“Yup, my dad is actually Northern Irish,” Gareth McGrillen is telling me down a fuzzy phone line from London. “He was born in County Down, a little town called Dundrum – so I’ll be able to see my Nana when I come over in November!”.

The Aussie-born Pendulum man may well be happy about reuniting with his Irish relations this winter, but he’ll also have more pressing matters on his mind- namely his drum ‘n’ bass crossover act’s biggest Irish show to date at the RDS.
The Warner-signed act are reveling in the new challenges that their major label deal is bringing with it, though – especially considering the fact that their recently-released second album In Silico, and in particular, its epic lead single ’Propane Nightmares’, have performed agreeably in the charts here.
“It’s great, because so much hard work went into this stuff that if we didn’t get some kind of result out of it, I think we’d probably top ourselves,” laughs McGrillen. “We go to hell and back over every little thing – we even sometimes end up staying up all night just deciding what artwork to use on a poster or something. We’re very painstaking over everything.”
Since forming in their native Perth in the early Noughties, the entity known as Pendulum has undergone several transformations. A relocation to London in 2003 spawned their 2005 debut Hold Your Colour – an album that was extremely well-received in drum ‘n’ bass quarters - yet their latest offering is an altogether more rock-orientated affair. I ask McGrillen, whose musical CV includes a stint in a metal band, whether it was their intervening decision to down ProTools and pick up instruments for their live shows that affected their notable change in style.
“It was definitely an influence, but we weren’t gonna start writing tracks and then be like, ‘Oh wait, but how are we gonna play that live?' he testifies. 'That’s impossible because it’s all digital and cut-up.' We were just gonna write the album and let it happen naturally, and then deal with any problems that arose.”
It must feel strange, I venture, to hear one of your tracks on daytime radio after all this time. Was In Silico written with a mass-appeal goal?
“The one thing we did on our first album was that we really held back on influences that weren’t of a dance nature. We did have a clear goal of writing a dance album, so that meant we had to hold back on the rock influences that we had as children. But with our second album, we thought ‘Alright, this time, let’s just let whatever we’re listening to and whatever we’re feeling, influence the way the album turns out’. So, if it was rock, or metal, or surf rock or anything, we just let it come out, and that’s how the second album came about.
“You always, at the back of your head, have that kind of quiet confidence, I think,” he continues, “where you think ‘I love this track, I think it’s a hit.’ I guess the rest is just hoping and praying that everyone else gets it, and when they do, it’s really refreshing.”
With both albums self-produced, it’s obviously important to Pendulum to maintain control over their music. Has signing to a major label meant any of that power has been compromised?
“Majors are quite different to how they were perceived back in the day, especially Warners,” says McGrillen. “They’re usually very flexible and let you do what you want. It sounds a bit masochistic, but if you let someone else get involved in writing the music and it’s a failure, then you have other people to blame.”
I ask him whether he now sees Pendulum as a rock band of sorts, or simply a drum ‘n’ bass band trying something a bit different.
“I’d say both at once” he laughs. “I mean, why limit yourself?!”

Pendulum play Oxegen (July 12); Nugent Hall, Belfast (24); and the RDS, Dublin (25)