Knife Party skulle i utgangspunktet bare være et sideprosjekt til Pendulum, men det viste seg fort at det skulle bli mye mye mer enn det. Sideprosjektet har tatt EDM-verden med storm, og det danses verden over til deres fantastiske musikkverk.

De har flere utgivelser under beltet, i tillegg til remikser av Labrinth og Nero, og de er på veien til mye større ting som samarbeid med Skrillex og Steve Aoki, og de er omfavnet av USA´s eksploderende dansemusikk-scene og turnerer USA rundt med sin egen Haunted House-pakke. Med 8000 solgte billetter til første dato av turnéen tror jeg gutta har en fin tid i møte.

Det er ingenting som tyder på at Rob Swire og Gareth McGillen ligger på latsiden om dagen. I tillegg til turné prøver de også å lage og gi ut nytt materiale mellom slagene. De tok seg likevel tid til å gjøre et intervju med det britiske electronic dance and clubbing magazine Mixmag for en drøy måned siden, hvor de snakker litt om hvordan det hele startet, veien fra da til nå, samarbeid med blant annet SHM og Skrillex, og ikke minst hva som skjer videre... 

Slenger med et lite utdrag fra intervjuet som du kan kose deg med mens du venter på at helgen skal innta.. :) Det er verdt å nevne at dette er det første intervjuet de har gjort - noen gang!

From the ashes of one of dance music’s biggest ever bands, Knife Party have swiftly risen to become the most exciting new DJ/production duo on the planet. In their first ever interview anywhere, Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen lift the lid on their incredible new project.

With a full band it can take ages to sort the stage sound out but a DJ just plugs in and plays. How much did this influence your ideas of what Knife Party would be?


Well, we had just come from touring extensively with Pendulum and initially we were just taking a break. We started putting tracks together and realised that none of them fitted the Pendulum mould, and that we certainly couldn’t ever play them in a band format – so Knife Party was born. After travelling with truckloads of expensive equipment for so long, it’s very refreshing to be able to turn up with an SD card and a laptop and play a show.

The name ‘Knife Party’ has caused consternation in some quarters due to its violent implications, – especially given the issue of teen knife crime. How do you respond?

It’s just a name, and we stole it from a Deftones song. I think people sometimes look too deeply into it – we’re not advocating any type of knife-related crime any more than Swedish House Mafia were advocating organised crime.

What are your feelings about the speed at which Knife Party’s reputation and profile has soared?

It’s always a welcome surprise when something explodes rapidly, but we were already very aware of the power of the internet. We’ve done no interviews bar this one, no press or press photos – we simply let the music create its own hype. It’s almost an experiment against the age-old model of “Whore yourself out to mass media and corporate brands to get attention”. We don’t think people need to do that stuff any more, so we’re not doing it – although our manager hates us for it!

How was it working with Swedish House Mafia?

We knocked ‘Antidote’ out in one day in Sydney and Steve [Angello] played it the following night at the Future Music Festival to around thirty thousand people. While we were making it, we had the news coming through about the earthquakes and tsunami in Japan and were watching it live. It was pretty surreal. We were like, “Is this the apocalypse? Is music still relevant?”

And Skrillex?

Too many Skrillex stories to mention. He lived with us for a month. We got drunk once and snorted like pigs into a mic to make dubstep sounds. 

What do you have coming up?


At the moment we’re just trying to maintain a steady stream of EPs in between touring. Aside from that, we don’t really have any immediate goals. We found goals to be quite counterproductive with our previous project, so at the moment we’re just trying to enjoy ourselves and make music.

Vi kan rett og slett ikke gjøre annet enn å glede oss - kanskje enda mer - til Knife Party inntar Sørmarka Arena og Stavanger LIVE første helgen i mai 2013!

Du kan lese hele intervjuet med gutta i Knife Party HER. 

Tekst fra intervju: Thomas H Green

Bilder fra intervju: Kevin Lake/Rudolfo Lamaestra