Rated EG

“I don’t write bullshit, throwaway music,” Example sniffs. “I want my music to stick around for 10 or 15 years, even longer, and I think ‘Kickstarts’ has already stood the test of time, the fact people still play it now in clubs. That’s really what I want, longevity and integrity.”

He’s already coming off like a cocky little so-and so on paper, but in person, there’s something remarkably likable about Elliot John Gleave. Not-so-fresh from a performance at Belsonic, he’s running on just a couple of hours’ sleep and a roast beef sandwich. Then it’s off to Pukkelpop in Belgium for a show that will be cancelled when four festival-goers tragically lose their lives in a storm-driven stage collapse.
Scruffy-haired and bleary-eyed, Example is slouching for Britain. This is his umpteenth interview of the morning and he has no problem telling me that he can’t wait ‘til I leave so he can grab another hour’s kip. You’re probably concluding that he’s a textbook asshole, but really, his honesty is making this one of the easiest interviews I’ve done. Perhaps he doesn’t relish being the newest piece of meat on the journalistic conveyor belt, but he clearly adores talking about music.
I last met the 29-year-old at the Hot Press Signing Tent at Oxegen, where 600-odd starry-eyed fans were all vying for his attention. One particularly enthusiastic man, fearing that the singer wouldn’t get around to everyone, even tried to bribe our bouncer with a €50 note.
“I find that really weird,” he admits. “I love being on stage and I love the attention on stage because you need to thrive on it and feed off the crowd. But when I’m not on stage, I just want to be left alone. I don’t like pictures and I don’t like autographs but I realise it’s part of my job to do that. You can’t have one without the other. You can’t want to be adored by 60,000 people at a festival and not meet anyone after. I don’t like having pictures taken but I like seeing the look on a young girl or young guy… or even an old guy’s face when you’ve had a picture with them, it kind of makes their day. I have to work out what the equivalent for me would be. I had a picture once with Stevie Wonder and that was fucking amazing, so I think what it must be like for them.”
This kind of all-out adoration is not something you regularly see with hardcore dance acts, but when I learn that Example’s music is inspired by precisely this kind of music-lover, it suddenly makes a world of sense.
“Every song I write, I’m trying to imagine 20 or 30,000 people singing it. It’s all about building a crowd up to a state of euphoria and taking them down again, bringing them up and down so that it’s like a blockbuster movie, a series of explosions dotted throughout an hour-long set. Dancing and singing and sweating and mosh-pits. Really, I just try and cater for a big audience. I’m artistic but I’m also a businessman.”
Developed over a handful of years on the festival circuit, Example’s business plan has worked an absolute treat. As a razor-tongued rapper in 2007, he peaked at 125 in the UK albums chart. As a moody, snarking electro-house star in 2011, he’s already sold 140,000 copies of his new single and looks set to top the albums chart with his third LP Playing In The Shadows. Still, he hasn’t forgotten that it took him four years to get there.
“That first album was fucking all over the place,” he admits. “I didn’t know how to construct a song, I didn’t know what to do conceptually. There’s a song about posh birds, there’s a song about nuclear destruction, there’s a song about having a fight in the cinema, they were just weird ideas I had. Then the second album was me delving more into the singing and kind of experimenting with dance, albeit there were four or five rap songs on that album.
“The new album is me in cruise control, knowing this is my sound, this is my market, this is what works for me. I can sing and rap, there’s no other vocals on this album apart from me and no-one else can really attest to that at the moment.”
The London lad also got a huge slap on the back this year when dance luminaries Faithless agreed to guest-produce a track on the new album.
“I saw Sister Bliss at V Festival last year and I said, ‘Let’s get in the studio and make some music.’ Then the other half of the production team, Rollo Armstrong, said to me that ‘Kickstarts’ is one of his favorite records of the year. It’s a massive statement that some of the legends of dance music want to pass the baton on to me.”
Example’s formula is something most chart-hungry songwriters would give their right arm for, and to my surprise, Gleave tells me there’s nothing to it.
“It’s quite simple. I wouldn’t write about anything I didn’t know about. I try and keep it all very personal. I don’t really listen to rap music anymore or dance music. I just study rock bands and grunge bands. All my lyrics are quite grungey on this album, quite melancholic, self-deprecating, moody but uplifting at the same time. There’s a meaning in all my songs, it’s not just gobbledygook, ‘Party rockers in the house tonight’ and shit.”
‘’Under The Influence’ is about addiction. Then there’s a song called ‘Never Had A Day’, which is about an ex-girlfriend who used to just get fucked every weekend. We never had a day go by when we were sober. Then there’s a song called ‘Midnight Run’, which is about being out late at night doing naughty stuff when you know you should be at home with your partner. There’s nothing really ambiguous or left-field, the lyrics are crystal clear.”
One track that carries an especially clear message is ‘Natural Disaster’, a standout dance-floor thumper that, lyrically, is about as doom-laden as they come.
“I was listening to a lot of Pearl Jam when I wrote that song, ‘You’re far too good for me/We should be happy ever after, happiness and laughter/What a natural disaster’ – I like to think that’s something Kurt Cobain could have written. It’s kind of that fucking ‘I hate myself’ vibe and I don’t hate myself but when I made that particular woman feel really low, I did hate myself.”
We’ve been chatting for around 15 minutes now, but it took all of 30 seconds to see that for Example, success is paramount. Even slouching in an armchair, answering his 50th question of the day and pining for his bed, he’s visibly excited by the prospect that one day he might achieve his goals.
“I just want a number one album,” he stresses. “I’ve always wanted a number one album, I was never bothered about a number one single. A number one album is like something you’ve worked on for a year, it’s a collection of songs, it’s a reflection of you being an artist, so I just hope it’s number one and I hope it’s well-received.
‘When you see someone like Pitbull releasing albums you think, ‘What the fuck does that mean to people?’ At the end of the day if that song reminds someone of being on holiday, then I guess it kind of serves a purpose, but what’s he saying? What’s he getting at? He’s not telling you a story. Maybe some people find him aspirational, I don’t know, but I’ve never wanted to be that sort of artist. I just want people to listen to the lyrics and the music and go, ‘This album means something to me’.”

Playing In The Shadows is out now on Ministry Of Sound. Example comes to the Ulster Hall, Belfast (November 29) and the Olympia, Dublin (30).