Chemical Brothers Keep Their Fingers On The Button
Thursday December 23, 2004 @ 04:00 PM
By: ChartAttack.com Staff
The Chemical Brothers
The Chemical Brothers may be the only band from the golden age of electronica to attain rock star status, but when it comes to moving a crowd, they still think like DJs. While many in the guitar-bass-drums set struggle to simply recreate their recorded work onstage, the block-rockin' Brits look at live gigs as a chance to blow their own tunes to pieces.
"In the studio, you're so concerned about arriving at the definitive version of the song," says the affable Tom Rowlands, "whereas when you're playing live, you're looking for a different way of doing it. The most important thing is the feeling. When you feel the hair stand up on the back of your neck and you know that everyone is experiencing the same thing at the same time, it's magical."
Sadly, North American fans will have to wait a while to experience any of this magic first-hand ? the band don't have any tour dates scheduled on this side of the ocean in the first quarter of 2005. But when they do hit the road again, the Brothers will be laying waste to a brand-new batch of tracks from Push The Button. The album, the duo's fifth, hits stores on January 25.
The Chemical Brothers have always defied the conventions of dance music, mixing generous doses of funk, rock, hip-hop and pop into their work since they broke through with 1995's Leave Home. Even by their standards, though, Push The Button is an eclectic song cycle, ranging from pounding club beats to warm, melodic ballads. Rowlands says that he and partner Ed Simons didn't set out with the conscious goal of tackling any specific genres.
"When Dig Your Own Hole came out [in 1997] people were surprised there was no drum 'n' bass influence, because that was what was really big in London at the time," says Rowlands. "People assume that's how electronic artists work ? that they take the thing they heard in the club the other night and put it on their record. But that's not really how we work."
Rowlands contends the only agenda the Brothers had was to make a record with some emotional heft.
"Something we definitely wanted to do was make sure each song was very direct," he says. "We wanted to make sure they all had a purpose or a point or a feeling that connected with people."
Fans will soon be able to decide whether the Chemical Brothers' latest record pushes their buttons, but Rowlands believes that he and Simons have accomplished their mission.
"It just sounds fresh to us," he says, "It feels good to be making our fifth album and being excited and surprised. If we didn't feel that way, we should give up."
?Matt Semansky
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