The DNA of London Grammar's 'If You Wait'

After meeting at Nottingham University, intrigue surrounding London Grammar's identity sent bloggers mad. A few singles later and they're now favourites to win the Mercury Prize. So, with that in mind, we caught up with Dot Major and Dan Rothman (the not #fit ones) from the most talked about group of the moment to ask them about If You Wait’s gestation and find out how they’ve gone from student bars to selling out venues and ramming festival tents in just three years. This is the DNA of London Grammar's debut album, If You Wait.

THE COVERS

Dan knew he had to work with fellow student Hannah Reid as soon as he heard her voice in their halls of residence. Pretty soon after meeting, they were performing covers at open mic nights. “We did some really shit ones,” Dan recalls, sat in their management’s Central London offices. “We did a Doors track, standard ones like Man’s World and You’ve Got the Love - which is quite weird because we did it before Florence [Welch] released it. Her version started coming through on radio and people asked us if it was Hannah because back then their voices were not too dissimilar.”

But it was their version of Kavinsky’s Nightcall has found a space on the album. “Because Hannah’s always going to be amazing, when we do a cover it’s more about whether Dan and I can do it in our own style,” Dot explains sipping on a cup of tea, “and making sure it doesn’t all go a bit karaoke.”

THE TEAM

London Grammar’s production team have worked with some of the most influential artists of the past 15-years. Tim Bran (The Verve and La Roux) and Roy Kerr AKA The Freelance Hellraiser produced the record, while Roc Nation’s KD (OutKast, Beyoncé and Jay-Z) mixed it, before putting it in the hands of Grammy-winning Tom Coyne to master (who did the same job on Adele’s 21). “We worked with a lot of different people and went from doing it ourselves to being with big producers who stamped too much of their own sound on it,” Dot says with a hint of frustration.

“We did develop a lot in this time in terms of song crafting and production, but when Tim and Roy joined us it just worked, as they let us do as much or as little as we wanted, while Manon our engineer made sure it sounded the best it could”

THE STUDIO - State of the Ark, Richmond.

“It’s such an amazing studio - entirely private and owned by Terry Brittan [who co-wrote Tina Turner’s What’s Love Got to Do With It and won the 1985 Grammy for Song of the Year],” Dot says, still a bit in awe of the space. “It’s designed to be a mini-Abbey Road with this huge EMI desk – one of the ones in the photos with all the guys in white coats making it, because all old engineers were just scientists.

"There’s loads of amazing memorabilia on the wall as well like gold discs and letters from Quincy Jones, and Terry even occasionally dropped in and gave his thoughts on some of our tracks,” adds Dan.

THE SOUNDTRACK

It may not seem to add up, but when London Grammar had a bit of downtime, it was Del the Funky Homosapien, Tribe Called Quest, Gang Starr and Jeru the Damaja playing on the speakers in the South West of the capital. “Roy brought the big bag of rap for me,” laughs Dan.

“It sounds stupid listening to loads of late 80s and early 90s hip hop because it’s completely different to what we do, but there is a warmth about it and a lot of the breaks which Dot uses, like the jazz break on Stay Awake, are similar to the sort of thing which they’d use at that time.”

THE LABEL

“We were delighted about being on Ministry of Sound but nervous at the same time,’ Dan admits, not wanting people to assume their soft music which values space and silence as much as the sound of the instruments themselves was going to be big room thumpers emanating from one Britain’s most recognisable rave brands. So the trio negotiated their own imprint, called Metal & Dust – also the name of the title track of their debut EP. “It gave us complete decision on what we wanted to put on the EP and it’s a cool thing to have.”

As for now it’s just a home for London Grammar’s releases, but as Dot looks to the future it’s unlikely to stop there. “When a lot of bands start they make a label to put out their first single and sometimes that’s it. But there’s loads of ways to develop it whether it’s as a larger brand or a club night.

“We need to become a proper band first – but after that there’s definitely things down the line we could and want to do.”

Follow Will on Twitter @willgilgrass

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