Clean Bandit

Luke Patterson

**Clean Bandit** is a British electronic music band, formed in Cambridge in 2008. The band consists of Grace Chatto, and brothers Jack and Luke Patterson. Their 2011 single "Mozart's House" reached number 17 on the UK Singles Chart when re-released in 2013. In January 2014, they scored their first UK chart topping single with "Rather Be", a collaboration with Jess Glynne, featuring elements of both classical and dance music. They also reached number 10 on the US *Billboard* Hot 100.

In 2015, "Rather Be" won the Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording.

On 19 October 2016, an announcement on their Facebook page stated that violinist and pianist Neil Amin-Smith had decided to leave the group. Neil made a separate announcement to this effect on his Twitter account. Two days later, the group released their first song without Amin-Smith: "Rockabye", which features rapper Sean Paul and singer Anne-Marie: it became their second number-one hit in the UK, becoming the Christmas number one single for 2016 in its seventh consecutive week at number one. The song became an international chart topper for the band, and also charted at number 9 in the US. Clean Bandit have sold over 13 million singles and 1.6 million albums worldwide.

## Work with Anne-Marie

#### Rockabye

"Rockabye" is a single by Clean Bandit, featuring Anne-Marie as main vocalist together with Sean Paul. It is a featured track on Anne-Marie's first studio album, *Speak Your Mind*.

## Background

Band members Grace Chatto, Jack Patterson, Luke Patterson and Neil Milan Amin-Smith met while studying as undergraduates at Jesus College, University of Cambridge. At the time, Amin-Smith, who attended Westminster School was leading a string quartet together with Chatto, who attended The Latymer School. The original vocalist, Ssegawa-Ssekintu Kiwanuka, left to undertake a PhD in laser analytics.

The band's name, *Clean Bandit*, comes from a translation of a Russian phrase; the meaning is similar to the English phrase "complete bastard", though Patterson later stated that it is actually a more affectionate term similar to "utter rascal".

## Music style

Clean Bandit are an electronic, classical crossover, electropop and dance-pop band. The band mixes electronic music with classical pieces by composers such as Mozart and Shostakovich. Some of their music also involves tongue-in-cheek humour.

## Videos

Chatto and Jack Patterson formed their own film production company, Cleanfilm, to make music videos for themselves and other artists.

## Political views

In May 2017, Clean Bandit endorsed the Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn in the 2017 UK general election. In June, the band supported a Labour Party rally in Birmingham. In June 2018, they headlined the Labour Live festival in London.

Clean Bandit played at the closing ceremony of the 2015 European Olympic Games held in Azerbaijan, a country ranked 163rd out of 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders' press freedom index.

## Philanthropy

On 15 November 2014, Neil Amin-Smith (playing violin) and Grace Chatto (on cello) performed with the charity group Band Aid 30 along with other British and Irish pop acts, recording the latest version of the track "Do They Know It's Christmas?" at Sarm West Studios in Notting Hill, London, to raise money for the 2014 Ebola crisis in West Africa.

## External links

* Facebook
* Instagram
* Soundcloud
* Twitter
* Youtube