Utah Saints - History

History

They were described as "the first true stadium house band" (by Bill Drummond), though their music is difficult to place into one particular genre. The dance group originally met each other while as music promoters and DJ's for the Mix Nightclub in Harrogate in the early 1990s. Originally called MDMA (Massive Dance Music Alert), they first had chart success under the name Utah Saints with the singles "What Can You Do For Me" (UK No. 10), "Something Good" (their biggest UK success at No. 4) and "Believe In Me", a UK No. 8 chart hit, which they described as their vocal sample trilogy as those singles sampled Gwen Guthrie, Kate Bush and The Human League respectively ("What Can You Do For Me" also featured a sample from Eurythmics). However, the band were not sued by Kate Bush over the use of a sample from Bush's track "Cloudbusting" in the Utah Saints track "Something Good" - the sample was legally cleared before use. Additionally, Bush sold Utah Saints footage from the video of her original song. This track, with new vocals by the singer and actress Davina Perera, experienced a revival in the clubs in 2008 and reached No. 1 on UK Dance Chart. The track featured new remixes by Van She, High Contrast, Prok & Fitch, eSquire, Ian Carey and more.

Utah Saints then moved away from vocal samples with singles such as "I Want You" and "I Still Think Of You" (Jez Willis providing original vocals on each). Utah Saints also had three songs; "Hands Up", "Techknowledgy" and "Sick" featured on the hit video game, Carmageddon TDR2000.

After their debut album, the self-titled Utah Saints, and one further single "Ohio", Utah Saints seemed to disappear for several years, though they were still busy doing remixes (for a diverse range of artists including Blondie, The Human League, Hawkwind, Simple Minds, James, Annie Lennox and The Osmonds and the theme to the 1995 movie Mortal Kombat), and producing tracks for other artists such as Terrorvision. During this time, they recorded an album that was to be called 'Wired World' but was never released, and produced a handful of Utah Saints tracks that have not been released, with titles such as "Star", "Train" and "Rock".

The Utah Saints then took a break saying that they stopped before they got into a vicious cycle of people expecting them come up with hits and write music they wanted to hear. Garbut toured the United States with Orbital, Moby and Aphex Twin, whilst Willis appeared on the dance music radio station Kiss 105 in Yorkshire, hosting a Sunday night show.

They eventually reappeared in late 1999 with charting singles "Love Song" and "Funky Music (Sho Nuff Turns Me On)" (featuring Edwin Starr on guest vocals), plus "Power To The Beats" and "Lost Vagueness" (featuring Chrissie Hynde). They also issued the album, Two. Also in 2000, Utah Saints did the soundtrack for the video game Carmageddon TDR2000. In 2001, they supported Feeder on the second leg of their UK tour, but only played a DJ set. In 2002, they went quiet again, only to surface again in 2008 with a single release.

They have also been working on projects under other names, such as BeatVandals, as well as developing their regular Leeds and Edinburgh-based club night 'SugarBeatClub'. They opened a new recording studio on the outskirts of Leeds with fellow Leeds DJs and producers Riley & Durrant in 2008.

In 2007, their previous hit "Something Good" was remixed by Australian producers Van She. Originally a bootleg, the Utah Saints approved it and got them to re-record it with a new vocal. It was signed to the Ministry of Sound record label, who released it in January 2008, where it reached No. 8 in the UK chart - their second biggest chart success, behind the original version of "Something Good". The video for "Something Good 08" featured various people doing the "running man" dance that was originally performed by MC Hammer.

Released on iTunes on 11 January 2009 was the Utah Saints' club mix of Girls Aloud's "The Loving Kind". In November 2009, the band also produced a remix of the Liverpool based dance duo Killaflaw's "Set Me On Fire". This formed part of Killaflaw's third single, and was made available digitally in December of that year.

In August 2010, Utah Saints announced the launch of a new record label called Sugarbeats. The first release was Santero's "Drop the Bomb". Utah Saints played the Together Winter Music Festival in London at the Alexandra Palace on 26 November 2010.

In 2012 the Utah Saints song "What Can You Do For Me" (which sampled vocals from Annie Lennox) was remixed by dubstep duo Drumsound & Bassline Smith, the song received airplay and was popular enough to enter the top 10 on the dance charts. Herve and Tantrum Desire provided new 2012 remixes for the song, the remix by Herve was made to sound like a remix of the original 90's single, so Herve cut out the new material performed by Drumsound & Bassline Smith,. "What Can You Do For Me" peaked at #28 on the UK singles chart and it was included on the 2012 edition of Ministry Of Sound's Addicted To Bass series. Also the Cut-Up Boys mashed up "What Can You Do For Me" with "Midnight Run" by Example and Feed Me.