instruments to make the music, piano, marimbas, steel drums and guitars it tends to lend itself quite well to a live set up. I think Give Me Your Love is the one that works best with a band because it has the most live instruments already in it so we didn’t have to change it too much. Some of the others, though, we’ve changed quite a lot in terms of sound to make them cool live, and to bring them up to another level and something really fresh. You don’t just want to hear the songs exactly as they are on record.

 

You must be excited to play the biggest venue in Norwich soon and see some of your friends and family in the audience?

Yeah, I hope so! We didn’t come to Norwich on the last tour but this is my first homecoming show. We did Sundown Festival which was amazing, it was only a 20 minute set which my friend and family came to, but this will be by first full set. I’m really looking forward to it.

 

Sigala plays the LCR at UEA on 15th February. Tickets available from ueatickets.ticketabc.com