Clean Bandit talk new single Cry Baby with Anne-Marie and David Guetta: "This is 4 years in the making"

When we meet Clean Bandit members Grace Chatto and Jack Patterson at their PR's HQ in Central London, they're very busy. 

Not only are they preparing for the launch of their first single as lead artists in nearly two years, Cry Baby, but they're collating mixes of more new music (one new song we've been banned from talking about is so good it, quite literally, gave us chills and rendered us non-verbal for a few minutes) and desperately trying to finish the editing for Cry Baby's music video.

"See this?" Jack says, passing us the laptop so we can see David Guetta's face covered in what looks like a waterfall of tears. "We actually built this. We had to tape it to David's face."

It's fair to say that after some time away, Clean Bandit - who have, as of right now, four UK Number 1 singles, including one Official Christmas Number 1 single, and a further six Top 10 hits to boot - are feeling re-energised for their return to the pop arena after some time away.

Cry Baby, the first single from this new era, is something of a homerun for the band, who have reunited with Anne-Marie, the vocalist from one of their biggest hits, Rockabye, while also working with dance godfather David Guetta for the first time. It sounds like a return to the classic Clean Bandit sound and model. It's good to have them back. 

Clean Bandit, this is your first proper single in two years - how are you feeling?

Jack: We've got a lot of creative energy at the moment. It all feels super exciting.

Grace: We're making the music video ourselves [which we haven't done in a while], and it's just turned into this epic project. We built a train, an actual train, for the new video. Francis Bourgeois is in the video and we actually did consult him on, you know, the different models we could use and stuff.

This is your first single back with Anne-Marie since Rockabye - has it been a case of just finding the right song to work together again?

Grace: Often, we do make songs and always think "this would be good for Anne-Marie."

Jack: But we actually wrote Cry Baby together, with Kamille and Steve Mac. Do you know in his house Steve Mac has a wall where he's used your Official Number 1 Awards like bricks?

We simply have to visit this house. Cry Baby has taken 4 years to complete, you do like to take your time...

Grace: We do! But this is probably the world record for how long we've taken our time with this one. Some things about it were beyond our control, because you know there's two artists on the song and we have to sync everyone's schedules...

From four years ago to now, has the song changed much?Did the demo sound different?

Grace: To my knowledge, this is basically the same as the day we started it. Maybe not the exact day, but certainly one of the early versions. It was good! We probably could have done without the three years of experimentation...

Jack: We tried to make it sound a bit more country at one point.

Grace: Yes, there was one with more guitar, one that was a bit more country, one that was really, really fast...we did loads of different styles. And in the end, we just came back!

To our ears at this, this sounds like the most classically Clean Bandit song for at leas the last few years 

Grace: Yeah, this one does feel like coming home, doesn't it?

Jack: You know, the lack of strings in previous releases is partly why this has taken so long to come about. We've [experimented] with our sound. And we've found a new home for it as well. 

How have you found it, moving labels?

Grace: It's been really good! We obviously had such a good run with Atlantic, and we still love everyone there. We just felt like we needed a new chapter.

Jack: A reset. A fresh start.

Grace: We have a really good relationship with Wolfgang Boss, who runs B1 [a subsidiary of Sony], he was actually one of the first people to hear [very early single] Mozart's House and helped kind of whipped everyone into a frenzy about it. 

How did you get David Guetta involved?

Jack: Anne-Marie actually introduced us. We sent him the track to see if he would vibe with it and he Zoom called us immediately. It was an amazing call, he was getting so excited about ideas. This was during the end of COVID times, so it was still all remote. We all wanted to release it immediately but...we didn't manage to.

Which artists are still left on the Clean Bandit hit list to work with?

Grace: Lewis Capaldi, Rosalia...Sabrina Carpenter, yes. Miley Cyrus, Rihanna, always Rihanna.

Cry Baby by Clean Bandit, Anne-Marie and David Guetta is out now via B1 UK./Ministry of Sound