Rudimental celebrate Home's 10 year anniversary on the Official Chart: "We listened to Feel The Love get to Number 1 on the radio"

Rudimental are coming back Home.

Tomorrow (April 28) marks the release of a very special 10th anniversary re-issue of their influential debut album Home, which hit Number 1 on the Official Albums Chart a decade ago in 2013.

Thanks to the massive success of that album's two Number 1 singles - Feel The Love with John Newman and Waiting All Night featuring Ella Eyre - Home brought Rudimental firmly into the spotlight, taking a generation of British vocalists - which included the likes of Becky Hill, MNEK, Foxes and Anne-Marie - with them. 

Now with celebrations for Home capping off sessions for brand new music on the horizon, we caught up with Rudimental's Kesi Dryden and Piers Aggett fresh off the plane from LA and back in London to reminisce. 

MORE: Rudimental's Official Charts history in full

First of all, it doesn't seem like Home came out 10 years ago, does it?!

Kesi: It doesn't. It's a strange one, sometimes it feels like five years ago. But then, sometimes, it does feel like 10 years because so much stuff has happened [since we released Home]. We dropped four albums, we travelled the world. We've certainly packed a lot in. But sometimes it does feel like just the other day. 

What's the strongest memory you have from that time? You got your first Number 1 single, your first Number 1 album...

Kesi: Three of us were working in secondary schools and I can remember we were able to quit our jobs when Feel The Love came out. We were all around Piers' house when it went to Number 1, we got loads of family and friends around and we were just listening to the radio. 

Weirdly, Feel The Love and Waiting All Night especially sound really nostalgic now, and they've proved to be very influential in terms of how British dance music shaped itself for much of the last decade

Kesi: No, it does! We've been working with a lot of new people recently. Venbee [of Messy In Heaven fame], to name one. She said she grew up listening to our music. So, she must have been, like, seven or eight [when Home came out]. And you do listen to Feel The Love and see that we've influenced a lot of new music and artists coming through now. It's pretty special to be able to be a part of people's lives and journeys in that way. 

Looking to the tracklist especially and it's kind of crazy how many of the names on there - Becky Hill and MNEK especially - who have gone on to massive things. You had Emeli Sandé on a track, Foxes...

Kesi: Honestly, Becky, MNEK, Sinead Hartnett, they're all smashing it right now. It was an amazing platform for so many British artists, and a lot of them are still going.

This must have been one of Becky's first cuts since she did The Voice - how did you connect?

Kesi: I actually saw her on The Voice. She's pretty special. John Newman was actually working in a pub that Piers' sister worked at [at the time] so we invited him down to the studio to sing Feel The Love. It was such a time for vibrant community of singers.

Anne-Marie also was heavily involved with Rudimental, she was a singer on your tour and festival spots before going solo right?

Piers: Yeah, a lot of talent was coming through [at that time]. It was a time of producer artists, right? So, Magnetic Man, Disclosure. It was this whole wave. I can remember this Annie Mac tour where we were on the same bill as Redlight.

Kesi: That's actually how we first saw Anne-Marie. I think she was singing for Magnetic Man in a club and all the equipment went down and the only thing that was left working was her microphone. She managed to hold it down and have the whole audience in a rave. We had to get her involved. She's so talented. 

I do think Feel The Love sounds just as fresh today as it did when it was released - what can you remember about working on it? Like you said, you all still had still day jobs at the time

Kesi: I actually started Feel The Love by myself in my mum's basement in Hackney. Originally, it was just me singing it. Not many people have heard that demo! We started searching for the perfect voice. As I was saying before, John worked in the same pub as Piers' sister. He was performing one night on an acoustic guitar, so we brought him down to the studio [and the rest is history]. 

Did you have any other vocalists in mind? Or was John the first you went to?

Kesi: At that point we were up and coming [so we didn't have our pick of vocalists]. There was actually a student from the school I was working for at the time who cut a vocal for Feel The Love. He was pretty good! But we tried a few different vocals, but John was the perfect match. 

What's your favourite track from Home?

Kesi: I'm gonna go for Spoons. We did that with MNEK and Syron. It's just a very chilled house vibe. That put us on the radar a bit [before Feel The Love hit Number 1]. 

Piers: I just love the Emeli Sandé record [More Than Anything]. It's hard to pick just one, though, there's a lot of good stuff on that record!

Does this anniversary also help to re-energise you going forward? I know you're working on new music as we speak

Kesi: Yeah, yeah. Its like - who's going to be the biggest vocalist coming from the UK in the next 10 years? We want to shine a light on those type of features again. As much as we've hhad fun working with some massive artist,  I think next few singles it's all about sort of going back. This has been the inspiration behind the singles we've been producing this year. We want to take it back to that era of Home.

Rudimental's special 10 year anniversary re-issue of Home drops tomorrow (April 28).