Artists & Bands

Clean Bandit | Tunes + Guitar Lessons

Blending classical strings with dance-pop to create unique global hits, Clean Bandit's innovative sound and standout collaborations have made them a defining force in modern electronic music!

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Clean Bandit’s Rise: From Mozart’s House to Global Hits

Electronic dance composers Clean Bandit formed in Cambridge in 2008. The band originally consisted of brothers Jack and Luke Patterson, Grace Chatto, Ssegawa-Ssekintu Kiwanuka, and Neil Amin-Smith.

The group quickly became known for their dance-pop sound that often fuses elements of classical music, the use of strings, and above all, collaborations with singers.

The idea of using different vocalists probably stems from their original lead singer, Ssegawa-Ssekintu Kiwanuka, who left before the first album was released. He wrote and sang Mozart’s House, Clean Bandit’s second single, released in 2010.

With just two albums released in 2014 and 2018, the band has had huge success thanks to three massive tunes: Rather Be, Rockabye, and Symphony.

Their first big single, Rather Be, featured the then-unknown singer Jess Glynne and was an enormous success—perhaps still their biggest tune. Combining classical elements with dance music, Rather Be became the second best-selling single of 2014, only beaten by Happy by Pharrell Williams.

Neil Amin-Smith, who played violin and piano, left the band just two days before the release of their next smash hit, Rockabye, featuring Anne-Marie and Sean Paul.

Both Rather Be and Rockabye had videos created by the band, who had actually made music videos for other artists as a side project before releasing their debut album.

Rockabye is their most successful tune if you go by the numbers. As of 2022, it had sold over 8 million copies, been streamed 1.3 billion times on Spotify, and racked up 2.7 billion YouTube views—these numbers are genuinely crazy! It also became the first U.K. Christmas #1 since Mad World that wasn’t either from X Factor, for charity, or some kind of stunt (Rage Against the Machine).

Their third biggest tune was Symphony, featuring Swedish singer Zara Larsson. This one also came from the second album and has almost the same insane numbers as Rockabye, although it didn’t chart as high.

Outside of these three massive hits, Clean Bandit has also had success with Tick Tock, featuring Mabel and 24kGoldn. They’re also known for remixes of How Will I Know by Whitney Houston and Grace Kelly by Mika.

I once spent half a day working out how to play Rather Be on the guitar. It was pretty tricky, but I got there in the end. It gave me a new level of appreciation for how well Clean Bandit can craft a tune!