?Dance culture?s like it?s always been: the most interesting parts are when DJs or musicians can take different things from different places and splice them together; people like Erol Alkan and Queens of Noise. I?ve never been particularly interested in a night of linear house music, although I do occasionally dip in and out of that.?



Sitting in his West London local, chomping a sausage sandwich, Ed Chemical admits he?s enthused by the mix and mash style of music that?s currently rewiring London?s clubland.



?The more interesting times always happen when all the different things are going on in the same night; Not in a ?we?re mad, eclectic, throw anything down anyhow way?, but put together in a way that when it works it works,? he continues.



?When you hear Erol play, he can really put it together well as can someone like Ewan Pearson or Ivan Smagghe. Quite a few of the old guard? people like X Press 2, have been around for quite a while have also got such a fresh take on music. I don?t find that dance music is in need of saving or there needs to be a new thing happening because if you go out, people will just amaze you with the sets they?re doing,? he says.



He admits his particular irritation with ?dance music is dead? journalists today has been sparked by an unusually personal nasty review in rock weekly NME, though he?s experienced enough to be irritated rather than angry.



?I?d be lying to say it?s water off a duck?s back, that review infuriated me initially, but in another way it?s quite gratifying; that we?re still here and we?re still annoying people,? he chuckles.



?We were shot down and it was vicious, sure, but there?s no way we?re going to let one bad review set our agenda. I thought it was small minded and pretty pathetic really, but it?s just one person?s opinion.?



?But having said that, there are times when you sound so self obsessed going on about this; there are bigger things happening in the world and it?s just a record. Sure, we made it; we?re bound to feel it?s great but we?ve been doing interviews for the last month and everyone?s opening gambit has been ?this is your best record?. The bottom line is, we love our record and we hope people get something out of it too.?



The record he?s referring to is Push The Button, the Chemicals? 5th studio album, which sees the duo embracing a significantly more hip hop tinged direction, topped off (more often than not) with their trademark block rocking beats. A definite return to form, the album is certain to delight their worldwide fanbase while opening single Galvanise has already crossed over to the dance floors of London clubs like Nag Nag Nag and Wasted Youth.



Skrufff (Jonty Skrufff): Push The Button is your fifth album, after what?s been a tumultuous few years for dance music, how easy was it to get started?



Ed Chemical: ?We had a big splurge of ideas after we came back off tour, in fact, it?s never particularly hard for us to just get things working together, the hard part comes with reduction and finding out how we are going to present these ideas. Finding pieces of music and writing the initial framework of the music comes easily and pretty quickly to us; the hard part is the two years of trying to present the ideas in the right way and finding the vocalists and finding little vocal samples. Tom sits down and picks up his guitar for a lot of music on this record, he starts with a little melody or something that works.



But the songs come in so many different ways, there?s no distinct way a Chemical Brothers track starts, but I think the main difference for this record is that the studio is now outside London which means we?re much more focused when we?re working. We had a period of eight years together, writing music in the same room down in Elephant and Castle and now we travel down to Tom?s new space in Sussex. It?s freshened it all up really. I think by the very nature of a fifth record you have to make a very big decision to actually make it in the first place. We weren?t drifting anymore, we were consciously making a fifth record, which was quite a big decision.?



Skrufff: The Big Issue quoted you as describing Galvanise as your most extreme record . . .



Ed Chemical: ?I think that should have said we felt the whole album was more extreme. Within the album you?ve got these really tough, lean, hard pieces of music, interspersed with the most extremely beautiful, melodic music we?ve ever made. It wasn?t particularly Galvanise - I think Galvanise is a tougher record but there?s something pretty fun about it.. Galvanise came about like this: there was literally a CD gathering dust on a studio shelf and we happened to pick it up and that sample kind of jumped out of the box. It?s a Moroccan string sample, we loved it and it immediately sounded like something that we could make a record around. Once we got some drums working with it, and Q Tip was involved, that came about like that. The whole process was long, but the initial spark, that sample that?s clarion call of Galvanise, literally came about because we were lucky picking up a world music CD.?



Skrufff: Did you specifically target Q Tip?



Ed Chemical: ?No. We wanted a strong hip -hop vocal, so we sent it over to a friend in New York who?s pretty connected to a lot of hip hop guys, and Q Tip just came in to hear the music. I don?t know how familiar he was with us, or The Chemical Brothers or our music, he was just up for doing it, purely on the strength of what he heard.

He?s a pretty opened minded guy, his records have gone all over the place, from bizarre electronica to a jazzy album he did recently. He also worked on the REM record, Q Tip is a legend, he?s a hero to us, and just as importantly he could do the job.?



Skrufff: And you?ve also got Kelly from Block Party singing, who is suddenly he?s all over the media . . .



Ed Chemical: ?I live just around the corner from the Rough Trade shop and I?m in there a lot and I heard their EP playing one afternoon and I asked what it was and they gave me a CDR of it. I just like the band. He saw us play in Belgium and he was into what we did so there was a route in from there. It?s just one of those lucky things, being in a record shop when their music was playing before it came out, and just feeling it. I?ve just heard their album and I think it?s brilliant; I really like it. I really liked working with Kelly. We didn?t have a huge amount of time to do the track, he didn?t write a lot of words for us. It was one of those ones, it was right up to the deadline of getting this record down, well, an invisible deadline. But he did the job ? he?s a cool guy. ?



Skrufff: Did you two ever have a heavy metal period?



Ed Chamical: ?I wouldn?t say heavy metal ? no. Maybe the odd AC/DC record, but it?s not a prevelent part of our heritage. We like heavy music and we like guitars but heavy metal we maybe draw the line at.?



Skrufff: How are you prioritizing these days between DJing and playing live?



Ed Chemical: ?The most important thing is the music, it always has been. Everything else just comes from there. It amazes me that we?ve been working together for so long yet this is out fifth album, plus a few b - sides there?s just five hours of Chemical Brothers music in total, which doesn?t seem enough. I just really enjoy making music, that?s the thing we first did together. We DJed early on as well, but playing our tracks when we DJ or presenting this live show obviously wouldn?t happen if we didn?t have this music that we wanted to play. We certainly enjoyed playing live, nothing is a chore really for us, but more and more at the end of everything you?ve got a few blasted memories of playing live and the experience of DJing. Years and years from now, all that will remain will be those five hours of music.?



Skrufff: I talked to Tim Deluxe recently and he told us Underworld are still considered as Gods in about Japan, how are the Chemicals perceived?



Ed Chemical: ?Japan is?we?re equal Gods (chuckling). No we?re not Gods at all. We get a lot of appreciation of what we do in Japan. It?s very gratifying appreciation. People in Japan have got the wisdom and they have also got the madness. They go really crazy when we play, but also there?s quite a detailed appreciation of all the different aspects of what we do. Kate Gibb, who did all of the screen prints of the Surrender album and the singles sleeves, was recently flown over to Japan to do her own exhibition on the strength of people loving the artwork in Japan. People get off on it ? the little details of titles, and they want to understand everything about the music. Spain as well is a big place for us. ?It Began In Africa? was a number one single in Spain, when we come to town people of all ages come out. We played in Bilbao in a kind of town hall a while ago and you could see families in the audience. It was kinda nice - a summer night, a few years ago. We go everywhere, I?m off to Auckland, New Zealand on Monday, and we?re going back through Australia, Japan, pretty much everywhere.?



Skrufff: How much has the whole fame culture changed since you started?



Ed Chemical: ?We?ve never wanted to court being celebrities or be famous in any way. I think that?s a decision that you make, or maybe nobody would have us in that role. We?ve just pretty much kept to ourselves. Tom particularly just lives in the absolute middle of nowhere. I live around here and people nod at me sometimes. If we?re together and we?re carrying record boxes, then people recognize us and that?s about the extent of our fame. I?m not really interested in commenting on the culture of celebrity, but there obviously is that turn that it?s kind of more celebrated being vicious at people. Some of the viciousness is just a bit demented really.?



Skrufff: It?s almost like there?s an envy . . .



Ed Chemical: ?We played at Turnmills on New Years Eve and I just don?t want it to end. I love DJing. There?s a small DJ booth, we had about twenty of our friends crammed in, just trying to shove people out the way to get to a record, and the experience of giving people a good time on New Years Eve that?s still, that?s what it is all about. You don?t want these barriers put in the way, because we?re not really doing anything wrong, there were people that wanted to come and see us, we got paid, and we packed it out for three hours. It seemed like when you?re watching a whole room of people getting off on music, that?s such a gratifying thing. It?s kind of annoying when there?s sniping about something that?s pretty direct and straightforward.?

Jonty Skrufff alway gets the best interviews outta the chems!! i enjoyed this one!! good to see ed digs erol alkan, he certainly a rocking dj!! and whats this about recording at toms pad and getting out of miloco?? and new years eve was rockini in turnmills!!!

Excellent interview - when I first read there were '5 hours of music' I though he meant in terms of new material and not the albums altogether! 8O X-D

I enjoy the modesty. It's nice to hear about people, especially those who have their posters plastered all over London, that aren't really into the celebrity dynamic when it comes to their own lives.



I also love hearing Ed talk about Japan. It sounds like they love to play there so much, and that love is reciprocated. How cool would it be to be at one of those Japan gigs - What I would give to be at a gig in Japan!



I also did not know that most of Push The Button was made at Tom's pad. Sounds like a nice, relaxing change of pace out in the countryside compared to the hustle and bustle of the city.



Oh, and Ed likes sandwiches!

the question about them playing live and djing was a good anser i thought.