Clean Bandit: We were told to stop making pop music

The penny didn’t drop until their third recording session, when the band were handed a translation of the lyrics by Vietnamese singers JustaTee and Phương Ly.

“I was like, ‘That’s weird. The chorus says “open to more” again’,” recalls Patterson.

It transpired that, although Clean Bandit had been given artistic freedom, the brewery had signed separate contracts with their collaborators, forcing them to use the company’s slogan in their lyrics.

‘We were like, ‘Hang on, that’s the Tuborg strapline. Why are you writing that in the chorus?’” Patterson recalls.

“And they’re like, ‘Oh, we have to. If we don’t do that, we don’t get paid’.”

The whole experience was a “devastating waste of energy”, he says. The songs essentially vanished, unable to be played on radio stations where they’d be considered in breach of advertising guidelines.

But, says Chatto, “it made us realise that if we were doing this on our own terms, it would be a fantastic way to live – just going around the world, making music.”

That’s what they did at the start of 2024, with writing sessions in Miami, Lagos and Jamaica that have produced “two entire records” of material.

Some of those songs have already come out – including the sublime summer jam Mar Azul, written with Colombian pop group Piso 21.

“I hate to keep coming back to it, but our previous label was based in the UK,” says Patterson, “so their priority was always what would work over here.

“If it wasn’t going to be played on Capital [Radio], they weren’t interested.

“Now, if we work with someone in Mumbai, that’s ok. The fact that we don’t have a singer means we can be light on our feet and work anywhere in the world.”

That’s where Clean Bandit see their future: Concentrating on quality, rather than the demands of streaming algorithms, in the hope their fans will follow them.

“That’s the hope,” says Chatto. “Because it’s already been the case that our songs have gone around the world and reached a lot of people.”

In other words: There’s no place they’d rather be.