Clean Bandit, courtesy.

I didn’t know all too much about Clean Bandit prior to February, when I was offered an interview with the English electronic-classical band, alongside another unknown, Jess Glynne, just prior to the Grammy Awards. I wasn’t in a position to meet up with them in Los Angeles, but I hope to have made up for that egregious error over there last couple of weeks. First, I interviewed Grace Chatto (vocals, cello) by phone to preview their Berkeley show, opening for Duran Duran and Chic. Beforehand, I met up with Chatto and Jack Patterson (bass, keyboard, vocals) to talk more about their work.

How did you get to open for Chic and Duran Duran?

Jack Patterson: We just got a call from our manager saying, “Would you like to do this tour?” and we were like, “Yeah.”

Are you fans of Duran Duran?

Grace Chatto: We are massive fans. I believe I was 8 when “Ordinary World” came out. It was on my “Smash Hits 1993″ CD. I used to listen to it every day. So it was crazy when we got the call inviting us to do the tour. When we heard about the venues we were going to play in, (like) Red Rocks and Hollywood Bowl, last night – those are really amazing places. And Chic, we heard them a lot of times last summer because they were touring in the U.K. quite extensively at loads of festivals. At the end, they always get everyone on stage to dance, and we were invited to be on stage then at the end, so we kind of met them during that, and that was really fun. Now we’ve met, and (met) Duran Duran, and all the guys were really nice.

Do you find yourself spending time with them after the show? Exchanging touring stories or anything like that?

Chatto: A bit. We’re hoping to make a song together with Niles (Rodgers). Hopefully, fingers crossed, we’re going to get to do something. Duran Duran, we don’t see them that much after the show because we’re living on our tour bus in our bunk beds, so we have to leave straight away after they finish. And then we drive quite long distances, usually.

UPDATE:

Have you been writing or recording your next album? How’s that going?

Patterson: It’s been quite good, actually. We just had a few days off in L.A. to do some recording and some writing. It’s tough to do at the same time: Keeping on touring, and keeping on writing, but we’re getting there. The next album is looking pretty cool, I think. I’d say it’s maybe 80 percent written, but not all recorded. I’d say we’re quite far in terms of the writing.

What sort of direction are you going in?

JP: Our last album was very diverse in terms of the sound walls. With this one, we’re still trying to narrow it down because the songs are written, but we haven’t finished production yet on a lot of it. I’m still trying to figure out a direction, but I want it to be more homogenous and more like a single sound. That’s more satisfying to play. Being on the road a lot more and seeing how Chic operates, for example – they’ve got their sound, and it works. There’s no mucking about.

Chatto: But we’re torn because we’ve got a lot of dance tracks and also a lot of ballads that are quite heartfelt songs. We’re trying to work out now whether to do two sides of an album or whether to mix them together and how the journey will work between the different kinds of tempos.

How do you manage to keep the friendships in the band while trapped on a bus so much of the time?

[Chatto laughs]

Patterson: It’s tough, but you’re so busy all the time. It’s not like you’re sitting there. Most of the time you’re on a tour bus, you’re just shattered from having played, and you just crash out.

Chatto: Mainly, it’s sleeping on the bus. We’ve all known each other for ages. Jack and I have known each other for about nine years. He and Luke, our drummer, are brothers, so they’ve known each other since Luke was born. Me and Neil (Amin-Smith; violin) have known each other since we were very young. We used to play in classical orchestras together when we were children. It’s almost like family, the relationships, more than friendships because we’ve known each other so long.

What is your favorite Clean Bandit song to perform live?

Chatto: “Rather Be” is always really fun because you can just see how many people are connecting to that song. Everyone just singing along. It’s amazing to think what it meant for all the different people. It’s a unique form of connection. A lot of the other songs will only be known by part of the audience, especially on this tour, when we’re supporting Duran Duran, and most people are hearing us for the first time. Even so, they know “Rather Be” from the radio.

Patterson: It’s a quite satisfying one to play.

Jess Glynne just performed in San Francisco a few days ago, and then went to L.A. You just performed in L.A. and are now here. Have you had many opportunities to perform “Rather Be” together?

Patterson: We’ve done quite a few times. Her album is just coming out, so she’s quite busy. We performed it on TV on “Jimmy Kimmel,” and on “Good Morning America.” We’ve done a lot of TV appearances together and festivals in the U.K. We played in Los Angeles in the El Rey theater last year. Since then we haven’t gotten a chance – we’re always crossing over at different times.

Grace; you’re fluent in Russian and Italian. What are the other hidden talents of this band?

Chatto: Jack studied architecture. When I met him, he was making all these models of buildings … he did computer modeling.

Patterson: Yeah, I haven’t done so much of that recently. … Luke is a really good skateboarder. He’s a pretty serious skateboarder. He could do some quite amazing tricks.

Chatto: Both of those talents, we use in our music videos. Jack’s computer modeling; … there’s this huge gold snake in one of our videos that Jack modeled out of nowhere. And Luke’s always skateboarding in the videos, and sometimes he’s … filming when we need a moving shot, and he does it from the skateboard.

Your band name is pulled from a Russian saying. What’s the original meaning and was it a tongue-in-cheek selection?

Chatto: In Russian, it’s “Cheestkaya bondeetka.” Literally, that translates as a “female clean bandit.” The use of the word is as in “total” or “absolute,” like a clean win or a clean sweep. So it means, like, a total bandit or a total bastard. It was said by a Russian lady who was a friend of ours when we lived in Moscow, and she described my sister as a “clean bandit,” and we just found that really funny. It’s not very common (phrase). She was quite inventive with language.

Follow Roman Gokhman at Twitter.com/RomiTheWriter