Full transcript: Fatboy Slim on London Real
1:39 Just like making people smile and dance. When I moved to England in the late 90s, Fatboy Slim was everywhere. The legendary English DJ and record producer was winning Grammys and Music Video Awards at will, dropping hits like Praise You, The Rockafeller Skank and Weapon of Choice. The whole world had its eyes on Britain and the Big Beat movement that he founded. I figured I’d never have a chance to meet him, while all that would change because Norman Cook has invited me to his home in Brighton, a coastal enclave only one hour from London but a place that couldn’t be any more different.
2:41 This is where he crafted his music in his own club, starting in his teenage years, that ended up changing the world. 20 years on, now Fatboy Slim is an in-demand DJ playing at clubs and venues all over the world, from Ibiza to New York City to Rio de Janeiro. He’s collaborated with the likes of Dizzee Rascal, Biggie Pop and the Beastie Boys. But who is he now? What keeps him going?
3:10 I’ve heard he’s a man that just wants to make people happy. Now it’s my chance to find out. What we’re about to do now is the world’s shortest commute. Basically, I used to live next door and built the studio there. Then when I had kids, moved here but left the studio there.
3:47 So this is my commute to work. The information unit. It’s 9 o’clock on a Monday morning. Norman’s going to work. The studios, follow me.
3:56 Thank you. You can actually count the steps. Wow, and here we are at work. Honey, make it. Said this was home, so this was… yeah, I lived here at the time, yeah.
4:29 This was home to, like, children, and the place next door just came on the market. It came on the market, it was big, it was larger. My wife is pregnant and but I left this together, but then at that point I was thinking like, I am… my approach to making records and small children don’t necessarily mix. It so best to keep some kind of ions and boundaries. Okay, so they don’t come over here?
4:57 Yes, so they went over a ladder, out over here. Okay, all right. Is where everything was made. Wow, and you’re here on a regular basis? No, sadly now is I’ll go over museum.
5:13 I mean, yet to everything is done in a laptop though, right? But I just had a heart to get rid of although lovely, wonderful, sexy old machine that stood me in sick. Wow, because this was after the 808. Was like the next generation afterwards? Yeah, the AOA is more the hip hop bond that was brought.
5:32 That was the house, that’s the house machine. Okay. Atari and the 303, use the acid house machine, and in those days the Atari was the thing that, that drug that ran everything. The Weapon of Choice, the worker mature share and three and Trina and yeah, Rachel actually. Did you ever have floppies?
5:54 Heard advice. Yeah, just come out of style. Know that I had huge amounts of properties, they’re all next door because I’m gradually digitizing and putting them in Ableton. When was this, mean early nineties? It started, it started because there’s some of the boat from Atari was a musician, so it was the first ones for a MIDI port, anything, yeah.
6:21 And then the MIDI port became slightly invented friend, then you could get what from left to there to here and you can basically slave it up so that thing could control every single synth in the room. Wow. By one keyboard. Okay, and what’s this unit? Well, this is this hand, these are salt, and this is pretty much 90% of all my output came out of that one.
6:51 It’s 950, as you can see by their dirt marks, and that now was state of the art at the time. It was just behind Slayer they are. Okay, I think they didn’t rent me the S1000, but I knew that so well. I knew it inside out. I knew every, you know, I knew how to use it, and so yes, I’ve just bought another restaurant 50 side more memory.
7:14 See, a bit of a computer? No, no, I’m common Luddite, everyone. They won’t assume you’re a really high tech, and as you can see, but you figured all this out? Well, no, I figured I meant it was my absolute passion. Before I had children I was single and I and I was in the middle of this revolution of dance music, which became a big app, which became sort of big B, and I was just so turned on about breaking rules and taking machines like this and didn’t and seeing what the how you could mistreat them and what weird noises came out, and I was just so driven that it was, it was just my absolute passion.
8:05 You have anybody to collaborate with as far as that was this into this electronic computer stuff? Oh no, not into the electronic side of it. In terms of ideas, when I bumped into Chemical Brothers and John MacArthur from Monkey Mafia, which we were, we felt like we were kindred spirits and we were, we were breaking the same rule. Okay, they had a club in London, cool, that Heavenly Social. We had to cut down Ecore, the big big big big boutique, and I’d go and play there, cut played, come play my father, and we’d hide it.
8:39 Oh yeah, but we’ve always swap a lot of ideas about, you know, we’re waiting to get that right beat from, or how do you think you make that noise, or you know, did they have similar setups? Yeah, yeah, yes, you would trace those days. Absolute, this is all there was. Okay, but this would have cost 10, 20 grand? No, no, it was the first time it was became affordable.
9:00 Before that, pre that, when you had Fairlights, you know, play like this is price of a small house, but now these things to achieve chips. Okay, still aren’t that bad at the time. Maybe that at the time, that was that was an investment, but you own, but like I said, you can make a whole record out one of them. And so this is like mid nineties when you’re… yeah, now work. Um, yeah, there’s all that stuff.
9:22 Okay, and you would go to London for influences? No, I’d go into London to PI it does what during, during that I would come home with some influences, but generally when there’s a party, not sir. Yeah, now the influences came sitting in this room. That was my image, my mood board war. Okay, can’t take a look at that.
9:44 Yeah, and would you hole up in here for days on end, or was that not your working style? Just yep, no, days on end. I would stop and sleep. Okay, I would do, yeah, keep, yeah, 25 out, dude, twenty four hour session quite easily. Yeah, solo.
9:58 What would you have people to bounce ideas off? No, solo, it’s just solo, so okay. Yeah, it takes longer if you have to bounce ideas over other people, much better food and just okay, just get in the zone and we’re on the bead and work on an idea. Okay, and then this is mood board, anything that you’re thinking about you stick up there? Uh, yeah, or just, or just if you’re bored, you did something that will make you smile, you know, but I mean some of it literally that baguette.
10:22 The name of the type that my first album, that’s a flyer for a rave in San Francisco. In San Francisco that you were at, or someone who just give? No, though I just dumped, someone gave it to me and went to her home and ended up on there, and then that ended up that this is the title of the album. Wow. You know, there’s so much Americana in what you do.
10:41 Is I moved to London in 97 from the States, and at first I thought you were American. Well, yeah, well that was only because I’d, I’d grown up listening to American music, but I never been to America, and for the first time in my life I got a chance to go to America in a way to American people like me, and I was like, so yeah, yeah, around the beginning of Fatboy Slim, yeah. That’s the first time I’d ever been to America, so all these things, people I’ve been hearing about, I was getting to me and the mid nineties, 95, 96.
11:23 Okay, did the Americans think you might have an American? Oh yeah, tons of Americans saw their American music sounds. Americans thought I was a band. Okay, because Rockafeller Skank sounded like a band on the DJ a lot of Americans thought I was black. Okay, and for then, as soon as I went over there they realize I just this crazy do for you.
11:46 See Chemical Brothers goofy drunken uncle. Okay, do you like kind of messing with their heads a little bit as far as I’m not knowing who you are or what? No, no, no, no, cuz pre-internet it was actually quite hard because you turn up at a gig, I start playing records and people you stand there looking at me. Yeah, what times Fat Boy Slim on and And you know, after half an hour they’re like, I see. What time is Fat Boy someone?
12:13 When are you gonna stop playing records? When… where’s the drum kit and where’s the amps? And you know, and then actually notary go winds, when’s the band on tour? Like, no, I am Fat Boy Slim. And they go, oh, okay.
12:25 And then some of them would be a bit upset and some of them would then get into it, but pre-internet in you too they had no idea what to win a check, you know. Yeah, so take a win and some of this, but some of them would actually had, you know, going to mom and their money back. So I paid to see a band called Fat Boy Slim and I don’t want to see if, like, just saying they’re playing records out this. Yes, that’s like, that’s like a DJ and you were hard to do DJ gigs, you play your own original stuff as well?
12:50 I, in those days I was so prolific that off my set was either remixes of other people that I’d done, all my own stuff, and also the kind of music I wanted to play. It was very few of us, there was very few records. There wasn’t, it was quite difficult to do a two-hour set of the kind of music we wanted to play. Okay, and the first album I kind of made so I had enough, they were, they were made for me to, you know, to complement my set. Okay, so it’s born out of necessity?
13:21 Yeah, born out of necessity because there was only a few of us making records like that. There was Bass Been Twin, who is who became my pen pal, Pastebin Twin, and who lived on the west coast. There’s Chemical Brothers, Armand was breaking rules in those days, right? Okay, but yeah, there’s, but yeah, it was, and we used to play trip hop records of 45, used to play techno requisite 33, you know, just so that we had enough because before this of the, the big beat explosion, it was actually though there was very few records that sounded like that.
14:01 Right, right. When I spoke Dyke, she sat down with Bambara and he wouldn’t take his sunglasses off, it was amazing. He’s a big guy, but he used to say that back in the day it was like whoever had the record collection are the ones that got called, yeah, for the gigs. Yeah, that was so, that’s it. Is that all your era there is?
14:20 And that’s the original collection here, is the record collection? Yeah. And that was you back in the day? Well, that was back, it’s difficult to explain to, to kids daily the idea of rarity. I reckon there’s two things that, that I can’t explain to my son.
14:35 One is the idea of rarity of Records, like you Cuba, you were the only person in that city you had that record and people would come to hear you play that record. That’s crazy. And they couldn’t hear on the radio, they couldn’t get their own coffee of it, it was, you know, and it, and the other concept was the B-side. Okay, because you don’t have B-sides on downloads and streams. Right, and the B-sides was often more exciting than the A-side because they’d made the single B-side, they’d start having fun and doing something, and things, I Rebel Without a Pause, start as a B-side.
15:08 Okay, so you get something weird and unique. Yeah, don’t be good to me, start as a B-side. Okay, and because you, the pressure was off, so that, that’s when you’d miss about, no, nobody doesn’t anymore because there is no track is precious now. Well, let me track is the potential A-side or, but just a potential stream. Okay, all right.
15:26 Yeah, and so you’re trying to explain that to your son and he’s hard to get his head around it? Yes, copies of copies of copies now and everything so available at it. Well, he, I mean, he’s having trouble getting his head around an album, like what you had to buy the whole album. Yeah, every single track on it, you didn’t just pick the ones you wanted him and strain it. Well, he’s getting his hit, trying to get his head around paying for music, you go out and you buy it, and then you had to possess it to hear it.
15:52 You couldn’t just click your phone and it would appear on your phone and you could listen to it. It’s like, no, you had… yeah, I mean, no, I started DJing because I was a vinyl junkie. I was the only one who had all the records and I would get invited to the pies because if I didn’t count at a party they didn’t, they no one could hear the latest records. When did you start collecting two to two records at the same kind? When I started working with rappers, with rappers.
16:17 Okay, because then you need two coffees to key to be going. Okay, so you would do the break beat and then for the rapper, kind of like old school in the Bronx style? Yeah. Okay, but if direct copy, yeah, red copy. Okay, absolutely direct copy.
16:29 Did you, and where you see, you actually go the south coast, south, south coast really. So like Grandmaster Flash said he spent three years trying to figure out how to actually mix those breaks. I mean, do you think if he hadn’t have spent three years to do that, to show it could be done, that that the rest of the world would have taken longer to do that? It would have taken longer. It took me about three years to work out what Grandmaster Flash was doing.
16:55 Really? I, yeah, I mean, we’re going to see it, see supporting The Clash and there’s about in London land and there’s about 20 of us down there look over the top, see how the hell he was making this, you know, scratching, how he was doing it because we see was doing the switcher and the slashing. Well, the, the idea that you press it forward where they start, they need to go take you down invade and that just that and a couple of journalists had said he was picking the needle up and that was how he was repeating the phrases.
17:24 We like, try that, that doesn’t, day you don’t ride there for a while. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, to be honest, he’s, I mean, what he was doing with cutting stuff up, it was absolute genius and absolutely groundbreaking and changed my life forever. That’s when I stopped wanting to be a punk rock and I wanted to be a DJ. But as soon as the sampler came in, I think probably the record that then, that then the next seismic shift was the 900 Number. I’m DJ Martin full dive King, where he got an S900, which is the precursor to that, and he found a look that if you repeated it, if you repeat that for three meters, but so he drive.
18:08 So what song is that? You don’t know that, I just know the name of 900 Number. Originally it was Unwind Yourself by Marvel Whitney said, James our production. Okay, but you just took the sex break, just went nail in it and it, and he just looped that up for three minutes and cool, it in the 900 Number because it was a chi is 930 lutein and, and that with what Flash used to do, go, you know, just repeating the same section over and over again, but he didn’t have to do it live, you didn’t need to copies it, always stayed in time.
18:42 Yeah, and Flash did it as a necessity to allow the MCs to flow, right? It may be the lesser people. Well, he, Flash would carry, picked up the torch from cool DJ Herc, who was the first one to realize that the, the kids got most excited about the, the percussion brace and the drum brakes and could because there was no rap music in those days, so there was disco music and rock music and the most exciting bits of the disco and the rock tracks were normally the drum breaks, so he was the first one to start elongating the breaks and that’s those dancers really, they got the party going or not always.
19:21 Well, that’s he just saw that that’s where the kids got that and there and then breakers, that breakdancing was not called breakdancing because you broke your limbs doing it, it was cool, it was because you wait for the break, then you’d start dancing and then you start doing the acrobatics and that’s when the crowd would start getting really excited. So Herc worked out if you bought two copies you could elongate the break and the break dancers would get more, you know, getting more frantic, but he never quite worked out how to do it on beat. Flash, Flash – Flash took that and then worked out to do it on beat and worked out that while you were queuing it up it made this weekend weekend WikiWiki noise and he invented scratching and so yeah.
20:04 Did you meet these guys, did you ever get to meet her? I meant, I haven’t met her, I met Flash many, many a time and I mean I’ve always cited him as one of my biggest influences and, and you know the reason why, yeah, I stopped wanting to be in a punk band or a rock band and actually want and wanted to be a DJ, and ya know, I’ve no Flash either hurt and sadly never made, right? Yet, yet, and what about breakdancing? Like there’s always seems to be a little break dancing elements and even some of your videos, I mean whether it’s Spike Jonze his, you know, improvisational breakdancing number on the, you know, in West LA or some of you know, I think that was just a reference, historical reference.
20:44 Okay, to like I said, you know, you know, we basically little snippets of information pre the soup, you know, that the information superhighway where you have nowadays, we just get these little snippets of what was going on in the South Bronx and the block parties and DJ Herc and every now and then a cassette would come over with, you know, with all these breaks on it and, and cash money cutting up and stuff like that and we would just get these little snippets and get and get really excited about it and try and do it our way of, sort of English way, but it was a, yeah, the the osmosis of Harry, how information travel was much slower in those days, pre-internet. Right, and what was the English way and is it a bit of a Brighton away because, like, you’re here, you’re on the water?
21:36 If it felt like you almost had like a laboratory down in the, in the town where you had your own little club and you know you play some beats in there and then you’d see how the crowd react and then you come back in here and, yeah, and like your mad scientist, but you also had that practical, you know, feedback. Well, I, I was really lucky because I had by then, I’d been a DJ for 10 years, so I was quite experienced as a DJ. I’d also been in bands by that point, I’ve been in the Housemartins and Freak Power, so I knew about musical structure and production that DJ wouldn’t know necess.
22:11 Yeah, and, and you know, you know whether something’s in key or not, you know, people to two meters, I’m like, yes, it’s not actually in key, that’s quite painful to the ear. These, they’re like, what do you mean? I’m like, well, that’s, you know, you’re, you have baselines in G and the singer singing in C, you know, so I had, yeah, I had a kind of grounding from both sides, from, from the purely DJing and club side of it but also from performing on stage and being a musician and knowing chords and we only played musical instruments, so I kind of had a head start on, on other people.
22:46 Okay, and then also having the club night here that you that you started having was like your own little place to experiment and play around. Yeah, yeah, I don’t know, I always get this feeling if you had been London-based, like, you know, what the Chemical Brothers, the whole time that your sound would have been a little different. Yeah, there was something distinctly Brighton about our approaches. What is, what is the Brighton feel? I’m out from San Diegoans, right?
23:08 And I think if, if, if I always say to American audiences, probably San Francisco is, it would be Brighton, it’s kind of where that’s out on, you out on the fringe, very big gay population, very liberal city, very very tolerant of alternative lifestyles, quite historical sort of background, but without a real, that kind of ambition, you know, anyway, you know, if you had in New York, everyone’s ambitious, everywhere you, they’re trying to earn a buck or get themselves noticed with it, people inviting that we come here just to have fun and if you get noticed, that’s great, but with we could’ve come here to be within reach of London, right, because it’s only 60 miles away? Yeah, yeah, but it’s, yeah, people have brought a bit more laid-back and bit less pushy and ambitious.
24:10 Okay, and that came out in the music, I think. So yeah, also we’re quite proud of the fact, yeah, man, I think I think with friendlier, but friendlier and we and we like the fact that we, we could and also we, but also at the same time a little bit proud of the fact that we’re not London. I mean, I used to write “Made in Brighton” on my records because they were recorded down here, cuz everyone expected as soon as you get famous or and you need a recording studio, you automatically are to London.
24:40 It’s like, we stayed here and, and skinned our record label, Mr. Brighton record label, and so the whole thing was done here, we didn’t need London. But I mean, that goes, I mean, pre, pre that in the Housemartins our first album was called London 0 Hull 4, you know, it, the windup has started. Did he even, even in those days always representing? Well, just, just a little bit. Well, just kind of a lot of people in London think it’s the center of the universe in a way that, you know, a lot of capital cities do, and they, they don’t believe that anything of any interest or note happens outside their city.
25:16 And what is it about the water, I mean, does this, does this help you create? There’s a common, no, no, I don’t know, it’s for me it’s when, when you get stressed out about life, when you’re in the middle of London you’re surrounded by traffic and noise and people and everything. Here, no matter what goes on, whatever kind of goes on that side, you can turn your back on it and code, oh, wow. You don’t feel surrounded and hemmed in by it, there’s always that peace that way.
25:47 Yeah, and, and if that gets too much, you just, just ignore that and look that way, that’s how I see it. Yeah, whether or not I don’t, I mean, I don’t know Arthur, don’t know, I don’t think, I think it’s less of an inspiration or more of a distraction because I’d be a, because rather than looking out of there and thinking, I know why, yeah, I know which kick drum I’m gonna use on this track, I spend more time looking out there thinking, oh, I’m supposed to get back to work, it’s been 20 minutes. After you get lost in it?
26:16 Yeah, yeah, sometimes it’s kind of nice, right? Yeah, Kanon make a nice, but again not, not necessary the most productive and if you’re ambitious, hidden, you’re trying to get things done, maybe you should concentrate and focus a bit more, but there’s more to life than being focused. You were really a unique thing at the time, to throw all the sound at people and them not knowing what it is or how to even to define it, right? Yeah, that’s kind of fun, there’s a real kind of frontier spirit also.
26:44 I mean, you know, things like sampling, me, you know, that we didn’t know what the rules were, we were sampling stuff, getting away with it, so then we start with something else, not get away with it, and then no, nobody knew what the rules were, we didn’t, they didn’t have sample clearance lawyers. Okay, when soldiers get busted for a sample, just the record label’s problem? No, no, no, no, it was good, your label are not paying for it. I mean, that’s millions of dollars, right, or is it all your royalties?
27:08 I think if you added over the years it would go into millions. I’ve had to pay out my stupidity, but equally I’ve got away with murder. Okay, when I was coming around, cuz they don’t know it’s on there. Oh yeah, okay, I want to save it. Not yet, but that, that was good as like you didn’t ask for permission, so you just want trailblazing ahead instead of meditating those days where they think there were no rules for sampling.
27:33 No, readin quite knew what the rules were and as long as the person that you sampled didn’t personally really take offense and come after you, or if they’ve never heard the record, or she made a record that was a club here in England and it was made by a 70 year old bloke who lived in America, then he’d never have ever known, know about it, they were saying it was I as long as you kept out film soundtracks, that was when you normally got busted, is if it got, usually a film soundtrack, someone in his family would hear you, go, I’m sure that’s my uncle, and they’d, you know, they’d play it to him and then you get busted. But now they were, see it was quite, like I said, it was frontier, frontier, it was like the Wild West, you know, you, you’ve got away with what you could get away with, you did what you could get away with.
28:21 We, yeah, we pushed technology to the limits of what we could with very cheap equipment and we sampled whatever we thought we could get away with. I mean, at mostly, yeah, at first, but I got away with murder, that was what the problem was for the first three years. I just thought you could use just something for things in England and, yeah, it was only with the hits come the Ritz, right, and they come looking for you, that’s when they come after you down you’ve come onwe baby.
28:53 I mean, did you know it was gonna be so big, did you know those things were gonna go so big? I can’t, he kind of had a feelings you can play them for crowds, yeah, it went well. Better Living Through Chemistry kind of caused a stir and I started going to America and, and we realized we were onto something, and but also we would kind of honing our craft of which bits were really turning people on, so by the time we potentially You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby, I kind of knew what I was doing, you know, it wasn’t just like doing something right but I don’t quite know why, and it’s like, I know which bits of the Rye and if I do them and, you know, the other stuff, so we kind of figured something was building.
29:36 I mean, I never thought it would cross over into light pop charles will get paid on the radio or oh dear – would it do it, we’ll get to number one, you know, but we kind of we had, we, you could feel the momentum going, like you said, we had, we had our own little club and the cues for getting longer every week and you know renew and, and more, more people, more, more journalists we’re coming down to Brighton and you know, because first it I’m picked over, just sort of ring out and say, oh, he makes it in London, it’s like, no, you disinvited and in there, like, can we come down to Brighton, and then next thing we know there’d be, you know, people coming down to Brighton on a weekly basis, so we, we kind of figured we were onto something, but even though in those days I’ll dance me in sell albums, it’s some traveling singles and I think the Prodigy and the first Chemical Brothers album would set the bar, actually maybe you could sell, you could make it a good, good dance album in itself.
30:35 Okay, as a DJ, did that give you eating more of a feedback loop than say if you had been in a rock band or a pop band, to where you’re actually playing these tracks and you can feel it? Okay, they like, yes, they like this. Oh, yeah, I make you a unique kind of a feedback Liz best. I mean, probably the best example was Rockafeller Skank because I played “Sliced Tomatoes” by the Just Brothers, which is another Northern Soul record, play that in the middle of my set, the whole track, people, yeah, and people reacted to, and everyone’s like, wow, this is groovy.
31:09 So I felt like the 900 Number, that’s, oh, that’s, if that riff is a good little groove, so I looped it up, but it was completely the wrong speed, and then I remembered I had this sample of somebody saying “right, right, right,” about their eyes, no other than the Funky Soul Brother, and so I chopped that up into little bits. But that was literally on the Sunday night after playing the Boutique on the Friday and I was still, and then we had a party on the, I know, all these ideas were kind of going through my head, so I just put together the weekend’s festivities into one record, thing into one record with any, and it came good. It’s not, it’s not, it’s not an exact science, doesn’t always work, but I think a lot, a lot, yeah, a lot of the ideas came out of playing records, of playing old records at the club, thinking, yeah, that, you know, the crowd dig that bit, right?
32:03 They love that, reactions, yeah, together and then, and then I’ll do a little, do a little demo of it, and okay, secure them and then you could play the full thing exactly how you want it? Well, no, no, that would just be just, you know, that, that’s the initial demo and then and then who was the rap on that? Because he says Lord Finesse, miss Lords for no, is Lord for this. Yeah, that’s really old school, right? Yeah, I mean, though that was one of my things of sampling a, in terms of not getting sued, but be in terms of it being more fun, I didn’t like sampling things that been hit.
32:41 Okay, I like to sample obscure things, you know, the best thing is to take a really s***ty record, find that one good loop out of it and make a really good loop record out of it, rather than, I think is around that time a thing, there was P Diddy doing “I’ll Be Missing You” and it’s like you just taking a plea song that, you know, that everybody likes and you’ve just changed a couple of words. Yeah, and you know, and what, there’s no, you know, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel, is it, there’s no raizy art in that. Yes, so he used to make fun of himself in his own lyrics, right?
33:13 I take kids from the eighties. Yeah, yeah, so mine was, was never sampled a tune that was a hit in the first place, finished that, that’s too easy. And so you will end up with all these piles of junk, s***ty records that you’ve bought because they had really city, they had stupid looking covers and you got all these in Brighton or some morning? No, every, everywhere I went around the world I would, I would spend the afternoon in the fresh surf shop and so then you just brainstorm, you’re in here and you go through, okay, like I remember about that, but you got to take it out and physically play it on the thing, then I’ll put it on a on a disc.
33:48 Okay, sounds interesting, if it sounds interesting or if there’s a drumbeat on its own or baseline on its own, yes, so later you can grab it. Yeah, this doesn’t seem to be a complicated cataloging system. No, well, no, that’s because there was, they were that bit was full but they’re all next door being digitized. Okay, but you need to be kind of alphabetized or you kind of know where everything I could for you for hours with, I’ve got a little notebook so they’ve all written down.
34:12 Yeah, I heard about that, yeah, that’s, that’s pretty interesting, you had the beats per minute on each track and you always had to, yeah, it’s, yeah, okay. I got rid of this a lot of the second copies because I was running out of room, but okay, but all the stuff I DJ agreed, this is just all ideas for music, none of these things are famous really. No, and, and most of them are pretty bizarre looking and American. Wow, all American mine, American, yeah, cuz they had the volume and all the funk and the weird, yeah, and I would tell ya they’re taking drugs.
34:52 Okay, yeah, I mean, there’s sort of the voice here I’m not using, sorry, heroin, marijuana, marijuana money. Okay, if he’s a multiracial band with long hair and and who look like they took drugs, and normally there’d be something good on there. Yeah, that’s awesome. I was watching this documentary on the Eagles and they were talking about how the drugs kind of changed their music, and it was like the wieder and then when the cocaine era came in, yeah, music changed, but I don’t know if that was a lagging indicator or the leading indicator.
35:29 Yes, it’s quite hard to tell from people’s haircuts and clothes what drugs they’re taking, right? Yeah, so you have to take a bit of a pump. Okay, you can guess, it’s just if they just look like they were a bit freaky, they’re more likely to play freaky music and I’m more turned on by freaky music than I am by pop music. Okay, oh yes, this is where, exactly where um, that Lord Finesse came from. Oh, is it?
35:56 Okay, and that’s one of his, it was a, it was a whole lone Asian drum loops, he just did a little vocal introduction saying “welcome to volume 2 of Chester’s van logs, right about here is no other than the Funk Soul Brother, Lord for this,” and then boom, and clicking your head, and then you sped it up on a keyboard, I chopped it into its syllables so that I could make a rhythm out of it. Yeah, he wasn’t actually wrapping it, he was just saying, yeah, like a, you know, like a bumper, like, okay, radii D, and when you come to a video like that, again, is it all that stuff that’s in your head where you’re like, I want the guys with afros doing this? Oh no, I hate that video, you know, I thought that was every single cliche I hated.
36:37 Okay, while I was doing out, I was out there filming that video and hating it, I bumped into Spike Jonze and he shown his video of him just doing really stupid breakdancing too – yeah, and I was like, okay, scrap that, you really expensive video full of cliches. I think one was Spike, why did you feel Spike right away, why did you? He found me. Okay, he found me, I got, I got literally, I got to the, I got to the again store, I got to my hotel room to do my little cameo in the official Rockafeller Skank video and there’s a VHS in my room with a little note saying, I saw this guy dancing to your tune, I thought you might like to see it.
37:20 By the way, I’m a real fan. Loved Spike Jonze and I watched it and I thought, this is great. I literally, I said, right, I cake has some Tamar shoot, really expensive shoot, this is gonna be the video, and the record company went, no, no, no, no, I’ll do that, that’s really cheap. Why did it move you? Because it was cheap and it was silly and, yeah, and it wasn’t full and it wasn’t riddled full of cliches in it and it took music as seriously, they took it, took videos as seriously as I took music, which is nothing is sacred, just use cheap equipment and that a good idea or a funny idea, right, rather than having dusty models and cliches that have been done before and have fun with it, don’t break rules.
38:06 So that was, that was my mentor out of Brighton thing, that was one, yeah, have fun and break rules, they don’t like saying it, not not to upset people, just it’s, it’s in the name of fun. Okay, and that’s, and when Spike’s jumping around on the sidewalks of New York City or whatever, doing his performative dance, that to you was like I was like, yeah, that’s really, that really makes me laugh, it really brings the song to life, the whole slowly down bit, he went all slow down and he’s, but he also, he’s bumping into peace, knocking people off a pavement, it was completely like illegally filmed, and so that ended up as the crazy video, yeah, we didn’t have time to, to cancel all the other things that we’ve done for the Rockafeller Skank, but I said, I got you’ve got to do crazy, you’ve got to do the next single, so he’d appraise you and, and he said, well, let’s take it one step further and didn’t around just me doing it, let’s get a little true all doing, but a lot of the same, that all of those movies were in the, in the original moment thing that he sent me.
39:03 Was it hard to sell that to the label? Yeah, yeah, really only was an $800, it was, it wasn’t hard to sell it to him because it was an $800 video and they’re like, fine. When I showed it to them they went, okay, we’ve got to make a proper one, ocean that’s just loose, and they, and I said, no, no, trust me, and they took it to MTV and MTV as you’ve said, we’re not sure you know, you just take you the piece, this is just cheap rubbish and we’ve got to make another one, and I said, no, we’re not making them, and that’s it, and they were like, okay, but then pH, pH one picked up on it and they had, they had some liquor viewers vote thing and it won the view of viewers vote like five weeks running, curious.
39:51 Everyone thought it was hilarious and I suppose it’s the first sort of viral, yeah, something that wasn’t, you know, it was under the radar and kids, the kids again, have you seen that, you’ve seen this video? Yeah, and, and so then because VH1 were playing, MTV started playing it, ended up winning tons of awards, but yeah, the only that for the first month I think they’d, MTV just refused to play it, they said, I think this sub stand was how they describe its Daniel, a substandard, its Technic technically and artistically substandard. Is that what it was filmed that it was because I mean it was it wasn’t a film, it was filmed on, I mean nowadays you take you for granted that you can cameras his size, right, but it was Nick she filmed on little handycams, like there’s little, yeah, like, yeah, like things you take on a vacation or, yeah, like that.
40:37 Yeah, I mean, is that the epitome of art where the great art first offends people and people don’t even say it’s art? That would be one, yeah. I thought, I mean, I’ve never described what I do is, are ya, I don’t, I think ya heart is for me or something that’s a bit more height and bit more cultured and has had a bit more thought into it and you can write books about it, you know, in explain in a meaning of it, this, I just like making people smile and dance, you know, there’s no real, it’s no real agenda, it’s, you know, it’s just, it’s just instinctive, whereas that art is something that, you know, centuries later people’s stories finding new things in it, you know.
41:25 Yeah, but you have Keith Haring down in your front, in your front door away, and when people first saw that, I mean, he’s in a somebody, well, yeah, he’s animals with appliance together, a lot of people said he wasn’t art for a long, long time. But also the reason I thought I love Keith Haring, he came out of the same, he was coming out the same hip-hop era and you know, you know, again, is exciting for me to go to New York and and actually see Keith Haring pieces there in New York after, after just kind of seeing little things in magazines and stuff, but you know, I think he was very much, yeah, it’s the same as us being DJs not being seen as musicians, he wasn’t seen as an artist, he was seen as a graffiti writer. Nowadays you could be both and you can be, you know, and sometimes, but in those days we were kind of the subculture and, and it was fun.
42:24 You enjoyed that? Yeah. And so when you come in here, well, back in the day, when you sit down, I’m like, all right, I’m gonna create some sounds that make people happy, that’s your goal? Yeah, you’re transferring energy, right? Yeah, I just thought I make sounds that, that would turn people on, if that will make them high, or if they’re high I’ll make them higher, higher by whatever means necessary.
42:50 Sometimes it would mean me getting quite high while I was making them, that helped them get high sometimes, yes, sometimes no, it’s against not exact, sometimes I just, they’re not really high, they can make them really too, but I was just, there’s a lot of experimentation, a lot of, yeah, for every hit that came out of this studio there’s a lot of rubbish, people forget that. Yeah, yeah, I’ve always said you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, but you, you hopefully you didn’t get to hear too much of the rubbish. And when it comes to performing, you’re all about connecting with the audience, right?
43:28 Yes, said that, I think you said eye contact is your big thing. When I contact, physical contact, there’s no context, a bit more difficult. Did you use about answer from the crowd? And, yeah, I still, yeah, I still like to get out there, but you kind of get more a bit since then friend itself, is it’s kind of hard to get around, it’s drinks and people putting their hand over to shake your hand. I mean, I’ve try and do as many fist bumps and handshakes as I can, but there’s equipment around there that gets knocked and people just drink, people who try and shake your hand with a drink in their hand, it’s like, no, no, no, no, no, that’s not gonna work with all these electrics around here.
44:05 But yeah, no, I know, I’d like to, yeah, that’s for me it’s not, that’s Tim’s for the DJ and a rockstar. A rockstar wants to be on it, on a pedestal, on a stage, and he wants a pit and security between him in the crowd, and he wants to make him stand there strong, everybody looks at him and applause. The DJ wants to be part of the party, we want to be involved, we want to be, we want to be in control of it, but we, we don’t necessarily want the spotlight on us.
44:33 You know, the crowd is to sell the show and we’re just providing the soundtrack. And you actively DJ, I mean, you’re playing 70 gigs a year, right? I mean, yeah, this is almost back to your roots, but you started as a DJ and now you’re, you know, I would play so many gigs in a year in those days where I could get so many gigs in the air, but DJing wasn’t that, you know, there wasn’t, there wasn’t the demand for it in those days. Yeah, but no, I mean, I’ve always been a DJ since I started DJing in 1978.
45:06 What do you do, the math, what what you have something one years, he’s that for 31 years, 41 years? Yeah, 41 years, wait, 77, yeah, coming up on 40, yeah, something nines, 39 years, 39 years I’ve been DJing. Yeah, most memorable moments, DJ in Brazil, 350,000 people, a big one, Brighton Beach, Brighton Beach, quarter of a million people. Yeah, not that one, no, first one 65,000, but she’s 5,000 people, you didn’t, we didn’t know if we’d be allowed to do it or if it would work or if the weather would hold, and yeah, and it can and a collective fee now, though the quarter million won was fought with, it was like Woodstock, it was chaos and, and worried about people’s safety, police, I mean, the police told me that I couldn’t do it, we’re now to go.
46:01 I said, okay, fine, that was always the deal, I said this too, it’s too many people, we can’t control them, and then they came back five minutes later and I said, and having thought about it, and I said, you do know that telling these people who’ve all been drinking all afternoon, telling them that the gig’s off might cause a riot, and they went, that’s the only reason why we’re letting you go ahead with this, kick, because it was more dangerous not to do it. Now the second one was a bit full and we were worried about safety and how I had the police all over me and I was rattled and, and, and, and also we were completely caught off our guard, it was like Woodstock, we had this pissy little stage, pissy little sound system and, you know, half the people there I couldn’t even hear the music because the sound system wasn’t known enough.
46:53 All you didn’t know how many people are gonna come? No, yeah, no idea. What makes a quarter-million people come to Brighton, you because they before been so good and word of mouth had got round that it was, it was a good pie and mainly because it was free and white, just the first because the first one, I remember walking back for the first one and they’d been about 65,000, he’s been walking back with the guy who runs Cream’s and he said, God, we put 30, 30 DJs, 30 the world’s top DJs on the crane fields and we get 30,000 people and you just got double that just to see you.
47:29 I said, what were we doing wrong? When you, you’re charging money, he’s charging for tickets, so it was almost free, another first two were free. Now after the second one we were, I was never allowed to do it because it was gonna be too crazy, it had to know. Since then they’ve only allowed me to do it twice on the beach, from both times, it wasn’t on the same bit of beach, it was actually not on the, on the beach, it was on the front by the beach, it had to be fenced in, numbers had to be limited to 25,000, we had to pay for all the police and ambulances, so it cost a lot of money.
48:08 So we ended up the last time, the last time we did it, we did it in the local football stadium. Okay, why do it here, you want to show people your home? Yeah, so is there’s no bigger pride if it’s, if there’s a city that you, you live in and you’re proud of and they’re proud of you, there’s no bigger prize and to do a big show and celebrate that mutual relationship, there is no feeling, you know, they gets you them on to play too, you know what you are, your family and friends, yeah, and to see how many of them there are.
48:42 You mentioned Cream, you’ve got a regular gig now there and a Ibiza, what’s a, as a bee, that played a part in your music over the years, did you spend a lot of time there? Yes, 20 years, it’s a spinach fusion, I met my wife there. Okay, I’ve been there, I’ve been there for a family holiday for 18 years running. Okay, remember your first visit there? I, I bought my first visit there was before any of the club stuff was going on, it was just a cheap package old lady, okay, and we accidentally got taken to a club one night, I was like, this is cool, but that was still a couple of years before the, before it really exploded, but it became, ya know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s way you try the new tunes out, it’s where you hang out with all the other DJs throughout a month, my kids by me, my 16 year old son prized it on the SS, I’m 69, I’ve been to Ibiza 13 times in my life and yeah, and doing the residences is, it’s a great, it’s, it’s, it’s like having the big, big Boutique down the road, is where you try things out, make sure they’re all the time you are there.
49:57 Yeah, it’s your place, yeah, yeah, the booth you feel so, you know, she, you, you own the booth and you know that, you know the room, so you know you what you’d get away with, so you take risks and, and sometimes those really pay off and you have a lot of fun and it’s just, it’s very stress-free, it’s like, you know, you, you know you’ve got the meeting at home farm your hand a lot of time, you go on and, and you enjoy it and you try and feed them as much as this is physically possible, which can get some pretty, pretty freaky levels of euphoria. How can you tell the euphoria when you’re up in that booth? Just feel it, you can hear it, you can feel it.
50:37 You just took the power of collective euphoria, I mean, that’s why people go to night clubs. If they, you know, they, they in the old days they would go to hear specific records, they hear new records. Now you can say I’m stuff where you could just don’t go online and find stuff that you like, you can play, even playing loud with your mates at home, but there’s something about getting lots of people with and them sharing a collective euphoria that it becomes bigger than the sum of the parts.
51:09 It’s like, it’s like, it’s like they’re like a football game or something, it becomes more powerful than just those people that are there. Tribal, it’s tribal, it’s almost religious at times. It’s like I said, you know, if it can make you high, if you’re high can make you really high and, and it’s charged with all these different ions of escapism, hedonism, sexuality, abandon, all the kind of things that young people dig, all rolled into in one, you know, and then, you know, and then, and then the system or parallel, you know, where you connect them all together and, and it becomes one enormous force and, and it can either be a roar, a noise, or it could just be watching a whole crowd bounce up and down in unison or hands go in the air in unison and you realize that that room is become one large living thing.
52:20 You know, in, um, say in San Fran, Tokyo, something sixteen, yeah, big here at six they where they’ve got all the little bits of metal where we can change into a different form and becomes a really big part. It’s like that, you take all these different people and you, you connect them all together with, with music and euphoria and they’ve become as a huge entity, and that’s what you’re doing, your crew, that’s what I’m attempting. Don’t work every night, hey, it doesn’t always work, sometimes it’s not cohesive at all, sometimes it’s for different factions, sometimes you haven’t really got them going at all, you know, it sit there on the whole by the end of it, you know, and sometimes, you know, you run out of time.
53:16 There’s sometimes it takes an hour to get everybody on the same wavelength and if you’re over for only one hour set, you’ve just got there and then you gotta go off, but given two hours I can normally with a like-minded crowd into some kind of collective force that, that, yeah, it’s, yeah, like you said, it’s tribal, it’s it’s, you know, I, I, I hate saying we’re religious because God is not a DJ, it’s not about leaving the, you know, the, the pastor who’s is leading a flock, it’s more about having a collective faith and a collective belief, looking after each other and a collective, yeah, belief in something. It can be very religious and, and it can perform the same role that religion does in people’s lives, of, you know, I’m not sure about where I am in life, but then you stand amongst a whole load of people that you feel the same and you think, we all feel like this, so maybe I’m not alone, you know, there is, we might not know what it is that we’re missing, but at least I know that I’m not alone, I’m not the only person who feels like this.
54:31 Is that something was always in the music, like it’s about us all becoming one, like your music or even house, me not a garage, it was always been about a dance music? Yeah, dance music is normally, you know, I’ve learned a huge amount in Brazil, you know, if you see that carnival and the parties that they have in Brazil, right, the reason was this is a bit nerdy but quite interesting, so go with me. Oh yeah, when the slaves went to Brazil they were allowed, the African slaves are allowed to keep their percussion instruments.
55:04 When the slaves came to America they took away all their musical instruments, so when they were working in the fields or when they were having religious things, all they could do is sing, so, so the, the slave songs and the spirituals were all quite sad because they were just people wailing. Brazilians were always dancing because they were always hitting things and playing drums from bongos and so Brazilians have always used dances as a way, as a way of escaping but also bring selves together, and that’s what I dance for you, that is that there’s other forms of music like that engender alienation, yeah, and individuality and rebellion, right? Music – pop music, pop music is a lot about kind of hero worship, that’s more, you know, it’s all about centered about that one person or stage or that boyband will, that girl bone and stage and you’re the spectator, never your thing.
56:14 I’m not knocking it, I’m not looking, you know, no, I’m not saying that I’m right, that we’re writing, they’re wrong, it’s just different, different approaches and, and that’s why some people like country-western and some people hey death metal, you know, it’s like I’m not saying offer any, anybody who’s got a, who’s found a release, it’s the poor people that sit at home watching soap operas and never get out and work out why is this missing in their life, they’re the ones I that I would feel sorry for, the rest of them it’s just, it’s just different ways of achieving the same goal. Do you think today’s these days when were everyone’s on the mobile phone and we’re kind of disconnected with Facebook and having all these friends, that we need this kind of a tribal experience like more than ever to get back to kinda?
57:04 Yeah, you are, yeah, I’ve got a 16 year old son and he spends a lot of his time very much disconnected, whether it’s on his phone or on his computer, but when I see him with his mates all dancing, you realize that there are still, you know, or he, you know, he just went to his first Reading, four-day Reading Festival on his own, that I said, well, I played there on the Friday and then I left him there and and he came back at you know here and back with this fire in his eyes that he’d had a collective experience with all his mates and, and he said he was still singing that Muse song in his head all the way home, “we will be victorious”, and they had some kind of me Raya chased by security and, yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s all these kind of things, like I said, you know, these things that that young people like, young rebellion, sex, getting high, you know, escapism, hedonism, and there are other things, I mean, we just forgot.
58:08 Well, I, I know I I, I live vicariously through them, I watch them do it every night and that’s what keeps me get energy on that. I get the energy for, I’m too old to get mold in it, it’s a lot of what they’re doing that I get the energy off it and I, and I get inspiration and vitality by watching them do it. Yeah, I’ve always said a, it can be misquoted en like the religion thing, I would say I’m a bit like a vampire, that’s my secret of eternal youth, I’m actually 83 years old, but my secret of eternal youth is not to drink the blood of the young, the 18 year olds, I just absorbed their sweat as it drips off to sweeten and that’s, that’s what keeps me young.
59:01 Are you better now up there and you enjoy yourself more now sober, or is it the same as when was drinking, or is it so much a high when you’re on there anyways it’s hard to discern? Well, I think I enjoyed it more when I was four hour sober by caching, remember, I think I do a much better job now I’m sober. Okay, someone did pull it out the other day though. Yeah, the moment I’ve had it, I’ve had a difficult year personally, I’m separated from my wife and it’s bizarrely enough it’s, I’ve been on fire on DJ, it’s it, I think it’s that kind of tortured artist thing.
59:44 Yeah, well just the fact that I’ve been providing escapism before all these other people all these years and now I’m actually doing it myself and I let off more steam and I really go for it and so for the last year everybody’s been noticing going, you off fire, and someone said the other day, so yeah, because before you were kind of having a party in your own head and, and they were having a party in their own heads and sometimes the two pipes were the same but they weren’t necessarily said. Now you, you are conducting their party, right, but you are in control of it, you’re not just any under, you know, and you’re, you’re watching them, you know, and you know you’re always looking at the scene, what they want me to do, and you’re thinking on your feet and you’re not just going off, you know, this is fun, I’ll play this next, you know.
1:00:36 So I think I, yes, I think I think I was having more fun before but I don’t remember and I think I’m having as much fun but doing a better job now and, and remembering it and remembering and, but also everyone’s recording here so it’s being recorded, because in the old days you couldn’t really film a king, there wasn’t enough light, there wasn’t a low, low light camera, so you’ll never know how good you were, say 12 years ago, because no one would have filmed it, there’s, there’s a couple of, there’s a couple of films and I don’t know, I fun how did watch myself, whether it’s being interviewed or performing, I, I, I don’t enjoy look at watching myself back. Yeah, I’ve got it, I’ve got all the archives, in one day I mean, every now and then I have to, you know, shuttin why I said in your old.
1:01:30 Yeah, yeah, one day I, you know, I once was, yeah, I once was famous since I was a monster, used to get played on the radio, that had hits and stuff like that, but some, no, it’s, it’s all, it’s, it’s all there in the, in the vaults, but I don’t know, I’ve got, I’ll be plenty of time when my, when I retire to reflect on that. At the moment I am desperately, you know, my every waking Aries is to stay on top of my game and compete with these youngins, these whippersnappers who come and try and steal what’s right now, I, you know. Do you like that healthy competition?
1:02:08 Yeah, yeah, and I’ve got nothing, is there’s no animosity, there’s no competition, it’s not like, but I’ve, they, you know, they, they don’t let me rest on my laurels because they will, you know, yeah, they keep them, they keep me on my toes and I have to work, I have to work harder. Yeah, physically I have to work out harder to stay up that late and I have to, you know, work harder to, to be current. This because I’m, yeah, he’s the rest of the time my mom and I’m a responsible father of chosen.
1:02:41 I saw you DJing somewhere in Italy this summer and you were playing the stage and man, you were just on for like an hour and I have your point of the people over here and over here and over here and like, I don’t even see a lot of younger DJs with that much energy or bothering with the connection. Well, that’s what, that’s what that’s, that’s well, I said I have to try harder. No, I mean I’ve, I’ve always, I get possessed by some spirit, you know, when you see, you know, evangelical preachers and they start speaking in tongues and, you know, like that, unlike that, tons of people, if you, if you, you know, on YouTubes and that, if you look at the cars, they go, yeah, I thought he was sober, he’s completely off it, it’s nice out, and then other people go, no, no, when he gets on stage I do, I get possessed by the, the excitement and it’s a two-way street that I get excited about how excited they are, they get excited how excited I get and it’s a, it winds itself up into a frenzy, like I said, you know, and during that, yeah, I am, I’ve become more animated and I become and I’m having, you know, I want to have a relationship with every single person in the crowd and, yeah, it’s a, you know, it’s a powerful, intense and very rewarding thing and I count my lucky stars that aren’t that got my, my age I’m still allowed to do it and still invite you to the party and, and like I said, you know, the younger DJ set coming up, I don’t, I I don’t see a most competition, I see him as the inspiration and to carry on doing this and, and to keep
1:04:19 Up with them. And you’re not stopping anytime soon, you said DJs can last forever, right? It’s not like pop, well some rock stars, because I often have conversations with Paul, Paul Oakenfold, Pete Tong, Carl Cox, we’re all old mates, we’ve all been playing together for years, we’ve all been friends for years and we’re all alike, you know, have you how you doing, your son may be staying down and going from a exist year to 17, you know, coming down a bit, or I’ve quit drinking or something like that, so we kind of, you know, tempering ourselves to, but through a long day our careers, but we all agree that there’s only one of us who’s, who’s actually stopped, less Frankie Knuckles and what else is still go.
1:05:09 Yeah, and they, yeah, that’s, that’s the only thing the lesser there’s going to stop us, just when I stopped Frankie Knuckles. Yeah, okay, so yeah, you’re gonna be doing this? Well, either that or I, if I can’t keep up with the islands and, you know, as long as I’m enjoying it and the crowd are enjoying it, I’ll carry on. If the crowd stop enjoying it, I’ll stop getting the bookings, I won’t be able to do it. If I stop enjoying it and I’ll drag my sorry ass onto that plate and stay up to a five doc we need to do it, but as I was really enjoying it and and, and they’re enjoying it, it’ll be death, death will be the only thing that slows me down.
1:05:44 You miss Frankie? Yeah, I miss it, I miss it, I, I miss him, but equally I celebrate him because he was, he was the first, he was the first there and he was the first to go. I mean, he, house music is named after the Warehouse club which was his very plate, and so for me he was the birth of house music and for him to be the first of us to die, I think he’s got a morbid beauty, a beauty. How do you stay in such good shape, what are you doing? I go to the gym five days a week, I ran a half marathon on Sunday, you notice I’m limping a bit, didn’t it?
1:06:29 Yeah, run around to half marathons a year and I go to the gym four or five days a week and that allows you to stay up till 6:00 in the morning? And yeah, I know, cuz I knows, because over the summer when I was doing the residency in of ether and stuff I didn’t have time to get to the gym, gym and I was and every week I became more and more tired, no, I need ya to keep up with the other ones, I’ve gotta be physically fit, busy, fair and sober, I couldn’t keep up, you know, the drinking was, I was gonna kill me. And what else you’re doing creatively, you’re coming to London to do the Ally Pally, you’re doing, working on a documentary film as well?
1:07:04 I’m working, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m working, doing a soundtrack for film. Okay, I I did a lot of things I can’t really talk to you about. Okay, I’ve been writing with somebody quite well-known, which bound may not, we’re enjoying the process of writing it but whether or not it’s any good we’ll see. So you might see that you don’t want to be the guy with the number-one hit again, right? No, how did you know that, who took, if I said that before I don’t know, I just get this feeling that, yeah, oh yeah, I can write this.
1:07:43 When I came back with each sleeper groupie it scared the living crap out of me because it opened this whole can of worms, died. Christ has this, this is all the bits then of the business that I didn’t enjoy, such as endless into, you know, in endless promo days, you know, endless interviews, making video, expensive videos that seemed like a really good idea and then you look at them just go with that which is just a colossal waste of money, but you know, yes, in there never gets shown, yeah, just it’s just all the pits in just that those bits of, huh, I love making music, I love playing me at my playing music, alright, you know, imagine a job where you play your favorite music to other people, they get really excited and high, they think you’re ready clever and you get paid for it and you get to see, travel the world while you’re doing it, it’s like the reason a better job, right?
1:08:42 It’s better than being a professional wine taster, you know, there is no better job than that and I love that because of that I put up with some of the things you learned, like, like sacrificing your anonymity and, you know, having to stop throwing this selfies and and stuff like that, and but it’s a small price to pay for what I do. But being in the top, of being in the top, I’ve always said how much food being at number nine in the charts in number one, there’s wearing your number one and then it tabloids and you know, whether it be, um, separate them and my wife, I get followed around by photographers, I understand that’s not, that’s not what I’d got onto this job for, you know, I’m not into the find the, you know, and I, you know, consciously never been on a reality show, anything like that, I like to keep my personal life or personal life, but you have to sacrifice bits of that if you want to do this for a job.
1:09:38 If you’re at number one you, you can, if you, you become public property and we lose, you lose what bits of your private life you had left and done that, done that for a large portion of my life and I think anymore. Have you ever just checked out for like six months or a year? I haven’t, I don’t know why I haven’t, I know if it’s telling my, okay, I’ve just never gotten down to it, there’s always been, oh, this always been, no, I took every time I just always get offered something really exciting.
1:10:31 Yeah, every time I’ve sort of thought about booking gigs and someone often offers some other project and I think my gig, so I can do this. Yeah, I mean, I’ve always got stuff lined up, only one day the phone stopped ringing and I kind of figure I’ve the lot about the last five or six summers I’ve worked quite hard doing all the festivals and, and ether and everything, you always do past and very early and I always do Glastonbury every year and a few times remembers my family when they’ve seen me, you know, I soaked it quite ragged, but sometimes by the end of the summer they’re like, you know, why during this time, like all our tears and my, my testimonial. Yeah, you know, this this won’t be here forever, right?
1:11:17 I’m, as I said, in my mid 80s and you know, that one day the phone will stop ringing, so I’ve got to make be, hey, well or sunshine, the other one I love doing this and I’m squeezing every last inch and, and your money, you know, brought my family, you know, and everything, and I figure they always go, yeah, you’ve been saying that for seven years. One more, yeah, he just squeeze one more year, so, but as every year goes on, no, I think I think nowadays if I took six months off it would be really hard for me to come back if beery, I would have lost the momentum with, with, with your crowds. Okay, and with, with music and, you know, okay, I wouldn’t be competing with the other DJs, I feel like in behind and, and I think I’m, you know, I might not have the same power and, yeah, driving.
1:12:12 Yeah, I’ve got the momentum, right? No, I’m mentally he’s slightly waning and I think if I switch it off for six months I, it’d be hard to ever get it back up to where it was. Okay, so you got to keep your finger on the pulse, you got a stick. Yeah, I mean, I figure I feel hungry, right? Yeah, I like also if I figure my career will hopefully naturally just take her off, you know, I don’t want it, I don’t know guitar and come and come back, I don’t know, suddenly find that home I’m, you know, completely redundant.
1:12:41 I’d, I’m quite happy with the idea I just do less and less as I get older and, and I have to do less than this year because this year kind of hurt physically, if you saw me three weeks ago I was, you know, I was really tired, all the gigs you’re doing. Yeah, everything. You know, I was asked, I like to ask people a couple questions at the end and one is, um, you know, if you could, if you could pick up a phone and make a call to the 20 year old, you know, what would you tell that, that kid at 20?
1:13:16 What he, and he had already moved to Brighton by then. Yep, yeah, okay. I’ll tell him, yeah, go for the music business, definitely. Yeah, you want sure? Yet I was, well, I was at college, I was at college and I, I’d always wanted to be in, do music since I was about eight, but I figured I, if I got a degree then I could throw myself a wholeheartedly name into it, knowing that the chances of it working for so slim, I’d have something to fall back on so I wouldn’t starve.
1:13:44 So I gave myself, when I finished college, had games for five years and I said to my mum, I’ll go guffy me, this is, if in five years’ time and I’ve still stuff, then I’ll get a proper job. So I would have, I would have said, yeah, go for the music, this is, I mean, maybe would have said, yeah, don’t bother ecology, you, you are, you’re gonna make it in the music business. Ah, I think what I would have said is try and remember more of it. Try, try, didn’t, try and stop and enjoy it.
1:14:16 It’s what I always say to people when they’re getting married, the day just rushes past so quickly and you’re always entertaining everybody else and, you know, doing anything and when, when I got, when I got married, me and my wife, some, somebody told us this and they said, at one point just the two, you just walk off away from wedding and somewhere where we can maybe see it from up the hill, I just sit there and just take a little mental snapshot of how you feel, and then because otherwise the day will just go, and especially if you’re drinking, you know, excited, oh it’s a great wedding, I think, you know, it’s just flew by. But yeah, I would have, I would have said stop and take more mental snapshots so you, so you remember. There were times when I did it, I mean, this, you know, the certain gigs where I’ve just stopped, walked away from the deck, so I just stood there, I just looked at the crowd, I just understand what Brazil, yeah, did there, yeah, and just thought, I’m trying to take a mental snapshot now, I would actually take a physical one, yeah, I just take advantage of how it feels to be looking at this beautiful spectacle of all these people having fun and, you know, and, and just try and remember it, cuz, yeah, people, people to talk about me writing my memoirs and I’m like, I don’t have to tell them then with a good piece.
1:15:44 Yeah, you’re on that, on that same note, what’s, what’s the best advice you’ve ever received, maybe something from a parrot or another DJ, or never go swimming with bow-legged women? I still don’t know what it means, but I’ve lived by that. Man, sure, and a salut, certainly, well, I’ve never heard that one before. And then last thing, you know, to a 20 year old that’s out there, may be watching us or listening to us who wants to become a DJ, you know, do it, do it, do it, do it if you can become a DJ, it’s the best job in the world.
1:16:18 You’ll have a few knock backs on the way, but get but if you can, yeah, you can do if you can crack it, it’s the best job in the world, and advice is be with the crowd, the voice says don’t do what everybody else does because it’s really hard to get noticed, find your own stick that no one else does and makes you a lot easier and always make it at that pain, if tension with the crowd, it’s not about you, it’s not about you and your ego or your equipment, it’s about how you can make overcrowd and whether you make a good partner. Awesome, thanks so much, I saw it really nice to touch it.
