Embedded Files
14h November 2025
As Stereo MCs return to Bristol this December, frontman Rob Birch reflects on the 90s without nostalgia.
As Stereo MCs return to Bristol this December, frontman Rob Birch reflects on the 90s without nostalgia.
Decades on from Connected, Birch is less concerned with recreating the past than staying present – a philosophy that keeps his sound alive and evolving. For the frontman, the past isn’t something to relive or try to replicate to a tee.
Decades on from Connected, Birch is less concerned with recreating the past than staying present – a philosophy that keeps his sound alive and evolving. For the frontman, the past isn’t something to relive or try to replicate to a tee.
As Birch says himself: ‘I don’t think about nostalgia whatsoever. A lot of people at gigs say, “Oh, you took us right back,” but I’m totally oblivious to it. For me, it’s about the energy. If you perform it right, it’ll do the job. It’s not about replicating the time, it’s about what you’ve got inside you right now.’
That forward focus has quietly guided Birch’s career for more than three decades. Long before Connected, he and partner Nick Hallam were experimenting with a unique mix of hip hop, funk, dub, and rave tunes – an amalgamation of sound born from the open-ended spirit of late 80s London.
In his own words: ‘We never thought about categories or genres, we just wanted a certain energy.’ The music came from that melting pot where early hip hop, house, and electro were all being played together. We were just trying to find our own voice, writing rhymes over weird grooves.’
That eclecticism, forged from DIY resourcefulness, second-hand records, and rifling through trash for weird and wonderful musical castaways gave Stereo MCs their unmistakable sound; ‘We couldn’t afford loads of records, [so] we’d dig through bins, find strange stuff, and just try to make it move.’
But, with experience comes restraint, and a lot has changed since then, where the majority of music listeners have solely digital collections and stream online.
‘There’s so much music now that it’s easy to get desensitised,’ he reflects. ‘My challenge every day is how to edit my life, rather than add to it. How to make music that really vibrates inside me, not just something that fits into a playlist.’
His current projects reflect that mindset. A monthly show on Margate Radio lets him explore freely, without pressure or expectation. ‘I don’t feel any pressure to please anyone,’ he says. ‘I just do it for myself [and] what feels good. Because unless you love it, how can anyone else?’
After decades in the industry, Birch remains grounded and refreshingly unpretentious. Success, he admits, came with its own challenges. ‘When you’re young, you just get caught up in the momentum. Success pushes you into orbit, [and] then you have to figure out who you are again.’
Today, his priorities are much simpler: ‘I just tell myself: trust the process, calm down, be happy. There’s so much noise in the world, but I’ve got my kids, a roof, and music. That’s a brilliant life.’
We look forward to seeing Stereo MCs live at Bristol Trinity on the 4th of December.
Tickets for all shows are available here.
All Image credits to Cynthia Lawrence & Julia Khoroshilov.
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