“I said, ‘F*** them. F*** those people, bro. Put it back on!’ I would never try and hide it because I’m very Jewish-looking, and I’m proud to be Jewish.
“What better way to show people to be proud to be Jewish, but to wear big chais with diamonds to show that when people try and extinguish our light, we’ll shine brighter than ever,” he says.
Ultimately, Chase and Status just want to do at what they excel: making music. Their streams are now at 2.2 billion worldwide across their catalogue, and 9.11 billion streams on productions on which they are credited – and live performances, the next of which is their headline show at All Points East festival in Victoria Park, Hackney, next month.
Saul Milton (L) and Will Kennard (R) collect their Producer of the Year award at the BRIT Awards 2024 ceremonyPhoto by Henry Nicholls/ AFP via Getty Images
While Milton’s musical inspirations come from the UK rave scene and its hardcore and old-school jungle DJs, he also cites Amy Winehouse – “I had a great sense of pride at the time to know a Jewish girl from Camden singing incredible songs, getting accolades and then working with another fantastic guy Mark Ronson” – and Lenny Kravitz, whose music he learnt to play and who he emulated when growing up.
As for the new rap emerging from America, he recommends BLP Kosher, who has released songs such as Dr Dreidel, and an album called Bars Mitzvah.
“He’s always wearing his chai and his Magen David, he’s got a huge spinning dreidel-like pendant. He is very vocal about being Jewish, and I love to see it. To see a young artist coming out of America, making really exciting rap music, and being so unashamedly Jewish… and he’s got a wicked multicultural fan base, that gives me a lot of hope for the future.”
Milton is married to Holly, whom he has known in north London Jewish circles since he was 14, and has children aged seven and nine. With the band at a stage where they are away a lot on tour, it makes life challenging for a family with young children. “My wife is at home with two beautiful daughters and our two beautiful dogs, and I’m gallivanting around. Obviously I’m working a lot, and it’s difficult. It can be quite lonely in the hotel room in the middle of Perth – you’re just so far removed. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. The career is really exceptional.”
His parents divorced when he was a young child. He grew up with his mother, and attended the now closed Jewish Oxfordshire boarding school Carmel College, and Westminster. The unruly teenager was expelled from both.
“Like every good Jewish boy when I was at 13 at shul and the rabbi asked, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?,’ I said, ‘A lawyer.’ It was quite possibly the last thing I wanted.”
He went to Manchester University to read philosophy, where he reunited with his bandmate Kennard (Status) whom he had initially met through mutual friends in London. Both he and Kennard dropped out to pursue music. After three years of paying his rent in Manchester, his mum told him to come back home and get a job. But Milton refused. Instead, he “took out three credit cards and maxed them”.
Thankfully, that risk paid off. Their career started to take off, and when the pair first appeared on the cover of a music magazine, his family realised it was serious.
“Since then, my family have been very supportive – I’m very lucky,” he says. But before that point, he managed even while his family were less than impressed. “They were like, ‘Can you stop sitting around dossing and smoking weed and get a job?’ I said, ‘No, trust me, this is going to happen.’ And they said, ‘It’s not, so can you just grow up?’ Basically, I’ve never grown up. So here we are.”
“Here” is a great place for the band. Two years ago, a performance at Boiler Room was such a hit that it led to the release of their album 2 Ruff Vol 1, including Baddadan. And last summer they had their first-ever UK chart No1 with their Stormzy collaboration Backbone.
Chase and Status are “tirelessly” working on a new album. Because of their recent new-found success, particularly in America, even though they are several albums in, it feels that for some of their younger fan base, it is just the beginning. And they are keen to appeal to a new range of audiences without alienating their existing fans. Stylistically, he says, the new music will be mostly drum ‘n’ bass, but they are especially influenced right now by the “rage” and “opium” genres.
“We want to keep the energy and the excitement of what we’ve always done, and the music we’ve always made, and incorporate other styles and influences into it. We want to incorporate that youthful energy that’s the new punk music, and if we can combine those sonics and that feel with drum ‘n’ bass, hopefully we can come up with some kind of exciting take on both genres.”
They could just repeat what has worked for them previously, he says, but “for us, it’s boring, and what makes things vibrant and exciting and youthful is newness, freshness. We’re not a band like Oasis.
“I love Oasis. But when you think of Oasis, you think of a classic band, guitar, drums, songs nodding to the Beatles – that’s the whole sound, and that’s amazing. But with electronic music, it’s always got to be forward thinking and cutting edge.”
The band’s towering reputation as artists and producers has led them to perform across the UK’s arenas, including two sold-out shows at the O2. They last achieved that feat back in 2013, so to repeat it 12 years later Milton calls “surreal”. And last August, they sold 45,000 tickets for their own show at Milton Keynes Bowl, where they supported the Prodigy in 2009. It’s these headline shows, but also curating their own events, which they are doing in conjunction with All Points East festival, that are their current aim for the future. But initially they had never set their minds on achieving such heights. After all, when it all began, they were DJs.
“Me and Will have always strived to be the best, to sacrifice everything for this,” says Milton. “I’m glass three-quarters empty, so when things turned out well, it was a real bonus. We never thought we’d be fortunate enough to be able to buy lovely houses from our career. We just wanted to play jungle and raves.”
They feel fortunate to still be aceing their career 22 years after their first release. “We’re lucky, but also we’ve worked our f***ing balls off. We are blessed to be having an elevator level of success again, maybe more than we ever had.”
