“It was inspiring to be there and they cultivated our creativity.”

I am on the phone to one half of music production duo Mac and Phil, who helped write and produce Emeli Sandé's new single Hurts which was released today (Sep 16), and we are having a conversation about Rickmansworth School.

Philip Leigh, from Watford, and Matthew Holmes, Croxley, both 23, are now signed to Sony ATV and Hotel Cabana. Their group of schoolfriends are quite the success story with others also finding success in the music industry. Phil Plested and Kane Parfitt are signed to the same labels and Hannan Malik manages the duo.

“The school had a performing arts accolade so it encouraged us to do songs and dances,” Phil tells me. “We all really appreciated how artists could convey a certain message and really resonate with people. I personally love nothing more than to cry to a really sad song and I’ve always thought that was so amazing, how you can have that effect on someone. I think we all just wanted to do that.”

After finishing school Mac went to the University of Hertfordshire to study sound design and Phil followed him, sleeping on his bedroom floor so that they could continue to make music – and party, of course – but the industry came calling before he finished his first term.

“Our two friends Phil Plested and Grace Ackerman were in a band that were getting signed and we were their session musicians, they were Chasing Grace. Then we got signed into the band, Mac was the drummer and I was the lead guitarist.

"He realised that experience trumped education. After three months, it was something we knew we had to dedicate all of ourselves to, to achieve something. If you try and master everything you won’t get good at anything.”

Not long after being signed as musicians to Island Records the pair signed to Sony ATV as producers, and are now signed to the latter as well as Hotel Cabana.

Together Mac and Phil have worked with the likes of Dappy, James Arthur, Naughty Boy and Emeli Sandé, but it is clear that the big names and the big bucks don’t matter, these two have a passion I don’t think I’ve ever encountered.

“You realise that everyone was a baby once. What difference has anyone got to you? I think that’s why we’re so inspired all the time. No matter what people have done, what their background is, what their upbringing is, they can achieve whatever anyone else can achieve. I’ve always felt an overwhelming sense of equality with everyone.

“If you put the artists in a room with us we’ll create the vibe with them according to their lives and their emotion. We’ll capture the moment. It’s all about that. I love to get deep and cry but it doesn’t have to be sad, as long as you feel something real that’s all the matters to us.”

Most recently, the pair have helped to write and produce Emeli Sandé’s second album which apparently remains untitled, but they’re not allowed to tell me much.

“We went away to record Emeli’s new album in Oxfordshire for a month. It was surreal to only see four people for a month and just create. When we make music we’re literally pouring our hearts out so it’s exhausting but also liberating. It was terrific being so isolated from the world in that moment, but then knowing that so many people in the world are going to listen to what you’re doing.

“I just feel like on first listen it’s going to hit people very hard. It is extremely epic, it has a 21 person choir, six horns and about 20 string players. I wouldn’t want to call it expensive, maybe lavish.”

I hear Mac prompt him again. “That’s it. Extravagant” he enthuses.

The first single from the album, Hurts, is out today (Sep 16), and Phil tells me it’s “classic Emeli” but with a “new twist”.

Their entire career has been forged side-by-side, but I wondered if they ever work solo.

“We can do stuff separately” Phil muses. “The best of us is when we work together. We have the same objective and vision but we have a different way of getting there. We do delve into each other’s roles.

“Sometimes we’ll jump on and off something four or five times each and then we’ve got a song, neither of us will know how it got there but it’s beautiful. It’s experiential.”

The boys, just 23 years old, have done so much and will surely do more amazing work. I asked what their advice would be for anyone who aspires to do what they do.

“If you have any interest you need to pursue it with all of yourself. The biggest part of the battle is believing you can do it, once you do that – I’m not even joking – once you unlock that secret, once you know and believe wholeheartedly that you can do it. It happens to easily.

“Don’t get me wrong you have to work hard, but you wake up every single day knowing ‘I deserve this, I believe in myself, I got this’. I promise you will do it if you believe. It sounds corny, but I believe quotes are corny because they’re true.”