There aren't many bigger names in the world of dance music nowadays than Example. The Londoner - who was in town for a performance at last weekend's Oxegen festival - is poised to release his fifth full length album in March of next year and opens up to John about the recording of the record, how he has slowly defined his style of music over the years and playing Irish audiences. Just don't call him a rapper, okay?

Interview by John Balfe

John Balfe: What's the current state of play regarding the fifth record?

EXAMPLE: Most of the album's done, think I finished about eleven or twelve tracks, and I need to write three or four more. This isn't my choice; this is the label's choice. The single, 'All the Wrong Places', is out September. Another single is out December and then another in March, so the album will be out then in March too. It will probably be my first album with a worldwide release. In the past I've only be released in the UK, Ireland and Australia. Everywhere else in the world has been a nightmare to sync; to get licensing deals for the album, but that should be easier now that I'm with Sony.


JB: Presumably being signed to Sony opens up a lot more doors for you?

E: Exactly. It's going to be an album for the weekend. It's a party album full of bangers; nothing too experimental or too clever, no ballads or experimental moments with a guitar. It's a 'does what it says on the tin' electronic/synth/ rave party album and that's what I've done best over the years I think so if it ain't broke, don't fix it.


JB: You've been playing a couple of tracks live, 'All the Wrong Places' was one, Only Human was another, and maybe one or two more. How have they been going down live, like at Glastonbury and things like that, do you get a good indication of the life the track will have when you play it live the first few times?

E: Yeah, I mean the first time you play it you can usually tell. When it drops, or it kicks off, as the initial synth riff comes in, or if people are singing the lyrics by the end of it, you can tell if it's going to work or not usually. We actually played another new song at Global Gathering [recently] and that went off as well. They're all emotional build ups and the drop is a release.



JB: As well as Oxegen, you played a sold-out show in The O2 in February. Do you find any differences between Irish audiences and elsewhere?

E: They are actually. There's only a few places in the world that are noticeably different for me and that's Ireland and Scotland. As you walk into the venue there's just a real buzz. Sometimes you a gig and they don't get going until around halfway through the show but in Ireland in particular you can feel it in the air. Even in Dublin, walking around the town during the day at like 3pm on the day of the show, there's a buzz about the town so when the venue doors open around 7pm the buzz is even more evident. By the time I go on about 9 o'clock, everywhere you look it's smiles and the loudest singing!

JB: How was your Glastonbury?

E: It was great, man. It was a bit weird. I don't usually get that anxious or nervous before I go on because I'm so used to doing big shows so I don't think about it too much but everyone was making such a big thing about me going up against The Rolling Stones I started to think that maybe I should be nervous or anxious. I was fine in the end; we managed to pull around 30,000 people. We clashed with half of The Stones' set and people still came to see me so I felt quite blessed.

JB: There's no rapping on the new album and the previous album was only about 10% on it. Does it bother you to be pigeonholed by some people as a rapper and nothing more?

E: It doesn't really bother me; I just think it's a bit lazy. If Kanye West did three hip hop albums and one album with singing on it, then it's fair enough if they still call him a rapper. For all my biggest songs that I've released, rapping has been such a small part of them and yet I'm still referred to as a rapper. It doesn't really bother me so much but I feel like there's so many really good rappers from the UK that have put so much time into making great rap records and I feel it's a bit unfair that people box me in with them. I make electronic dance, I'm making big, dance rave anthems for festivals and clubs. Other people, like my mates Wretch 32 and Pro Green are making real hip hop music, and I just think it's a bit unfair that I'm boxed in with them because I'm nothing like them. We're all mates and we're all fans of each other's music but just listen to the records and you can clearly tell they're different. It's dance essentially. It's fine when I'm called an electronic artist or a dance artist or a singer but I'm certainly not a rapper anymore, I haven't made hip hop in about six years.



JB: Does the way your music has evolved over the years reflect how your own musical taste has evolved? What did you listen to in your own formative musical years when you were a kid?

E: What I've always done is experiment because I never really knew what I wanted to be or do. I didn't want to be in music, I wanted to be a film director when I was younger. When I was a kid I listened to mainly hip hop, but also Nirvana, Blur, Metallica, Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, a lot of the big 90's acts. If I had gone to a different school, maybe I'd have ended up as a lead singer in a band but because the predominant music culture in my school in South London was hip hop, I rapped to fit in. I didn't want to make music for a living, I wanted to make films but when my song got played on the radio in 2004 I thought I'd roll with it for a while to see what would happen, though I was working a 9-5 job in TV at the time. Then Mike Skinner from The Streets invited me to go on tour with him and sign me to his label and I thought "why not Why the hell not?” Even though I wanted to work in film and TV, it's not an offer that comes up that often so I might as well see what it's like. Over time I met different producers and songwriters and it just developed naturally.

My fourth album was like "why don't I try an electronic take on rock music?" All of those things were like trial and error, experimentation to see what works for me and now with this fifth album I feel I know what really suits me and that's big electronic, dance bangers, anthems for the clubs and festivals. It's stuff that people can stick on at the weekend and forget their jobs, forget their 9-5 or their depressing week at work. From now everything I do is going to fit that mould. I'm not going to try to do anything too clever or experimental. My new single, 'All the Wrong Places', is the kind of thing people can expect from me for the next five years.

JB: So it's a mission statement?

Yeah exactly, I still think some of my songs like 'Kickstarts' or 'Change the Way You Kiss Me' will be coming back. Not only my biggest tracks but the ones I think have helped define my career over the years to this stage. I really think my new stuff's going to fit really nicely alongside all of that.

Example's as-yet-untitled fifth album is expected to be released in March of 2014.