The Clean Bandit TikTok connection now runs both ways: the platform has revived their old hits, and it is also where the Cambridge trio are finding new collaborators. Speaking in a session alongside ByteDance’s EMEA head of music publishing licensing and partnerships, Ella Kirby, Grace Chatto and Jack Patterson looked back on their road from self-releasing outfit to major-label hitmakers and back to running things themselves.
Clean Bandit TikTok moments: from dolphins to new discoveries
Not every viral use of their catalogue has gone the way the band expected, but some have been a gift. ‘Symphony’, their 2017 single with Zara Larsson, turned into a TikTok trend built around videos of dolphins, a meme that pushed the track to the top of Billboard’s TikTok Top 50 chart years after release.
The app is shaping the music itself, too. Their latest single, ‘La Dolce Vita’, released on 23 October, features TÄRA, whom Chatto described as a Palestinian-Italian artist the band first spotted on TikTok.
Full circle: leaving Atlantic and launching CB X
Formed in Cambridge in 2008, Clean Bandit started out putting out their own music before signing with Atlantic Records in 2012, the deal that carried them through crossover smashes like the Jess Glynne-fronted ‘Rather Be’, a UK No. 1 in January 2014. In 2024 they negotiated their way out of that contract.
Chatto admitted the original decision to sign caused arguments within the band: Patterson wanted to protect their creative control, while she was worried about more practical matters, like how they would cover the rent.
Now they are independent again, releasing through their own imprint, CB X, with distribution from The Orchard. According to Patterson, one of the biggest changes is that there is less pressure from above about who the band should work with.
What’s next: an album in 2027
The CB X releases so far show how wide they are casting the net. ‘I Don’t Wanna Hurt You’ brought in alt-pop artist Biig Piig, and September’s ‘Company’ paired R&B singer Chlöe with Afrobeats star Omah Lay. ‘Company’ is the first preview of a new studio album due on CB X in 2027, and the band wrote and directed its video themselves.
For a group that built its sound by mixing strings with club-ready pop, the new setup looks like a natural fit: Clean Bandit pick the collaborators, and the algorithm sometimes helps them find them.
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