When we heard the new track from Chipmunk and Esmée Denters it took us about 7.63457 seconds to realise they had a certified smash on their hands. So when we were invited to the videoshoot for Until You Were Gone, we didn’t care that we had to travel over to some random studio in Park Royal (the promise of a free lunch did help move the decision process along swiftly though), we grabbed our coats and a camera and took of into the night midday gloominess… interview by Rajveer Kathwadia …video direction, filming and editing by Reuben Fagan

So guys, remind us again why the hell we are here in Park Royal?

Chipmunk: We’re on the set for the video of my brand new single Until You Were Gone and it’s featuring…

Esmée: …me!

C: [laughs] We’re just happy to be here. We’ve both done the front cover for RWD so thank you for all the support, we’re all here and it’s a lovely day.

E: Yeah thank you for coming to the shoot, I hope you like the video. It’s gonna be awesome right Chip?

C: Hopefully! [laughs]

E: It is, come on.

C: Yeah I tried to be modest, but it’s gonna be good!

It’s been kind of manic trying to get both of you together, what’s today been like for yourselves?

E: Well video shoots are always hectic, but at the end you have a great result and that’s what you go for and it’s great dressing up in different outfits for different scenes. And working with Chip is definitely a lot of fun so it makes the day go faster!

What’s the vid gonna look like?

E: It’s performance with this crazy camera technique where it’s all around you and we have some different backgrounds so it’s cool.

Your director is quite mental!

E: He really is! It’s kind of cool though. I mean I like when people get excited so that’s a good thing. I’d rather have somebody that’s just eccentric and excited about things. I think it’s nice to have somebody on set that’s really outspoken and knows what he wants.

We heard a crazy rumour that you two linked up on Twitter! Is that true?

C: Yeah it’s true. My friend had shown me some old videos of her just singing and I thought it was pretty dope man, so I just put on my Twitter ‘Esmée Denters, wow what a voice!’ cos I was listening to Outta Here on the radio and I thought to myself ‘wow this is some goosebump stuff’ and I just put that on my Twitter and she hit me back.

E: I knew about him because my single had come out in the UK, so I studied up on my UK artists and he was one of my favourites and I saw that tweet and I was like ‘really? He likes my voice! Cool!’ So I just sent him a message back saying ‘I like your songs’ and that’s how we started talking.

C: I wasn’t sure if it was actually her Twitter so I checked who she was following and she was legit so we hooked up from there. I told her I had a track I wanted her on, she said she was coming to London to do some N-Dubz shows and that. I went to the show with my laptop played her the demo.

E: I heard the song and I was completely sold. It’s an incredible song and I feel very honoured for him to ask me  and I think it’s a great collaboration.

C: So I’m still on my graft, anyone you see me working with, it came from me – the raw link-up.

It’s good to see something positive come out of Twitter considering the whole of the grime scene’s going nuts on there at the moment!

C: I unfollowed everyone and people think ‘ahh he thinks he’s too good’ but it’s not that, it’s just that positive or negative if you see what everyone’s saying and doing it’s taking focus off yourself which is the most important thing, so don’t let Twitter gas you, it can easily happen – It happened to me and I unfollowed everyone to help myself… trust!

Until You Were Gone featured on the repackaged I Am Chipmunk album. What can you tell us about that Chippy?

C: It’s the other stuff I wanted to put on the album and some new stuff as well. I got a hot new track on there with Wretch 32 called History and it’s just back to the artform for me. It’s very hard to keep the balance between pleasing the audience that primarily don’t buy music to pleasing an audience that do and right now I do feel I’ve got the balance right.

And what’s next for yourself Esmée?

E: This month I’m shooting my third video for a great song called Love Dealer. Justin Timberlake is on it and he’s gonna be in the video so I’m really looking forward to that. We’re gonna shoot it in LA this month. I’ve already got some really crazy cool treatments so really looking forward to seeing how that turns out.

In LA yeah? Can we come to that one too?

E: If you wanna fly over!?

Yeah definitely… sorted!

Until You Were Gone is out 19 April

I Am Chipmunk is out 26 April

Outta Here by Esmée Denters is out now

Tags: Chipmunk, Esmee Denters, Grime, Hip Hop, Justin Timberlake, Pop, R&B, Video