Piers Aggett: Creating the sound of Rudimental

As part of British band Rudimental, producer Piers Aggett has played a pivotal role in shaping the sound of not only his own outfit, but the East London music scene from which they emerged. Headliner caught up with him from the band’s studio for a chat about his life in music so far, production techniques, and the invaluable role of Neve technology within his workflow.

“This place has a bit of history,” Piers Aggett (pictured right) tells Headliner as he appears before us via Zoom from Rudimental’s Major Tom studio in Shoreditch. “In the ‘80s it was the Eurhythmics’ place and then some garage heads had it in the ‘90s. I’m not too sure what happened after that, but we took it over around 2010 and we’ve made all of our albums here. It’s a nice location; a good hub. We’ve had Ed Sheeran, Dizzee Rascal, Stormzy, you name it in here. MNEK used to have the side room. It’s a special place and I can’t imagine being anywhere else.”

It's a space that has evidently served Aggett and his bandmates Kesi Dryden and Leon ‘Locksmith’ Rolle well over the past 14 years. Together they have produced some of the most successful drum & bass records of the 21^st century, topping the charts with their debut album Home (2013) and its follow-up We the Generation (2015) topping the UK albums chart. They have also achieved platinum record sales around the world, scooped awards at the BRITs and MOBO Awards, and received a Mercury Prize nomination for Home.

It was the burgeoning UK garage movement bubbling beneath the streets of East London around the turn of the millennium that first prompted Aggett to start creating his own music.

“My dad got a PC around ’98 and I was about 12,” he says, walking us through his first foray into the world of songwriting and composition. “Grime was happening, and my dad was a Junglist so we always had jungle on in the house on vinyl. He was also in wedding covers bands and used to play in local pubs on the weekend as a second job. So I was brought up around that and played in his band when I was in my teens. 

"My sister was a garage head, but I was into grime. So, I started making grime beats. I was DJing on pirate radio, making music on Reason and Cubase. That was around the time of Dizzee, Wiley, So Solid Crew. That was the scene I was involved in. I used to make music with rappers and singers on my eight-channel Cubase setup. I can’t even remember what mic I was using, but it was something basic. It was my first taste of music production and getting something played on the radio, albeit pirate radio. And all of us in Rudimental came from that scene. That’s where it all started for me.

“It was incredible,” he continues. “It was nuts. It was crazy what was happening in East London. Hearing people like Dizzee Rascal on Rinse FM in those early days… growing up as a kid, that was like my dad hearing Bob Marley on the radio in the ‘70s. I’m not comparing them as artists of course, I just mean I’d never heard anything like it. When those things happen, they knock you for six.”

It was around 10 years later that Aggett started to notice the needle shifting on his own career in music.

“There was the house music scene around 2009-2010 and I had made some money from a song on a compilation,” he elaborates. “That was my first ever cheque. I spent that on studio rent and was still working two jobs at the time. But not long after that Feel The Love came out and we moved into the pop scene with our soulful, uplifting drum & bass. When it went to No. 1 that was when I could quit my job and focus full-time on music. I was still learning then - I’m still learning now - but at that point I was still developing my craft. It was a big shift in my life.”

Having worked and collaborated with an eclectic array of artists over the years since Feel The Love topped the chart, Aggett’s production process has indeed developed. As well as growing his studio toolkit and technical prowess, one of the most important skills he has cultivated is the ability to pivot and adapt from project-to-project.

“The production process tends to change a lot with us,” he says. “We never go away and write an album over a few weeks like a rock band might do. We make ideas on our own with our laptops and then we’ll bring them together and work on each other’s ideas. In our studio there are lots of keyboards and synths, guitars, and a drum kit, so we can add real instruments where we feel we need them. We’ll call in other musicians for that. So, if I have a beat that I’ve made and I want to hear a brass section, I’ll get a horn section in. Each song is so different - I can’t say there is one set way of working. We tend to jam over each other’s ideas, and we also get our drummer Beanie in sometimes to create beats and vibes, which we can take into our writing sessions.”

“I’ve learnt how important it is to keep your sessions clean from the off – that’s come back to bite me bad, and we’ve lost sessions,” he continues with a laugh. “We’re not a very organised outfit! We’re like, let’s throw everything at it, listen to it a few hours later and then mute what we don’t like. One song might take two years, and another might take two days, and then we put it out a month later. It always changes. 

“The vocal signal chain for us is massively important,” Aggett asserts. “When you have Emeli Sande or Jess Glynne in the studio, the demo vocal can be the one, so you want to make sure you’re recording it the best you can. We have a Bock version of the Telefunken 251 and we run that through a Neve 1073. I can’t imagine using anything other than a lovely warm Neve on a microphone! And we have a Shadow Hills compressor. With a good mic and a Neve you really can’t go wrong."

Rudimental have a pair of Neve 1073s in a lunch box setup – one for vocals, one for guitar - and Agget's most recent acquisition is a Neve 1073OPX, which he was mightily impressed with after using a loan unit on some recent drum tracks. 

"We love that old school warm sound that you get with the 1073. It marries really well with Rudimental’s sound; it’s actually a really crucial part of our sound. And when I tried out the 1073OPX, although the sonics are slightly different, you're getting the core 1073 sound across eight preamps, so it's perfect for sticking on a drum kit, or running various synths through. We recorded some tracks recently for the new album, and [Rudimental drummer] Beanie's kit sounded great through the OPX."

Recently, after trialing Neve's 1073OPX unit on a few sessions with Rudimental drummer, Beanie, Aggett acquired the unit as a great multi-functional tool:  "The Neve element is one of the most crucial aspects of our sound; its the rich sonic warmth that flows through our recordings."

In addition to the innate audio characteristics of the 1073, Aggett also notes that it can elevate the overall quality of the signal chain in its totality.

“One of the amazing things about the 1073 is you can even take a cheaper mic and gain it, and with a good singer it’s like you don’t need a really posh mic. The Neve preamp just boosts the right frequencies. It gives the most honest replication of what a good mic is trying to do, so it’s great to have in the studio from a sonic perspective.

“And it’s not just vocals. Guitars, bass, they all go through the 1073 lunch box and they sound fat, in your face, and warm. It just brings that rich, 1970s warmth and quality that we love.”

As for what the future holds, Aggett reveals that a new Rudimental album is not just in the pipeline but almost complete. For now, no release date has been set, but fans can expect to hear new music in the not-too-distant future.

“We are finishing our new album over the next few weeks, which we will put out next year,” he informs us before our time together draws to a close. “That’s what we’re working on. It’s all in the drum & bass realm, and anyone who has been to any of our recent shows will have seen we’ve been playing quite a lot of new music. And we are going to play some clubs in America before the end of the year. Then it’s all about getting the new album out in the new year, which we are really excited about. It’s been a long process, and I always feel like that process for us starts the moment the previous one is released.

“It’s a lot of blood, sweat and tears,” he concludes. “So, we’re really looking forward to getting it out.”

Band photos by Dan Sullivan