Utah Saints

Biography of Utah Saints

Utah Saints

Utah Saints are a dance band based in Leeds, England. The music is produced by Jez Willis and Tim Garbutt, who are joined on-stage by other musicians whenever the band plays live. The band had a string of hit singles in the British pop charts in the 1990s, and were notable for their extensive use of sampling technology. In particular, their practice of manipulating samples from mainstream pop and rock songs, and combining them with contrasting dance beats, pre-dated the mashup scene by several years. The name "Utah Saints" as told by Willis is a play on the fact that when the New Orleans Jazz moved to Utah they kept their name "the Jazz". But as Willis put it in an interview once, "what if the New Orleans Saints moved to Utah?" A common misconception is that the band based their name on the fact that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are headquartered in Utah.