Fatboy Slim: ‘We converted the indie kids into rave monkeys – and it felt good’ | Fatboy Slim

Most artists wrestle with the “difficult” second album. Not eager to sound big-headed, however this was not the case for me. The early success, particularly of tunes reminiscent of Going Out of My Head and Everybody Needs a 303, had crystalised in my thoughts the place all of this was going. I knew what was turning folks on and had kinda cracked the system of how the following album ought to sound. The system was: breakbeats from my love of hip-hop, the anarchic insurrection of punk, the power of acid home and hooks from the pop music I grew up on. I had all of the thrift retailer samples constructed right into a library for audio collage, and a membership to take a look at out new tunes.

This new motion in music up to now had no title to pigeonhole it. We, and journalists, tried varied choices reminiscent of tripno, Brit hop, and amyl home, however the title that it landed with got here from my membership – the Big Beat Boutique. We felt an unlimited collective satisfaction in that. House music was named after the Warehouse Club in Chicago, storage music was named after the Paradise Garage in New York, and now massive beat was named after our evening at slightly scout hut in Brighton.

Our fashion of music was crossing over to the mainstream, which tickled me no finish. Someone wrote: “Fatboy makes dance music for people who don’t like dance music.” I took it as an enormous praise. The Prodigy, the Chemical Brothers, Basement Jaxx and Groove Armada had been changing the rock and indie youngsters into rave monkeys, and it felt good. The dancefloor was for all.

The recording of my second album, You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby, was fast and nearly easy. In one week alone I wrote Praise You, Right Here, Right Now and Fucking in Heaven.

The album was launched in October 1998, and fortunately was met with glorious evaluations and outrageous gross sales. We knew it was good, and that there was momentum and pleasure within the air, however we had no idea of how far it was going: a decade after showing within the Housemartins, I used to be about to be a pop star once more! With success comes movie star, not one thing I had skilled earlier than to this extent, and never one thing that sat nicely with me. But with a tumbler of vodka in my hand I ploughed my manner by means of.

A knock-on impact of the rise in reputation was that gigs had been beginning to get greater. As nicely as nightclubs, I was now taking part in greater venues and being invited to play a number of the festivals. Plenty of these gigs had not been executed by DJs earlier than, solely bands and singers. Large phases seemed a bit sparse with one bloke, a desk and a couple of document gamers the place usually a band’s expansive backline can be. I needed to comply with Foo Fighters at T within the Park one time, they usually had placed on a balls-out rock’n’roll present, which had the gang tremendous hyped. When all their tools was rolled off, the 30ft stroll to my desk appeared an awfully great distance. Before beginning on it, Garry [Blackburn, manager] had requested: “How are you gonna follow that?” Somewhere alongside that stroll I morphed into Captain Showboat, a form of cross between Mick Jagger and Liberace. The crowd lapped it up, and my stage persona was born.

It Ain’t Over… ’Til the Fatboy Sings by Norman Cook, revealed by Rocket 88, is out now.

Right right here, proper now: pictures from It Ain’t Over… ’Til the Fatboy Sings

Brighton seaside exhibits (principal picture)
In 2002, over 250,000 folks descended on Brighton for the second Big Beach Boutique, a free Fatboy Slim present that shut down town. Cook ended up paying £30,000 in the direction of an emergency seaside clear workforce, noting the “whole seafront stank of piss for weeks”.

Norman in his first band
Formed at Reigate sixth kind faculty, Cook’s first band, the “fairly pretentious” Disque Attack, had been influenced by Manchester post-punks Magazine and Joy Division.

The Housemartins
While at school, Cook met “a charismatic mod” known as Paul Heaton and the pair fashioned a band, the Stomping Pond Frogs. They would later reconnect when Heaton fashioned the Housemartins, with Cook taking part in bass. The four-piece, who topped the charts with their model of Caravan of Love, cut up in 1988 after two albums.

Beats International
A 12 months later, Cook fashioned dance and hip-hop collective Beats International, who scored a No 1 single in 1990 with Dub Be Good to Me. As nicely as rappers, singers and keyboardists, the reside lineup additionally included a graffiti artist.

Fatboy Slim document field
By 1995, Cook had develop into Fatboy Slim and moved to Brighton. There he launched the Big Beat Boutique evening, fusing northern soul, hip-hop, home and breakbeats. This is Cook’s battered document field. Having donated it to a charity public sale 20 years in the past, it was purchased by his supervisor at one other public sale and reunited with Cook: “I’m thankful it’s now back in my life.”

Nicole Kidman within the combine
In 2001, having labored on the soundtrack to Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge, Cook was invited to DJ on the world premiere on the Cannes Film pageant. During his set, the movie’s star, Nicole Kidman, requested Cook to indicate her easy methods to DJ: “It was quite a surreal moment, marred only by her being appalled at how sweaty my headphones were.”

Gold figurine
The paintings for You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby was became this statue for a 2006 better of. The unique picture was taken on the 1983 Fat People’s pageant and noticed by Cook within the Guardian. Its topic is but to be efficiently tracked down.

Doing the ironing
An unassuming Norman Cook does his chores surrounded by gold and platinum discs for his manufacturing and remix work. But his largest accolade will not be musical: “Whenever anybody asks me what was your proudest moment in 40 years in showbiz, I always say having a dildo named after me.”