Inside Glastonbury: Stanton Warriors

Throughout its 45-year history, Glastonbury Festival has been plentifully supplied by its neighbouring city of Bristol, a hotbed of musicians, performers, artists and creatives.

The modern Glastonbury Festival attracts top musicians and more from the world over, with the Dalai Lama rumoured to make an appearance this year, and Stephen Hawking also confirmed to speak.

However, there’s still a distinctively strong Bristol presence across the festival’s 100+ stages. Bristol DJ duo Stanton Warriors, a.k.a. Dominic Butler and Mark Yardley, last year celebrated their 14th anniversary playing at Glastonbury; and their 2008 performance on the Arcadia stage made it into a Daily Telegraph list of the 100 best-ever Glastonbury performances, sitting alongside the likes of Jeff Buckley, Beyoncé and the Stones.  

So with everyone and their mothers packing up to go to Glastonbury Festival this week, we thought there could be no one better than Stanton Warriors to tell us what it’s like being an artist at the creme dela creme of festivals. 

“We were on the big-ass spider which spouts fire, so straight away you feel like you’re on the set of a transformers movie,” Dominic recounts.

“You have buttons underneath, where you actually control the fire. They tell you that you should only use it once or twice, because they’re trying to reserve the propane, but the set was going off so much that every time a bassline dropped, I just couldn’t help myself! I’d press all the buttons and flames would just shoot up in the air.

“Plus, you have people all around you and underneath you, which is a pretty unique DJ experience. It just felt right, and people were reacting really well. We were quite underground with our sounds – we weren’t just playing big tunes like people might expect you to at a festival. And people were really reacting to that so it was a good set for us because we could indulge a certain sound – we didn’t have to cater to the masses or do bootlegs.”

Since the success of their 2001 album Stanton Session, the DJs have never been too far from anyone’s mind, traversing the rarely trodden ground between underground and party music.

Their forthcoming album Rebel Bass (due for release in July) looks set to blow the lid off. The pair posted a video clip to facebook of new track ‘The One’ and already it’s had nearly two million views, and tens of thousands of shares, comments and likes.  

Growing up in the bass land of Bristol has been a huge factor in their musical style, says Dom.“It was the best place to grow up for the music we make now. The people we were looking up to then were the Wild Bunch [soon to become Massive Attack], and Tricky was hanging around the parties we were going to.

“There were free parties going on back then, and rave culture, so Glastonbury was like a bigger version of that. My first Glastonbury experience was going down at 16, going under the fence with no tent, no money. Back then it was even bigger, too, because so many people snuck in for free – so for us being so young, it was crazy. Staggering around for two days with nothing, but still having the time of our lives.”

Nearly 20 years since their formation, and with several successful LPs under their belt alongside official remixes for Basement Jaxx, Fatboy Slim and Gorillaz, the Warriors are still proving a hit with Glastonbury crowds. “No matter where they put us, we seem to have a loyal following that will come and find us, which we’re always really humbled about.

“If they put us in the so-and-so field at two o’clock in the afternoon, miles away from the dance area, suddenly at two o’clock all these faces will turn up – old and young. There are a lot of hardcore Stanton Warriors fans out there.”

Read about more Bristol artists and creatives at Glastonbury.

Stanton Warriors will be bringing their festival game to Eastville Park’s Tokyo World, September 26. 

Photos by Lee Niel photography.