(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) We connect with Nick Hallam from seminal 90s dance act Stereo MCs
Stereo mcs (left to right): Aina Westlye (backing vocals) Nick Hallam (electronics) Rob Birch (vocals) Cath Coffey (backing vocals) and Owen If (drums)
Combining their love for hip-hop and dance music into a distinctive sound British act Stereo MCs shot to fame in 1992 with their third LP Connected.
The group’s beginnings came in the mid-‘80s when childhood friends Nick Hallam and Rob Birch relocated from Nottingham to London.
After their debut album 33-45-78 (1989) received praise for its innovative use of sampling the groups signed to major label Island and soon released sophomore record Supernatural (1990).
But it was Connected both the song and the album that turned Stereo MCs into a household name.
The track reached both the British and American top 20 and has since been used in Hollywood films Blow and Hackers as well as the TV show Bones and in commercials for UK brand Carphone Warehouse.
Another single from the record also scored big as Step It Up also landed in international charts before being licensed to films such as Wayne’s World 2 and Alien Autopsy.
With the limelight firmly upon them the band went on to support U2 and Lenny Kravitz remix for the likes of Madonna and Queen Latifah play Glastonbury festival and take home two BRIT Awards for Best Group and Best Album.
Stereo MCs continue to perform live today – playing Dubai’s Atlantis Beach last December with Cypress Hill and recently wrapping a European tour in Athens. And to celebrate their achievements over the years the act have just released the 10-disc CD and DVD box set Collected.
The package includes the group’s entire studio discography live recordings remixes and rarities unseen images and plenty more.
To mark the launch of Collected we spoke with DJ-producer Nick.
When Stereo MCs were first starting out what was your ambition for the groupI don’t think we had a particular ambition apart from to make some music and make a record. Life was very simple!
How did your 2011 collaboration with Jamie Cullum (for the song Boy) come aboutWe had Boy already pretty much finished but the piano was recorded at home very roughly as neither of us are really fluent piano players. Our manager had a link to Jamie we asked him to contribute and he was up for it. So Jamie came down the studio and added a nice fluidity to the track. He’s a really cool person.
Do you have a favourite city or country to perform in There are so many it would be unfair to single one out. We’ve just finished our tour in Europe and all the countries we played have been awesome.
Which are your favourite British acts in the present day and whyWe’re mostly involved in making dance records. At present there’s a lot of great DJs making interesting music – people like Midland and groups like Young Fathers.
In your opinion has the song Connected taken on any different significance in the social media ageI guess it has by virtue of the fact that everyone being “connected” has become the catchphrase everywhere in the last 20 years or so. I suppose we made the track at a time when all that stuff was just starting to happen.
What would you like the Stereo MCs’ legacy to beIt’s enough to leave a few decent tunes behind that people can still dance to in the future and get a feeling from.
How did your new Collected box set come into beingUniversal were going to do a compilation of our material and we suggested that it would be nicer to go further – to make a complete collection of all our records. So we made a really cool package and added a lot of unreleased material live footage videos new tracks and so on.