You’ve come a long way Mr Cook, you’ve come a long way indeed. Norman Cook, aka Fatboy Slim, is heading down under this new years for a couple of shows in Sydney and Melbourne after another European summer of firsts. But as ITM’s Nojman discovered recently in conversation with the Brighton based DJ, it’s perhaps the changes beyond the turntables that may turn the most heads.
With a scheduled interview early in the morning Oz time, the logical conclusion seemed to be that life doesn’t begin until the witching hour in the UK for this seasoned night owl. But it turns out he’d just wanted to get a few more important things out of the way first. “I’m watching the last ever episode of Six Feet Under with my wife, which I thought ended at 11 but it turned out to be a feature length one. So my wife’s in floods of tears. I’m trying to second guess who’s going to die next.” Cook explains down the phone line.
TV aside, producing a movie soundtrack with a group of Cuban musicians in Havana and his well publicised musical about Imelda Marcos with former Talking Heads front man David Byrne are just two of Cook’s latest ventures. It seems that there is just one aim when it comes to making music at the moment. “There’s only so much Fatboy Slim you can cope with. I’m just flexing some different muscles…we’ve just worked out it’s been ten years so we’re doing a Greatest Hits and I can take a year off.”
If there’s one thing Cook seems to hate, it’s the idea of repeating himself. Whilst admitting that his 2004 album Palookaville wasn’t everything it could have been, he remembers the making of the album, the first Fatboy affair with live instrumentation, as a satisfying one. ” I’m not sure where at the end of the day it wasn’t a little self indulgent. Cause, I think I’m better working with computers and samples rather than real musicians. But I think I’ve earned the right to sort of experiment. Basically it was a desire not to repeat myself. I’d never done a third album before, let alone a fourth. You try and set yourself different goals to stop yourself repeating yourself. It could have been the difficult gospel album or something like that. It kind of grew out of working with Blur and not having worked with a live band for a long time and then working with one of the most talented and creative live bands around.”
The same could be said for Cook’s DJ performances. The motivations are still the same but the production and scale of his gigs continue to grow. “The same thing has always inspired me, the love of seeing people smiling and shaking their hips. It doesn’t matter how you achieve that, as long as you do. Recently I’ve been playing bigger gigs; less gigs to more people, which kind of means you have to be a little bit more conservative and maybe not as eclectic as I used to be. But we’ve got this new stage show with LED screens. It all came from Glastonbury at the start of summer. Basically they didn’t have a big dance tent, I had to headline on the main stage, a bloke with two decks and a table. We put some more production into it and everyone really liked it. The show’s less club and more festival. Orbital has split up so I’m kinda filling the gap.”
But Cook concedes that it took him a while to accept such a main stage billing. “I didn’t want to be on the main stage for fear of it not working and always thinking, having played in bands on main stages, that DJs don’t deserve that, you can’t get atmosphere outdoors. My theory is that if it’s pissing with rain you’ll stand in a muddy field and watch your favourite band, but you probably won’t try and stand in the muddy field and dance to your favourite DJ. However I capitulated a few times on it and this year played at Roskilde in Denmmark and actually played at 1am to a load of soaking wet people in mud and they still had fun. So I’ve been won over. But I’ve always thought that I belong in the tent or the club rather than the main stage.”
Read a little about Cook and spend a few minutes on the phone with him and there’s one thing that’s immediately obvious. He has a very self-effacing manner and isn’t one to big note himself or continually blow his own trumpet. It’s something that Cook attributes to his upbringing and believes is necessary when stepping up in front of the huge crowds he’s had to entertain. “When you are going into unchartered territory of where a DJ can go then if you’re really arrogant and stand there expecting people to adore you then it can turn around and really bite you right up the ass. So I think if you go in there self-effacing thinking “let’s see if this works” then pride can’t come before fall.”
When it comes to playing for a crowd of people Cook readily admits he’s not the most technically inclined, agreeing about the dangers of getting bogged down in the mix at the sacrifice of entertainment. “You can start to lose sight of the fact that it’s all about a party. The best DJs are the ones always looking up at the crowd, not getting bogged down by technology. One of my own trumpets that I do blow is that the reason I get away with more is that I’m thinking about show boating and making a good show rather than getting bogged down with technical detail. I think that’s one reason why I get away with playing bigger shows, cause it’s all about the party not the DJ.
Fatboy Slim is playing at Bondi Beach on New Years Eve and Summadayze in Melbourne on New Years Day. In 2002 when throwing a shindig on his local Brighton Beach, 250,000 people showed up for the free party. It’s a far more intimate affair this time around with both events well and truly sold it, those in possession guard those tickets tightly! For those who missed out you’ll have to be content with the specially released mix CD to coincide with the tour New Years Eve 06. It’s available now through Shock Records.
For those around the country wondering why Cook isn’t staying longer for a further reaching national tour, blame the British school system. Cook claims he’d have loved to bring his wife and son down under and extended the tour into a family holiday. “But my son has also just started school and you’re only allowed to take him out of school for ten days and then you start getting fined by the Government. I never realised that. So everything now has to revolve around half terms and easter holidays.” You’ve come a long way Mr Cook indeed.
Fatboy Slim plays Shore Thing at Bondi Beach in Sydney on New Years Eve (SOLD OUT) and then Summadayze in Melbourne on New Years Day (BUY TICKETS). ‘Fatboy Slim – Bondi Beach NYE 06’ the mix CD is out soon through Shock.
