Known for resurrecting a fading genre, the band rested on anything but their laurels with In Silico (2008), an album which fused guitar spikes with electronic influences into a sound which was easier to digest than their previous effort: it entered into the UK charts at number two, narrowly missing the top spot.
Five years since their grand entrance into the British music scene, Pendulum are preparing for a second mammoth arena tour in support of their latest album, Immersion. Known for mixing dark synths with basslines so sick they'd make Florence Nightingale nervous, they are undoubtedly one of the biggest dance acts in the world right now. Luckily Stereoboard.com's James Conlon had the chance to talk to bassist Gareth McGrillen about the upcoming tour and the amazing success of the album.
This has been a fantastic year for you, which follows on from the huge success your recent album 'Immersion' generated. Did you expect it to do so well?
It wasn't so much expectation, but I think we were just relieved more than anything: we had really tried hard to make an album that the fans would enjoy. I know it sounds like a cliché but they are really priority number one for us always. I remember being up against the album from Glee, the TV show, and that really pissed us off: it almost became a hate campaign against corporate albums like that which don't really mean anything except profit. With that in our minds we came out after the release just so happy that the fans had continued to support us.
You have just completed a huge show with The Prodigy, how much did you enjoy the show and what was it like to perform with them?
They're our brothers, and we really look up to them. It was good to do a show with them just to show the world that there's no hatred between us. Of course we're both going to get compared, because we're both electronic bands, and there's nothing else in the world to really compare the two of us to. We understand that these comparisons happen but I guess we wanted to show people just how different we are as bands. It was amazing and we were proud to be involved in that moment, just to be a part of such a huge undertaking: no electronic band has really ever tried doing their own headline show of that size.
Do fans often assume there's a rivalry?
Yeah, I think they do. It's not a whole cross-section, but those who have really read into the media and the animosity that's been created between us without taking into account other things: we actually hang out with the guys, they're good mates of ours.
The upcoming Immersion Tour will be your second sold out tour this year. How do you expect it to compare with May's sold out tour? Can fans expect any new material?
Yeah, we're going to have a whole host of new and old songs which we've never played before. The lighting and the set-up is going to be one to watch on its own, let alone the music that we're adding to it, so we can't wait.
From a performance point of view, how does a huge crowd of 70,000 people compare with a much smaller, intimate gig and which do you ultimately prefer?
I think there's a perfect size, and I think the larger clubs and the smaller arenas are the perfect size for us: that's not saying we don't love the massive arenas, they're incredible. It needs to be big, but not so big that people become detached from the music. If you can see everyone and they can see you then it's perfect.
What brought about the decision to work with The Prodigy's Liam Howlett on one of your tracks?
We did a tour with them in Australia called "The Big Day Out" which is like Reading and Leeds, only it's the same line-up in every main Australian city so it's kind of like a long tour. We were just hanging out and having drinks at the afterparties, discussing this whole pretend beef between us which just didn't exist. We were all having a laugh about it and decided to do a tune together to put all that fake animosity behind us as it were. Liam was well up for it and really wanted to work with us so it just went from there.
You have also collaborated with Swedish metal group, In Flames, what brought you to the decision to mix two genres in that way?
More than anything else that was just the vibe of the time: we really wanted to get back to the stage when we were collaborating a lot more, so we just put together a shortlist of acts who we would like to work with, a 'wishlist' type thing, and In Flames were at the top. Almost, as a complete joke, we weren't expecting them to have heard of us, let alone want to do it. In the end it turned out they were fans and had heard our music before so we jumped at the chance. We were so thrilled about it, because it's a type of mix we'd been thinking about for a long time, and to finally do it with a band who we'd idolised like that was amazing.
As well as all of your touring, you have been very busy on the festival circuit too. How do festival sets compare with playing your own tours and do you have a preference?
We're loving festivals at the moment because we're getting higher up the bills but we're not headlining, so it's the most exciting moment to play just before the headliner when the crowd are at their most excited. We recently went on just before Alice in Chains and although we were just shitting ourselves playing before a band like that we loved every moment. It was incredible.
Headlining the NME/Radio 1 stage at Leeds and Reading must be a high point for any band. Are you looking forward to the festival?
It's a big one for us as a band: when we played that stage before it was the beginning of us taking off as a band, especially as the whole show was televised. From that moment on we've become really quite big in the UK and we all cite that show really as the moment it all started. It's going to be good to come back and give that stage another go.
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