Pendulum formed in their home-town of Perth (Western
Australia) in 2002, when producers Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen teamed
up with acclaimed local DJ Paul 'Elhornet' Harding. While their individual
formative roots ranged from producing drum & bass, breakbeat and
hardcore, to playing in metal and punk bands, their comparable talents
proved an unstoppable force when they managed to single-handedly conquer
the world of drum & bass in their first 12 months together.
After selling more than 100,000 units of their debut artist album
'Hold Your Colour', remixing for such respected artists as The Prodigy,
being play-listed and featuring regularly on BBC Radio 1, all whilst
continuing to tour the world over as DJs...Pendulum decided that was
finally time to take things to the next level - performing live.
The last 12 months have seen Pendulum retreat to the depths of the
underground to work on their second album, and to hone and perfect
their sound for the live arena. So apart from that, what the hell
are Pendulum all about? In the words of the boys themselves...
"We want our music to be an escape. While technology continues
to constantly advance production techniques and (arguably) sound quality,
something has been lost in the process - that original sense of self-escape,
the idea of leaving yourself open to experience something you don't
necessarily find in every-day life. That was the energy we picked
up on and liked about electronic music when we first got into it.
It felt like the same energy found with bands like Led Zeppelin and
even The Beatles, and still occasionally today with bands like Tool,
The Mars Volta, Queens Of The Stone Age and others.
To us, it made perfect sense to combine the best of both worlds,
but it had to be done in a way that didn't make it sound obvious.
In the last 10 years you've had all these bands that tried to cross
the bridge by recruiting a turntablist / using a synthesizer on their
new single, or electronic artists who just threw an obvious guitar
sample into a tune...but eventually it just came across as a gimmick
or a bit cheesy. We thought we'd try and do it properly, because to
us it still hasn't been done right and theres a lot of room for exploration.
If you turn on the radio today you'll hear 20 tracks in a row describing
someone's every-day life, or songs with a one-line catchphrase chorus
about shaking your ass in the club - the production is usually great
but when you look deeper, there's nothing behind it...it doesn't offer
you anything past its face value. We want to hear something different
and exciting, but the material we want to hear isn't getting made.
Thats why we spend nearly every waking moment trying to create music
that takes you out of this universe - for ourselves and anyone else
who wants to listen."
Band Members:
Rob Swire (vocals/synth/producer)
Gareth McGrillen (bass/producer/DJ)
Perry ap Gwynedd (guitar)
Paul "El Hornet" Harding (DJ)
Kodish (drums)
'In Silico' is out now.
