Norman Cook - aka Fatboy Slim - is probably the world’s most famous DJ so no need for much of an introduction. Despite his wealth and fame, he’s managed to keep a good handle on reality, and here offers some perceptive insights on superstar-DJ-hood. This was by phone, with the Fatboy in his Slim underwear.

 

Can I fire right away with the questions, or do you need to put some special trousers on?

No, I’m not wearing any trousers.

Perhaps you should put some on.

No, I like to do interviews commando style.

Okay. Did you feel aggrieved at the reaction from some quarters when you went from the Housemartins to dance music?

Not at all. I think I proved my mettle by having been a professional DJ playing dance music for three years before the Housemartins. There was a film that the BBC did...

Where you played the Clash breaks?

Yeah, and everyone who was into dance music was like, “Oh yeah, you’re the one in the Housemartins who was doing dance music before the rest of us”. I don’t think anyone... there were only a couple of journalists who didn’t realise I’d done dance music before... ever really made much of a deal about it. My conscience is clear on that one. Besides there wasn’t much of a bandwagon to get on when I got on it.

How does being a DJ affect what you do in the studio?

When you’re making out and out dance music it helps because when you’re DJing you spend untold hours just standing watching people dance. And you kind of begin to realise which bits of a record people react to and which bits get ‘em going. So when I’m in the studio, I think back to the night before and what kind of things worked with dancers.

What do you learn from DJing?

That goes back to the previous question. You just learn what makes people dance. It doesn’t necessarily mean you make great pop music, but if your music’s aimed straight at the dancefloor it gives you a head start on everybody else. Also, it gives you a chance to try your tunes out.

What’s the secret of your success?

Dogged determination in the face of thinking I was too old for it. Living the life 100%. There’s tons of people who, when they get older, stop going to clubs. And if you stop going to clubs, you stop making club music really. You can make interesting noodly stuff, but you’ve got to be out there every weekend to make pure dance music. Putting in those late night hours.

How do you go about making great records?

Again, it’s similar to the other one. Just faff about for ages until it sounds good. And remember how you felt when you put a tune on and it rocked the crowd; or a groove that the crowd just totally got into when they’ve never heard the record before.

Does that translate into the big commercial pop successes you’ve had?

No, that’s kind of a case of just throwing lots of stuff at the ceiling and seeing what sticks. I just do tons of tunes that are aimed at the dancefloor, and every now and the one of them fits on the radio and the charts. I have tried to make pop records, but they’re always appalling. All the Fatboy records are just made for the Big Beat Boutique. It’s just lucky that the taste of the crowd there is the same as Radio One programmers. That catapults you into a different arena.

How do you come across the samples for the records. How do you make them fit together so well?

Trial and error. Getting tons of stuff together by going to record fairs, car boot sales, cheap old rubbish. Then getting bits you think might work as a hook. I just have them all on disk and I just try them out until I find ones that work with each other.

What records do you look for when you’re searching; what are the things you look for?

Yeah. Hair styles and beards on a band. If they’ve got long hair and beards, and look like they smoke pot they’re likely to make better records.

Like Black Oak Arkansas?

Yeah. Especially those big bands with eight of them in; half white half black and they look like they all take acid.

Like Tower of Power?

Yeah. Secondly, the more obscure the better because you have to pay less for the samples [laughs]. Year’s quite important too. 1970-1975, those are the best times, because before that the drum sounds weren’t very tight. And then after 1977 because disco came in and everything went shit.

What technical aspects do you apply when you make these records? What’s the process?

There is no process really, it’s just... I dunno, you just sit there for hours making weird noises until you find something that turns you on. I normally start with the rhythm track. Then the hook. Then I see what else is missing.

What differences are there in the business when you came out of the Housemartins, to now?

The first thing I noticed was that DJs could play outside of the town they lived in. Because when I started there was no way you’d ever play in another town because the wages you were getting paid wouldn’t even cover your train fare. The elevation of the DJ is like the new pop star. And pulling people, which meant you got laid more. And people at the other end of the country had heard of you. When I started DJing, the DJ was just below glass collector in order of importance in a night-club. You were just the bloke who stood in the corner and put records on. Over the years the DJ got more and more important...

 

I dunno, in those days all there was was James Hamilton’s column in Record Mirror and that was our only network of finding out what anybody else was doing. But no-one was making records and there weren’t any stars really, apart from Froggy and Chris Hill. Then when I came back to DJing, it was like, “God, you can play in London, you can play up North”. Mixmag had stopped being a magazine that focussed on wet t-shirt contests sponsored by Malibu UK, so everybody started finding out what other DJs were doing. I dunnno... I suppose it’s the elevation of the DJ from being the janitor in the club to being the star and the person who pulled the crowds.

A lot of the stuff you do is hip hop influenced. What impact did that make on you originally?

That was when I first started going to clubs, when I was 17, and I used to go to a club called Sherry’s in Brighton on a Wednesday, which was the big new romantic night. And in amongst the Human League, Blancmange and Depeche Mode, they’d drop like these other weird tracks. And I remember hearing Planet Rock when it first came out. And it was like, wow, it’s like that and it’s funky and whoah! As I started DJing in clubs, so electro and hip hop were the big forces. So my roots in DJing were that music, which is probably why I keep coming back to it.

Is that what made you want to become a DJ?

No I was already a DJ from when I was 15. When I started I was playing punk and new wave and two-tone, and then new romantic electronic stuff. But that was when I first getting paid for it. Before that I was just doing weddings, funerals and bar mitzvahs.

When you started making dance records, did you have any idea where it would go as a career?

None. I thought it was a flash in the pan, like skateboarding, and we’d get away with it for a year...

And then you’d be back flipping burgers?

Yeah, right, back to working in the record shop.

What is the buzz personally for you as a DJ?

Making people dance and watching them all having a good time. And you having a good time, too. On a bad night, it’s the loneliest thing in the world. You’re standing there with a load of people you don’t know, sometimes playing records you don’t like very much and all your mates are somewhere else and you’re thinking ‘ oh my god, this is horrible’. And on a good night, you’re in the middle of a crowd of people, a lot of whom are your mates, and you’re having fun. And you’re the centre of the party. And you’re making them dance. And getting paid to play your favourite records. What a way to make a living, eh? And then, when you’re playing your own records and they’re dancing... That’s when you start having orgasms.

Do crowds react differently to you because you’re a pop star?

I think nowadays they do, yeah.

In what way?

I’ve kind of avoided being a pop star for ages and I was known on the dance scene, but people wouldn’t travel to see me or anything and when we started the Boutique it was funny... and then, I dunno, at the time I emerged as the crowd pleaser out of them, but at the same time people started coming down to the club because they’ve heard of me. But obviously, in the last six months, it’s got really silly [sniggers].

How has it got silly?

People going bonkers from the moment I walk on rather than me earning it. You hope you’re worthy of it. Nowadays some people not even putting me on the flyer because too many people would turn up. If there’s a club that’s full already, then I’m on sometimes they just don’t advertise me because it wouldn’t be fair on the people who couldn’t get in. [Laughs]. I’m serious! I’m like you bastard, why haven’t you put me on the flyer? Oh, we couldn’t take the roadblock.

Where has this happened?

A couple of times at the Boutique where everyone knew what the buzz was about the Boutique. We’d been rammed and the queue’s famous. And we were like, “Oh we can’t tell them...” I can’t tell you where it’s happened, because it would give the game away.

Why do you think DJing leads naturally into production?

I dunno. Well, because most DJs become DJs because they love the music and if you love the music, you feel you have some of it in you waiting to come out. You’re playing tracks that are really simple. You think this is just a couple of samples and a drum machine, I bet I could probably do that. And invariably, you can.

What’s the craziest thing that’s happened to you, in terms of adulation, sex, drugs, rock’n’roll?

Not much sex. The amount of girls that show you their tits is quite bizarre.

You mean, oh look, here’s one?

No two normally. Unless they’ve had a mastectomy. I mean, I don’t look that hard but they always tend to come in pairs. People take their clothes off, too. In Japan, in Tokyo once, this bloke climbed on the speaker stack. He looked like Jimi Hendrix. I played Crosstown Traffic, and he just took all of his clothes off and danced the whole thing with his clothes off, much to the amusement of the other Japanese people.

Did he have an air guitar?

No, but his penis was almost big enough. [Laughter]. No, I remember, the most ludicrous things have always happened at Manumission. People hanging upside down from the lighting rig with no clothes on. There’s a bloke who always carries cardboard cut-out elephants. I remember at one point having a fight with my cardboard cut-out elephant, and he had a cardboard cut-out Darth Vader. And we were having a fight on the dancefloor and this girl, who didn’t even know us, came to break it up and she was going, ‘now come on, stop, he’s not worth it. And you, Nelly, just go and stand over there and leave it out’.

Do you think you earn your fee?

Er, no. I’m worth some money, and I’ve put in the years and paid my dues, but sometimes the money I get paid I think, ‘Fuck, this is just stupid’ If there’s a DJ getting paid £50 and I’m getting paid five grand, I couldn’t say I was a hundred times better. I could say I was better than him. I might even say I was twice as good as him, but there’s no way that I’m a hundred times better than him.

Sasha once told me he was turning down gigs because he didn’t want to do them, but promoters were coming back and offering even more money, despite the fact that the money wasn’t an issue.

I’m getting a lot of that at the moment, especially New Year’s Eve. I said I didn’t wanna do New Year’s Eve, because I normally do one on one off. I just done two on because I got made an offer I couldn’t refuse last year, so I said to everyone look I’m not playing this year. So they’ve said, ‘Okay, we’ll double the money’ ‘No, I just don’t wanna play, I wanna stay at home with my mates.’ And then they double it again, and it just gets to the point where it’s like, I’ve gotta take it. I could take all my mates on holiday for two weeks and pretend it’s New Year’s Eve.

 

You see, especially if you’re an artist as well, you don’t wanna play every single weekend, hacking up and down the M1. I’m famously very lazy for travelling, too. A lot of people think you’re just holding out for the right price, when in fact I just want some peace and quiet. And it’s horrible when they then offer you so much money that you have to do it, because you feel terrible that you’re really greedy and that’s why you said no, when what you wanted to do was to be left alone and not be offered so much money. But they finally found what your price was. Because everybody does have a price.

Are DJs worthy of superstar status, or is it good marketing?

If they pull the crowds, and the crowds have fun, yeah. If they get away with it, they must be worth it. Promoters aren’t stupid. Promoters aren’t running an ageing DJ charity. They’re paying you that money because they know they’ll make more. And they’re making because you’re attracting crowds and entertaining them.

How does the punk ethos come into what you do?

The DIY attitude. An irreverence to the rules, like you can make a record that’s really repetitive and isn’t very musical and was made at home in your bedroom and doesn’t have chords, drummers, singers, or anyone who can read a musical note. That, and just enjoying a little bit naughty, winding people up. “Oh, you’re one of those club people aren’t you?"

Do you think house has opened up the democracy that punk spoke of but didn’t deliver?

No, I think it’s post-punk. Nothing could out-punk punk. If punk was just 50 people ripping their shirts, then house has failed miserably at being punk. Punk was about freedom. It’s freed up the thing about 8 minute guitar solos, superstars are worshipped by millions. You’re right, it is very democratic. But house has carved its own niche. It’s got its own language, its own uniform, its own set of parameters. But it’s definitely not punk’s parameters.

What do you think the difference is?

More based on hedonism and less on rebellion.

Do you think that’s its own form of rebellion?

No I just think it comes with the territory. I don’t think people are getting off their nuts because they like people thinking they’re drug-crazed lunatics; they just like getting off their nuts. And the fact that it winds people up that they do, and that they’re having an exceptionally good time doing it, and they don’t beat each other up and... That’s one the problems with punk, the press latched on to the violent aspect of it and how everyone was gobbing all over each other. At least house has got a more positive image of a load of people getting all loved-up together and hugging each other.

Do you consider the DJ an artist nowadays?

I think some are [snickers]..Not necessarily though. A lot of my favourite DJs are consummate artists, but there are...I dunno. I think the decks or a sampler give you the same potential as an electric guitar to entertain you, or completely bore you. And in the right hands, a pair of turntables... it’s music to my ears. And in the wrong hands, it can be horrible. A lot of DJs put a lot into it, and treat it as an art. And then other ones don’t... and are better [more snickers].

Why?

The law of averages. Some people can do a masterpiece after labouring for 20 years on it, and some people, their best work comes off the cuff. And some people do their best DJ set by thinking about it and planning it. And other people, the best way they can plan is to get absolutely twatted before they start and be hanging on by a thread. I’ve seen some great sets by people who couldn’t actually stand up, but they could DJ like an angel.

What makes a good DJ or bad DJ?

For me, it’s whether they look up or not while they’re playing. A good DJ is always looking at the crowd, seeing what they’re like, seeing whether it’s working; communicating with them. Smiling at them. And a bad DJ is always looking down at what they’re doing all the time and just doing their thing that they practised in their bedroom. Doing regardless of whether the crowd are enjoying it or not. Communication. It’s whether they’re communicating to the crowd and whether they’re receiving the communication back from the crowd.

Do you think there’s a correlation between ego and communion when you think of bad DJs?

Yeah, well not even ego because some DJs that are looking up can have much bigger egos and probably deserve to have bigger egos. But it’s more about communication than communion.

What you have you learnt from DJing?

That I prefer it to playing in a band.

Why?

I feel more comfortable. It’s more me. I spent ten years trying to pretend I was a guitarist or bassist and all the time I was a closet DJ living in denial.

What have you learnt about music from DJing?

Not to take it too seriously. And not to ever think that dance music anything more than the soundtrack to people having fun on a Friday and Saturday night. People put it on a pedestal and if you look at where intelligent drum and bass has gone, it’s very easy to go up your own arse. To think, just because all of these people love what you’re doing, that it’s actually some form of art. It isn’t. It’s just a form of entertainment.

You don’t think it’s art at all?

I see it as the art of entertainment. But if you ever stop being entertaining, then you quickly realise that there’s nothing artful about that. And you normally get a hefty slap on the face from everybody else.

Why do you think dance music has become so international?

Less lyrics. French people can finally make music that English people like because we don’t get put off by the fact that it’s not in our language. And other countries can listen to English music without being put off by the fact that they’ve got no idea what we’re on about. It’s more instrumental. You don’t have to speak a language to get it. If there’s a hookline, you can just mime along to it, you don’t have to know what the story of the song is. It’s like the opposite of folk music, where it’s just telling you a story. Imagine a load of Puerto Rican people sat down listening to English folk music; if they don’t know what the song’s about, they’re missing 90% of it.

Where do you see dance music going next?

Evolving, just like it’s always done. When one field gets a bit boring something else surges a bit. Constantly kind of looking back to the past and recycling.

How do you see yourself in marketing terms as Fatboy Slim. Are majors taking people like you and putting their rock template on it?

It’s trying. I have this constant battle and the more popular it becomes, the more ... It’s nice that you’re promoting me and we’re selling albums, but let’s not forget that this is what I do. They’re always trying to make me put a band together and play as a band. Bands on tour. I got offered to do Letterman and Saturday Night Live, which is a lovely idea, but what would I do? Er, I’m a DJ and it takes two hours to DJ. You can’t do it in three minutes. I’ve had to turn TV shows down because what a DJ does, doesn’t work in that environment. We’ve just done a show at the Hollywood Palladium. Four and a half thousand. Me DJing in the middle of the stage, and we put lights in and tons of production. But that for me, was about the limit of how far we could take DJing. You can’t get through to more people in a room than that. Even with two turntables and waving your arms around a bit. Whereas with a rock band they can put on this big show, drum riser, you know. I’ve got to the point now where in America, I’m like, ‘Look this is as far as we can take it’ Where it’s still dance music, and I don’t wanna cross over and be a rock act. I don’t wanna play in a band. I don’t wanna tour.

Do you think they’re a little bit blind to the fact that you DJing in a big venue is as good a promotion as Nirvana doing a gig?

No, they know that and it’s worked. We’re shipping units, as they say. But that’s as far as I can take it with the DJing.

Do you think the pressure on them is because they don’t understand dance music, so they try and make you adhere to the template they have developed for selling rock albums?

Mmm. Yeah, probably. But it’s the lure of the dollars, because they’ve finally found a few dance acts that can sell. You know, me and Tom and Ed, and the Prodigy, where you can sell albums at least and make decent money. They don’t know – and we don’t know – how far we can take it in the rock field. I’ve just had a gold album in America and I’m like fuck, I’ve never had a gold album in 14 years! I’m really chuffed, but they’re like, ‘No, we can make this platinum!’ Whereas I’m quite happy with gold – I think it’s miracle quite frankly – dollar signs start flashing in their eyes. They want me to play at Woodstock this summer. I said, Interesting idea, but it’s got to be in a tent. And they’re like No, we can get you on the main stage at Woodstock. I’m like imagine me, sitting there playing other people’s records at Woodstock and all the people getting it. If you do a tent, so it feels like a club maybe we can go somewhere. It’s just uncharted territory, because dance music’s never sold albums before. I think the Prodigy, Underworld and Tom and Ed have opened this new door for dance music and it’s great because it’s opened the doors for everyone else and it means major labels will plough money into developing dance acts, whereas before they’d be happy licensing the odd 12-inch here and there, but they’d never see them as serious acts and give them serious advances.

Who do you think those people you’ve mentioned have been selling albums in America?

There’s a little element of rock’n’roll in all of us, I think. We’re not just studio boffins, we’re kind of caning rock’n’roll animals that Rolling Stone and Spin can write stories about. We’ve all had brushes with rock music. There’s a couple of guitars in there and that’s all the Americans needed to latch on to!

Do you think they need to push it as far away from disco as possible because it’s black and homo and bad?

Yeah, it definitely is. When me and Tom and Ed get on the radio we’re always on KROQ, played against Nirvana and REM. But also, there are no stations that cover dance music so...

Do you think that’s the right place for you to be on?

No, I think the right place for me to be on would be this dance music station that doesn’t exist. There’s an odd show where someone manages to get on on a Saturday night. It’s very strange being taken to interviews in America and they always put the station on in the car on the way there saying, ‘Yeah, so this is the guy you’ll be talking to’ I’m like, ‘Hello? I think we’re going to the wrong place here! Hootie and the Blowfish? I don’t think so!’ I don’t feel very comfortable in the modern rock arena.

Do you think people like you can help break barriers down in America?

Hopefully, yeah. I don’t get called the Band of the Nineties quite as much as I did two years ago. When I used to get to a venue, people say, [adopts American accent] ‘Hey, are you in Fatboy Slim?’ [laughs]

And what’s the answer to that?

No. But do you wanna be?

© DJhistory.com

Interviewed by Bill Brewster & Frank Broughton by phone from Brighton, 9.3.99