Could there be a trend for homemade Hertfordshire hits starting?

Sigma have already had one of the biggest tracks of the summer with Nobody to Love and are about to release a new track with Paloma Faith, but until now you may not have heard of them.

So where have they been hiding?

In a shed in Harpdenden it turns out. Much like their producer peer Naughty Boy who lives down the road in Watford they have set up a makeshift studio in the garden and have no plans to leave.

“Yeah I grew up here and still live with my parents,“ says one half of the duo, Joe Lenzie.

“It’s quite sad,“ he laughs, “and I should probably move out, but I really like it.

“I’m very comfortable here and my studio is in a shed in my parent’s garden, so I can make quite a lot of noise, which is good and if I bought a place I wouldn’t have that.“ But unlike Naughty Boy, who launched his career by working with Emeli Sande, Sigma found their big break by accident with their remix of a Kanye West song.

“We actually just did Nobody to Love as a track to give away for free to get people to sign up for our newsletter,“ reveals Joe who is dating former Britain’s Got Talent contestant Alice Fredenham, also from Harpdenden.

“We sent it to Annie Mac and she loved it and played it every week religiously and it just spiralled out of control.

“The moment I knew it was a big hit was when the Shazam chart came out, about two weeks after it was played on Radio 1 and it was at about number seven on the chart from just three plays on the radio.

“For it to have done that well with so little airplay was like ’wow’. Especially as we didn’t put any money into it, it just happened organically. I would never have expected it.“ Joe, who juggles producing with DJing tours around the globe adds: “Now it’s just everywhere we go. I did some gigs in Australia and New Zealand a few weeks ago and heard it played five times in one day in the shops I went into.“ The former Sir John Lawes School pupil isn’t exaggerating. The track has been Number One in eight countries, clocked up 510,000 sales, 30 million YouTube views and 40 million worldwide streams.

And Joe is well aware it has made their name.

“Apart from people around here who are into DJing I guess that would have been most people’s introduction to us,“ says the 31-year-old who has actually been working in the music industry for more than 15 years.

It all started for him as a teenager when he took to the decks at venues such as the former Buzz Bar in Harpenden, The George and The Horn and joined St Albans group the Drunken All Stars.

Then in 2002 he won the prestigious DMC DJ finals at Brixton Academy as part of the team Flaredycats, reluctantly revealing that back then he was known as DJ Wooz.

“I have been trying to get away from the name for years,“ he says wryly, “but it follows me around I don’t even know where it came from, my parents called me it and it’s quite memorable.“ He eventually flew the nest for three years to study music technology at Leeds University, which is where he met his Sigma partner in crime Cameron Edwards, who was a promoter for people including Andy C and DJ Hype and they “hit it off“ developing an addiction for mixing drum and bass music, raving and studying.

Now Cameron spends hours driving down from Manchester, so they can continue working together from their shed, starting out with tracks for Hospital Records, Viper, Bingo and DJ Fresh’s Breakbeat Kaos, as well as their own Life Recordings and remixes for Eric Prydz, Ellie Goulding, Stylo G and Sway.

This year remixes for Kiesza (Hideaway), Route 94 (My Love), Clean Bandit (Extraordinary), DJ Fresh (Dibby Dibby Sound) and DJ Zinc (Show Me) have made them one of the hottest producing teams around.

“You don’t need a lot of equipment, just some goods headphones and speakers,“ says Joe.

Their track with Paloma Faith, Changing, launched on September 14 at Ministry of Sound and they are hoping to work on new tracks with Ella Eyre, Nile Barkley and Ellie Goulding.

“Success has definitely given us access to bigger names that we didn’t have before,“ says Joe.

“A lot of people we were trying to contact with weren’t interested before and now everybody wants to work with us and the plan is also to do a Sigma album next year.“ So will that be created in the shed owned by his parents Anne Gathercole and Rob Lenzie too?

“To be honest I’m happy to stay living here.

“My parents are very supportive and Harpdenden is perfect and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.“

Sigma will play The Forum, University of Hertfordshire, College Lane, Hatfield on Tuesday, September 30. Details: 01707 285000, forumhertfordshire.co.uk, sigmahq.com