Amidst the rolling hills of Lancashire, Beat-Herder Festival once again delivered its signature blend of dance music, good vibes, and unforgettable memories. Among the weekend’s standout acts were legendary dance outfit K-Klass, who lit up the main stage with a set that fused nostalgia with fresh energy, plus a high-octane DJ set in the woods. Best known for timeless anthems like Rhythm Is A Mystery and Let Me Show You, the group has been a driving force in UK dance music since the early ’90s.

We caught up with them backstage ahead of their performance to chat about their deep connection to the festival, new projects in the pipeline, and the love they continue to feel from fans after all these years.

You can also watch the full interview below.

MT: It’s lovely to have you with us. Thanks for having a chat.

MT: I'm quite glad I've managed to catch you and have a chat with you, to be honest, because I've spoken to Utah Saints and Orbital and Leftfield before, and you guys are up there with them, I'd say. In terms of, uh, early dance memories, I remember...

MT: So have you done Beat-Herder before?

K-Klass: In 2010 we came to play—no, 2015 we came to play the main stage. Yeah, on a Friday night. And we did one of the opening sets there, like really early on. We got a great reaction that night and we filled the arena, which was amazing.

And then, the sort of pandemic aside, we've been back every year since in one form or another—either a live performance or a DJ set. Or both. Yeah. It's a special place for us, we love it.

MT: I was just gonna ask you a couple of things here to keep it short and sweet. You got any new releases coming or anything?

K-Klass: Yeah, well, we're actually doing a re-release package on Rhythm Is A Mystery at the moment.

MT: Oh right, okay.

K-Klass: Some really interesting different takes on it, um, including like a very, very stripped-back, more sort of soulful mix of it, which we actually did a live performance of recently as well.

Which is, yeah, you'll see more about that coming later. We've got new mixes from Flash Mob as well. Oh, and then we've got, um, another one of our favorite artists at the moment, Marco Di Lecce—an Italian producer who's absolutely awesome.

K-Klass: He's doing the mix on Let Me Show You, and we can't wait to hear that. And we're still in the process of producing a long-awaited album, but I think I've been saying that for about three years now. It is coming.

MT: It will be like Guns N' Roses album Chinese Democracy—10 years of a job, wasn’t it, for that? [Laughs]

K-Klass: It's weird at the moment. The live work since the pandemic has taken off so much for us, you know? All the way throughout the year—we average three gigs a week, all year.

MT: Wow.

K-Klass: That's from January to December. It averages out at about three a week we're doing. And between that and presenting the national DAB radio show on Centreforce, like, our production time for making new music has become really, really precious.

MT: What do you produce your tunes on? What software do you use?

K-Klass: Logic. Yeah. Logic Audio. Have been since about ’92, was it? We started using Logic first—no, no, no—about ’94. Yeah, because we used Emagic first, before Apple bought it out.

K-Klass: Yeah, and it was a German company called Emagic.

MT: Oh, I didn't even know that. I learned something myself.

K-Klass: It was black and white and it had three tracks of audio that you could use if you recorded.

MT: At MusicTalkers, we always like to ask people: is there absolutely anything you want to get across to your fans? Now's your time. Is there anything you wanna say to your fans?

K-Klass: You know, I think it is always thank you. Thank you for supporting the events that you've come to. And, you know, we always need people at events, and it doesn't go unnoticed.

And it's just a real big thank you to everyone who comes and supports us. Thank you, from the bottom of our heart.

K-Klass: And they always come. Do you know what I mean? Like on Friday night, on the main stage—so, 10 minutes before we came on, it was very sparse out there. And we were walking out and we said, “Nevermind.” Do you know what I mean?

But we're on the main stage, we're gonna enjoy ourselves. And, you know, in the last five minutes they came from all over the festival site and filled the arena, and it's just like, wow.

K-Klass: Do you know what I mean? There's people that come week in, week out and follow us around and stuff like that. You just don't take it for granted. It's like—the best gift you can have is the gift to be able to make people happy. Yeah. You know what I mean?

K-Klass: When you see you've made people happy, and there are smiles on their faces—there's no amount of money for that. There's no amount of money that can buy that. And it's a beautiful thing to make people happy and to have people come week after week. So thank you, we are grateful.

MT: No worries. Well, thank you for talking to us. Thank you very much. Cheers. Have a great gig.

Author: Andrew Braithwaite

Andrew is the founder and chief editor of Music Talkers. He's also a keen music enthusiast and plays the guitar.