If there’s one artist that truly embodies the expression ‘if at first you don’t succeed…’, it’s N-Trance. The legendary rave act’s breakthrough hit, Set You Free, was released three separate times before finally achieving chart success in early 1995.
Unlike other 90s pop-rave crossovers, from the first few seconds of the track, you could tell there was something immediately distinctive about Set You Free – the rumbling storm, the uplifting piano progression, and Kelly Llorenna’s soaring ‘When I hold you baby-y-y…’
Peaking at number two in the UK charts (held off the top spot by Celine Dion’s Think Twice) Set You Free was transformational for N-Trance, setting in motion a career that is still going strong today – having been a continuous feature on the live circuit, the group recently unveiled a new single, Higher (check it out here), their first original production in over two decades. An album is planned for later this year.
Originally founded by Kevin O’Toole and Dale Longworth, N-Trance currently performs with a line-up featuring Rachel Chambers, Tricia McTeague, MC B, Jay McCurdy and N-Trance DJ Junior K, with a busy summer touring schedule ahead. O’Toole is still an active member of the group, although his role is now focused exclusively on studio work.
Following on from the release of Higher, 909originals had the chance to chat to N-Trance’s Kevin O’Toole and Rachel Chambers about the group’s return to production, its current live setup, and why Set You Free continues to resonate, more than three decades on from its release.
Hi Kevin and Rachel, thanks for talking to us. What was the spark that led you to release new material – to release Higher and start working on a new album?
Kevin: Well, the thing is, I was stuck in a record deal for years that I couldn’t really get out of. And then that label ended. Universal bought the back catalogue. Then I was chatting to Dale, my old band member, and he said he’s releasing music himself. And I said, ‘well, if he’s doing it, we should do it’.
So we just went straight in. The only thing was, we didn’t really plan it properly, because someone said when you’re releasing something, you’ve got to get into the system about four to six weeks before you release it. And we gave it seven days. So we jumped the gun a bit there.
And you never really stopped performing, even during that interim period after what was, I think, the last full-length album in 2004?
Kevin: No, there’s still been stuff out, because in 2005, I started another band called Freeloaders. I went top ten with that. And then I went on, releasing the odd track here and there.
Then a few years ago, someone kept saying,’Hey, this lad has been singing on Twitter, singing Set You Free.’ And I listened to it, and he was almost singing it in the same key, which I thought was almost impossible, because it’s in G sharp, and he was singing it in G, on guitar.
It ended up being Sam Ryder, who went on to perform at Eurovision. So I thought, I’m going to record a new version. And then COVID hit, and we were all stuck indoors.
In terms of the new single, it definitely has that touch of ’90s magic about it. I understand you also used some of your original studio equipment while making it. To what extent has N-Trance become what you might call a legacy act in recent years, and to what extent are you still focused on creating new music and cultivating a new audience?
Rachel: Especially with Higher, we definitely wanted to capture the classic N-Trance feeling, but just give it a modern, fresh twist for listeners. And I think it definitely does that when you listen to it, and you can hear N-Trance in it. So we are trying to obviously keep the N-Trance feeling, because I feel like with music itself, it just goes round the decades anyway, doesn’t it? And it will do for so many years.
So yeah, that’s what we’ve tried to do with Higher. I mean, it’s definitely a banger, for sure. I love performing it, and the crowd love it, especially the N-Trance fans.
Yeah, exactly – it slots naturally in amongst the old rave tracks, to the point where people might assume it’s an old B-side from Set You Free or something.
Rachel: They’re singing along and I’m like, ‘you don’t even know it, but you know it’…
How did you get involved in N-Trance, Rachel? How and when?
Rachel: It was about five years ago.
Kevin: Well, actually it’s longer than you think, because it was before COVID, probably around 2018.
Rachel: I was actually on The X Factor, with an amazing choir. I was the lead singer of the choir. Then we left the show, and that’s when Kev got in contact with me. He was like,’Would you like to be N-Trance’s lead vocalist?’ And I was like, absolutely.
I thought X Factor was a pinch-me moment because we got to see all these stars. I actually went to Robbie Williams’ house. Then here’s another star, Kev from N-Trance, messaging me asking,’Would you like to be the vocalist?’ I’m like, whoa, pinch-me moment again.
And since then, I’m just so grateful because we get to go around the world, we get to go on tours, and I’m just doing something that I absolutely love.
So you obviously knew the music then? I don’t want to ask how old you were, Rachel, when N-Trance hit the scene…
Rachel: Okay, so I was born in 1992. Set You Free first came out in 93. But I knew it, because it’s a generational thing, it goes round again. It stands out.
It does have that generational quality – in a way that other 90s tracks don’t, because ultimately it’s about euphoria and emotion, and it resonates on lots of different levels.
Kevin: Yeah, back in the old days as well, it didn’t really get much radio play. It was all a bit too fast, a bit too long. And that helped us because it was just in the clubs. Normally people would go, well, you can’t go into the top 10 if you’re not on the radio, but we just kept going and going and going.
So yeah, even when it got to number two in the charts, I think Radio 1 eventually put it on the C-list or something for a few weeks, but they didn’t really support it.
There’s a really interesting story about how the track was released three separate times. I’m not sure you’d get that kind of opportunity today. Back then, though, you had the phenomenon of sleeper hits, driven by record shops, DJs, and club culture in a way that’s difficult to replicate now.
Maybe you could take me back to the beginnings of N-Trance. Am I right in thinking the group came together while you were at college in Oldham, around 1990 or 1991?
Kevin: It was 89 actually. In 1990, we changed our name to N-Trance.
And the track itself – it must be 30 or 35 years old at this stage. Am I right in thinking it was inspired by a night at The Haçienda?
Kevin: Yeah, it’s just the song, the music that I’d already done. I’d done it in 1989, the main keyboard parts, I just didn’t put them all together.
I was working for a company doing some corporate music, so I had these two piano pieces. Then a song came out called Raving I’m Raving, using the old Walking in Memphis track.
Then we thought we could put them together, but they were two different keys. So I used one section for the intro, then one section for the rest of it.
Then I had to think of some lyrics. There was this night at The Hacienda, with this girl dancing next to me all night. They were passing plastic glasses of water around, and as I passed the glass of water, she gave me this massive hug. And I could feel her heart, boom, boom, boom, boom.
And that’s the lyrics right there. The first verse is just about that moment.
I read somewhere that the lyrics were written in 20 minutes? I don’t know how true that is.
Kevin: Yeah, because what happened is we basically had the first verse and the main bit of the chorus done, and then someone said, there’s girl from our college – that was Kelly Llorenna – who wants to have a go at singing a demo. And I said, ‘well, we’re not finished the lyrics’. So we decided, ‘let’s take 20 minutes and we’ll have them done by the time she gets in’.
In fact, if you think about it, there’s not a lot of lyrics in that song really. I mean, three of the lines are exactly the same. So it was quite easy really.
We only put the storm effect in because when you play an instrumental on vinyl, it will crackle after a while. So if you put the storm effect on there, you’ll never hear the crackle. That was the only reason to put it there, to hide the record getting scratched and stuff.
Okay, because obviously the storm adds to the atmosphere, right? And then the vocals and the piano meander in underneath it.
Kevin: You know the film The Doors with Val Kilmer? I had just watched that and I was listening to Riders on the Storm, and that’s got a thunderstorm in the background. So something like that was in my head.
The funny thing is, if you ever watch anything on the BBC and there’s a thunderstorm, it’s the same sound effect.
I heard that in the US, every time there’s canned laughter in a programme, it’s the same canned laughter from I Love Lucy or something from the 1950s, and they’ve just repeated it.
As you said, when you were writing it, as you said, you were taking different elements from previous works. Was the significance apparent to you? Did you think, ‘we’ve got something here’, or was it just another track?
Kevin: The only thing that was strange about it was, I came home and my mum heard it, and afterwards she said, ‘Oh, that’s really good.’ And I thought, that can’t be good if she likes it. But it was the first tune of ours she ever liked.
When we first played it in a club, it had something about it. I don’t know what it was. I mean, we wrote it that fast, we didn’t even have a chance to write a chorus. We just repeated ‘set you free’ again and again. I would have done something different, but I had to do it quick.
It was one of the first songs we ever wrote, so you’ve got all the best words in there, ‘higher’, ‘free’, ‘together’. The problem is when you come to write your next song, you’ve used all the best words.
I did want to ask about one of the lyrics, because obviously it was a couple of years the BBC – and everyone else – had egg on their face with The Shamen’s Ebeneezer Goode. You have that line, ‘when we touch each other in a state of ecstasy’…
Kevin: It pretty much says what it is, right? It probably should have got banned.
So was there any pushback? Because it’s quite obvious.
Kevin: Well, this was a simpler time – before there was any scare stories about people dying from ecstasy – so everyone took it as a bit of an in-joke.
It then goes, ‘only love can set you free’, because ecstasy was called the ‘love drug’. Actually, I first wrote ‘only E can set you free’, but we thought, ‘no-ones’ going to play that, so let’s change it to ‘love’.
Okay, so there is an element of a hymn to ecstasy about it then.
Kevin: Yeah. Everyone was doing it at the time.
Set You Free was released into this maelstrom, if I can call it that, of Eurodance, where you had that rave-pop crossover, 2 Unlimited, Culture Beat, very optimistic lyrics, high-energy tracks. Obviously Technotronic came out of that 90s high-energy scene as well. Did you consider N-Trance to be a Eurodance act?
Kevin: We changed our style, actually. The song we had out before Set You Free was Turn Up The Power, and that was very much like a Culture Beat track.
What happened was, Baby D did Let Me Be Your Fantasy in ‘92 and re-released it in, I think, the end of ‘94, and it went to number one. So our record label said, ‘well, you better get Set You Free out, you might go in the top ten’.
When it got to number six, we thought, oh, that’s its peak. But we never expected it to climb and climb and climb. And for two weeks on the run, we actually sold more records than Celine Dion. But she kept the number one spot. That was annoying.
Set You Free was absolutely massive over here in Ireland too. I don’t know if it got to number one here, but it was huge. I know yourself and Dale were playing a lot of gigs in Ireland, around the UK, in that period. It’s like you were putting in the hard yards and then you got the reward to a certain degree.
Kevin: When we released it, we managed to fit in five gigs in just a few days. And with every single gig, between a thousand and two thousand people, we were saying, ‘Everybody buy this the first week and then it’ll get in the charts, and then everyone else will buy it.’
So there was a real push from the gig side of things. We were relying a lot on Scotland as well.
I like that, so you were co-opting the live gigs to sell more records. And something I read as well was that you just hijacked – well not hijacked – but ‘borrowed’ Guy Fawkes Night fireworks somewhere in the UK for the video?
Kevin: Yeah, that was in York.
Ok, so you were like, ‘oh, there’s fireworks tonight, let’s film the video now so we can take advantage of free pyrotechnics’.
Kevin: Yeah. Also, with the limousine in the video – originally we were going to go in the back of a van, but some limousine company in Halifax sent a bill to our record label saying, ‘Oh, it’s for the band N-Trance, they’ve been using it.’
And they rang up and said, ‘Who’s been using this limo?’ And they found out they’d been ripped off. Someone had been pretending to be us.
So they had this limo that had been booked out, and we said, ‘oh, well, why don’t we book it for the video then?’ So that’s why it’s in the video. It wasn’t planned to be in it at the start.
I actually spoke to the bloke fro Halifax, he was proper off his rocker. He was pretending to be Dale.
So what was the original video concept then? That’s interesting.
Kevin: We were supposed to be in the back of a van, like when we normally travelled to a gig. We were going to film it all in the back of a van.
We planned on filming a massive laser show as well, but the laser wouldn’t work. We’d had this great massive big laser and it wouldn’t work. What a disaster that was.
What was the most memorable event that you played at back then?
Kevin: I mean… it was probably the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party [at the London Docklands Arena] to be honest, because when Set You Free hit the charts, it was massive with a younger audience. They were all sat in the stands, and when Set You Free started, they all started banging their feet on the floor.
And the sound was like, ‘oh my God’. I thought, ‘is this place going to fall down?’ I’ve never heard that at a gig before.
It’s funny, because some gigs are also memorable, albeit for the wrong reasons, like after parties and things like that.
But we all survived, didn’t we? We’re all still smiling.
Kevin: Yeah, I was going to do some t-shirts that said,’I survived the 90s.’
Rachel’s lucky now, she doesn’t have to travel by van these days. The van was basically our hotel, and our bathroom as well.
We’ve all got bad backs from it. Because when we first went in the van, we used to get this settee out from Dale’s house and put it in the van.
When his wife came downstairs in the morning, the settee was gone from the living room. We took it back after one gig and she said, ‘You’re going out to the shop and buying me a brand new settee, because I’m not sitting on that. What the hell’s that stain?’
We were like, ‘Ok, we’ll keep in the van from now on.’
Rachel, I want to talk about the emotional reaction that people have to a track like Set You Free, because you obviously experience this firsthand now when you perform it. Why do you think it triggers such emotion, such nostalgia in a lot of people?
Rachel: I mean, I think it’s definitely the music, and the lyrics of course, but I think as well it’s the memories of that time when it came out and what people were doing at that time.
People hear it and you just see it in their faces. Some of them are just closing their eyes, whether they’re drunk or not. And some gigs we actually go to are sober gigs, so they’re not even drunk and they’re still up for it.
You see it in their eyes, it’s almost like they’re reliving that moment when it comes on. And to me that’s so special.
I think people just love old-school music. And also with modern music, you can just skip everything instantly. Back in the day people queued for it, waited up for it, or waited for it to come on the telly, because you couldn’t just skip or stream or record everything whenever you wanted. There was more time for it.
Do you perform it as the encore in a gig? Is it the last tune?
Rachel: Yeah, it’s always the last tune. No one’s going to the toilet during the set because they’re waiting for Set You Free, that’s for sure.
Yeah, but I absolutely love performing it. I mean, it’s an absolute banger for everyone.
Kevin: Although in Australia, Stayin’ Alive is probably the bigger track.
Just coming back to my question at the start, I mean, how do you balance that nostalgia with keeping things fresh and pushing things forward? Because every artist I speak to, they don’t like to just dwell in the past, you want to keep doing new things.
Kevin: New instruments. I use a lot more acoustic guitars now. I can play acoustic okay, I can do chords, I can play bass a little bit better.
I tried to play a violin, too, thinking I was so cocky, and I couldn’t even get a sound out of it at first. So I’ve given up on that. We’ve got a violinist coming into the studio, he’s classically trained, so I think I should leave it to him.
I’ve got to keep a bit of that vibe because when we did Set You Free, a lot of people were disappointed that we didn’t do anything a bit like it again at the time.
I think I’ve gone back to it because if there’s ever a song done on piano and strings, people say, ‘oh, that sounds like an N-Trance song.’ So I thought, ‘ah, I’ve got a bit of a niche’. If I make a song in this style, people will just know it’s an N-Trance song.
For example, the next track that we’re going to record vocals on, called You’re My Angel, that’s proper old-school sounding N-Trance. The only thing I’ve not done, which I need to do, is one of those [mimes piano notes] melodies. I’ve not done that on any of the new tracks.
Oh, like the arpeggiated piano?
Kevin: Yeah. I’ve been playing fancy chords, and things like that. So I might go back and do something a bit simpler with the old ‘one-two-three piano’ thing.
You mentioned it there, about Stayin’ Alive. Because N-Trance’s disco period, if I can call it that, was arguably much bigger than your rave period?
Kevin: That’s the Ricardo period – the Ricardo Da Force period.
When we did Stayin’ Alive, it was Pete Tong’s essential new tune. It was considered cool. We were just planning to do it as a one-off, but it sold three and a half million copies.
So the record label said, ‘You’ve got to do another disco song like that.’ So then we did Do You Think I’m Sexy? and that went massive as well.
Ricardo had such a daft sense of humour. He loved doing them. So it was almost like we had two bands going at the same time.
With the second album, whenever that was, ‘98 or ‘99, you’ve got some hardcore bangers on there interspersed with Do You Think I’m Sexy? and stuff like that. It was a bit schizophrenic…
Kevin: It’s more like a Now That’s What I Call Music album.
Yeah. Does that work well in the live setting, Rachel, switching from those more disco ones into the rave ones?
Rachel: Yeah, absolutely.
Kevin: There’s one tune we never do though, isn’t there? D-I-S-C-O. The main reason being nobody can remember the words in the chorus. ‘She is D…’
I’m sure the Bee Gees and all the lads were delighted with the new versions.
Kevin: Oh yeah, and we got to meet them as well.
Was it financially successful for N-Trance though? I mean, I’m sure your publishing rights were gone completely.
Kevin: Ricardo did really well, because the Bee Gees gave him 25% of the publishing, even though we wrote a lot of that rap as well. Records in those days still sold absolute bucket loads too, don’t forget.
I think the Bee Gees did alright out of it, because our version sold more than theirs did.
To get to number two in 1995, you had to sell a shitload of records. That was the year of the ‘battle of Britpop’ and all that. So to get to number two…
Kevin: Well, that’s the thing. I think we’re the only band that have had two number twos back to back. And the last time I had that was after a dodgy kebab.
Wahey! What’s in store for the album then, just to wrap things up? What’s the timeframe, and what other stuff is on the horizon?
Kevin: We want to try and get it out before Christmas, but I’ve got to knuckle down and get a lot done. The problem is we all live all over the place now and getting everyone together at the same time is really difficult.
In the past we had the studio in Manchester and it was set up all the time. Now I live in Wales, you’re down south, everybody’s all over the place now. And we’ve all got kids now as well.
But once it’s all recorded, we can get it out as fast as we need to.
Yeah. And with the live act, what are the plans there?
Rachel: It starts to get busy now, doesn’t it? Roll on summer. We’ll be all over the UK, playing festivals. We’re also playing in Iceland, which I’m quite excited about.
Should be a great summer, then. Thank you both so much for the trip down memory lane.
Thanks to Kevin and Rachel for talking to us. Check out N-Trance – Higher here.
