‘Hello, it’s Rihanna. I’d like you to produce my new album, oh, and Jay Z and Pharrell Williams are going to come to London to help as well. Is that okay?”

That’s the phone call that Will Kennard – one half of DJ duo Chase and Status – received last year while at his London studios, and he couldn’t wait to tell his partner in crime.

“Well that was just very odd,” he says, still sounding slightly mystified by the whole thing. “She actually called me herself. I told Saul and I don’t think he quite believed me.

“Two weeks later she was in London, in our studio, with full entourage. Jay-Z was on the sofa, we were writing with Pharrell, going out for dinner with them all every night – bizarre!

“Saul and I couldn’t look each other in the face when we were with them because we knew we’d crack. We kept pretending like this was all really normal for us. It was very much an Only Fools and Horses moment – “Play it cool Trig, play it cool”.

In the last two years Chase and Status have established themselves as successful producers, remixers, DJs and now artists in their own right – it’s safe to say they live a pretty busy lifestyle.

“Free time? What’s that?” proclaims Will. “We are constantly busy basically. We don’t have any friends, no girlfriends. It’s just me and Saul in the studio or on tour – me and the wife,” he laughs.

“We also still DJ every week here, there and everywhere, often in venues that aren’t the most salubrious, but it’s what we love doing and how we got started so we’ll never stop doing that.”

Eight years ago, passionate collectors of all things vinyl, Will and Saul began DJ-ing in their bedrooms and creating their first mixes and singles.

“When we started we didn’t really know what we were doing – it was just bedroom DJ stuff.

“All we knew was that we wanted to get out and play music as DJs and the easiest way to do that was to make your own music, so that’s what we started to do.”

Recent top-10 hit single, End Credits – which features the newly reinvented Plan B on vocals and appeared in the film Harry Brown, starring Michael Caine – confirmed the duos transformation from cult heroes to mainstream artists.

“I’m not really sure when that mainstream crossover happened and we don’t think of ourselves like that, it’s more people telling us we are,” says Will.

“I guess when you have a top ten hit that makes people sit up and take notice, but we don’t ever aim to make anything for the radio or the charts, if they are successful then that’s great.”

Following the success of recent singles and their UK tour at the end of last year, the duo are about to hit the road again for another UK tour taking in larger venues, including O2 Academy Bournemouth tomorrow night.

“Ah man the last few days have been complete madness. We’ve been doing rehearsals and it’s been real organised chaos.

“I love it once you’re actually on that bus and you hit the road, because then all the work is done really, you’re just getting out there and playing live, which is such a good feeling.

“This tour is generally just bigger and better than the last one – it’s a full band experience. We’ve got drummers, MCs, guest vocalists, an amazing light display, various instruments that Saul and I play and a whole load of stuff we’ve never really tried doing live before, so that should be interesting,” he says with a slightly nervous snigger.

“We’ll be playing a lot of our better known hits as well as material off the new album, which comes out later this summer and features some really big names – but unfortunately I can’t tell you who yet – and of course a few remixes as well. There is real variety.”