Rules: "Music has to connect deeply and emotionally with me first"

Rules is a UK-based multi-instrumentalist, producer, and electronic music artist from the East Midlands. Blending warm, ethereal textures with timeless house influences, he has crafted a distinctive sound that balances emotion with dancefloor energy.

His music has amassed over 70 million streams across digital platforms, earning international radio support and recognition from some of the biggest names in electronic music, including Anton Powers, TCTS, Martin Garrix, Bakermat, Diplo, and Tiësto.

On the new EP "As Soon As I Get Home", you worked with collaborators Bandit, SHYA, Murphy, and Coldabank — how did you choose these collaborators and what did each of them bring to your sound?

I’m always looking for unique and soulful vocalists to work with, for example Bandit I heard her on another record called ‘Jenny’ and it immediately blew me away, MURPHY is actually one of my best friends who had not released any music before this and our track ‘Feeling’ ended up being a happy accident one late night in the studio. SHYA and Coldabank I have collaborated with in the past and have a really good relationship writing with. They all bring something completely different yet all have such deep and soulful sound to them and thats what I’m always striving for with these collaborations.

The EP is built on warmth and human connection— was that sonic direction something you planned from the start or did it evolve naturally during the production process?

I wanted the music to really connect authentically with my real life and during the process of writing and producing this EP it led me further down this path of warmth and feeling. It really has to connect deeply and emotionally with me first and that’s the sign or threshold for me. If it makes me feel something I end up going down a massive wormhole on the production for that whole process of the track and it is genuinely the best feeling in the world.

As a multi-instrumentalist, how much does your background with the piano and saxophone shape your approach to electronic production compared to pure digital sound design?

Its been such a strong foundation for everything in my music. When writing on a piano it strips away everything else, there’s not endless sounds or plugins or drum layers or an endless choice of ideas it’s just the piano and melody. If a track can stand on its own feet by being purely that then I believe you have something really strong so I often write songs this way, building them out from the ground up. With the saxophone I think that has been my voice growing up, I spent a lot of years learning it and working on ‘ improvising’ to the point where I really understood the power and emotion in melodies over harmony and so I think this has been a massive strength for me going into the studios with vocalists, I really understand where to find that connecting emotion for music. I have endless voicenotes of ideas I often dig up before sessions and its a great starting point before going inside the process of building out the music and electronic music production of it.

You’ve built up a strong catalogue, from huge streaming success to collaborations with artists like Elderbrook and The XX — what excites you most creatively when starting a new track now?

It always excites me the potential of getting to collaborate with artists I really look up to and am a massive fan of myself. Getting to work with them on my music is really an absolute dream I’ve only recently started realising so having been in sessions with some of these people recently has been an incredible experience and definitely the potential of it all excites me most at the moment.

Looking ahead, where do you plan to take your sound next and are you continuing to explore a multi-instrumental direction for future releases?

I’m looking to develop more into this space for sure, and sharing more of the ‘real’ness and organic side of the music I’m making. I think in this new world of AI music where songs can be made at the click of a button, the one thing it can’t generate is the story behind the music, the writing process of it all and how it connects on a human level. Digging deeper into this with more instrumentation, connecting this with my live shows and sharing the process along the way feels like the right path for me going forward!

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