Rizzle Kicks look back: ‘Because of how fast it went, we became delusional about how easy it was to get successful'
Jordan Stephens and Harley Alexander-Sulé started making music at the Brit school for performing arts in south London. In 2011, they released their debut album, Stereo Typical, which featured Top 10 hits including Down With the Trumpets and Mama Do the Hump. Rizzle Kicks went on hiatus in 2016, due to addiction and mental health problems. They are now back with Competition Is for Losers, their first album in a decade.
This photo was taken when our first album came out, but I have no memory of the shoot. Apparently we were hungover, which makes sense given we were 18. But I do remember that jumper. It was from American Apparel and I had it in three different colours. It had a specific smell. It's hard to pinpoint exactly, but it was probably cigarettes. Nike had given us trainers, which felt like a massive deal. Overall, a snapback and skinny jeans was not a great look for me.
Once we got a record deal, we moved out of Brighton and into a house-share in north London which we named The Dungeon. It was very 'uni'. We'd have these parties and people would piss in the corners of the front room. For a long time, there was a bowl of Super Noodles with batteries in it that nobody put in the bin. I once ate an egg that was three months old. Apparently it was an in-joke to keep it in the fridge, but no one told me. Eventually, Harley moved to Fulham and I only went over a handful of times: once for a photoshoot; another time I was really stoned and I ordered Chinese. For a while, we lived separate lives.
I've known Harley most of my life, but it wasn't until the Brit school that we decided to do music together. I'd known for a long time that being a musician was my destiny, to the extent that I was totally delusional. Unhinged. The way people describe me at that time is reminiscent of a current-day Kanye. I'd roll up to the yard and be like, 'Listen, I'm going to be huge one day.' I used to get teased about it, but I did not care. Harley was less sure about our future. He actually wanted to go to drama school, but I was like, 'Nah. Give us a year. We can do this.' Four months later, we had signed a deal.
While I was good at being 'on' for interviews, I always found it exhausting. We were like children, and I felt like a total mess most of the time. Once the first album came out, there was a lot of pressure for us to repeat its success. For Stereo Typical, we did whatever we wanted creatively. We recouped our advance quickly, and the record went platinum. The second came out and it went gold, but the label started to ask stuff like, 'Why do you not just make a song that sounds like that other artist's No 1?' Around that time, I started to do a lot of drugs while making some of the worst music of my life. I tried pop, then rock, then bass-driven funk. I was certain the new album was going to be a hit. Instead, it tore us apart as I wasn't giving Harley the space to create. The album never got released, so there wasn't even an upside to me stepping on Harley. Naturally, he wanted to do his own thing.
The panic attack that sent Harley into a place of submission ended up exposing both of our frailties. It was 2016, and I had been on an all-nighter when he called. I'd done some really horrendous DJ set at a shoe store, while Harley had been performing a solo showcase to the music industry. It was a big opportunity for him, but afterwards his adrenaline was through the roof. He called me up and started panicking, but I was completely wired, too. From that point on it was a reconnection between the two of us.
Time is a huge factor when it comes to sustaining a relationship. I don't think people should be afraid to let friendships disappear. Over the course of my life with Harley, we've moved apart, changed partners, I've got sober. During all of those transitions people fade away. But the good ones always come back, like the tide of the sea.
In every picture or video from this period, we are smoking. There was no point at which either of us was not smoking, whether we were in a hotel or a green room. Before we got signed, we could only afford rolling tobacco and we'd make a packet last for two weeks. Then suddenly we had enough money to buy straight cigarettes. I thought, 'Oh my God. Now I can smoke all day, every day.'
I remember when I first met Jordan. My stepdad and Jordan's auntie worked together, so they suggested we had some play dates. I was six years old and it was in my garden in London. Mum bought a plastic slide, and me and Jordan went up and down on it for hours.
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The second time I met Jordan was on a football pitch when we were 12. Just by coincidence, mine and Jordan's families both moved to Brighton at the same time. When I saw him again, I recognised him instantly as the kid I went on the slide with. I can't tell you what I did yesterday, but I remember that moment vividly.
Jordan and I were rolling in the same circles a lot as teenagers. We were 17 at the inception of Rizzle Kicks, and things escalated quickly. We got management, shot a video, then got signed. Because of how fast it went, we became delusional about how easy it was to get successful. It felt like everything we did worked the first time, when it takes years for most artists.
Jordan and I were spending so much of our lives together, but none of it was quality time. It was work. After the second album, there was a period when making music stopped feeling good. In those sessions, Jordan was writing so fast, and I felt I had lost connection with what we were doing. I went to Paris for a while and started working on new songs. Then everything fell apart.
When I was struggling with anxiety, Jordan was the only person I could really open up to. He has always been someone that I've felt comfortable being honest with, because he's like a sponge, in a good way. It's like he knows everything about everything. He doesn't, really, but it can feel like that. If I've got a problem, he'll know how to solve it.
At one point, Jordan tried to make a documentary about my recovery from anxiety. But deep down I knew that, for the film to work, there needed to be an arc. One with a happy ending. Ours would be me getting on stage and performing again. I quickly realised the production team would have to wait at least five years to get that resolution, and the stress of that was making me feel worse. So we stopped completely. Which I am glad about because, actually, five years was too ambitious. It was only three months ago that I could walk out on stage again, for the first time since 2016. In the run-up I was rattled, definitely. I just wanted to get it done. But when I got up there, it was unbelievable. I've never seen so many people smiling back at me, Jordan included.
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