I'm just putting the free mp3 intervieuw link here , so that we keep it all togheter...its the one from the thread that mukman openend.



http://www.toazted.n....php?artist=594



it's pretty funny.



And the one Pringled posted there , a video intervieuw



http://realserver.ka...rothers_250k.rm



So that we have everything togheter. So when your bored u can go to this thread and read some intresting stuff mehehe.

radio interview here go to the wednesday show and about 33 minutes in



http://www.bbc.co.uk...ernireland/atl/

dj times interview



http://www.djtimes.c...dex_03_2005.htm

Great interview, Sneaker. Thanks!

Jeanie Escribi�:

I'm just putting the free mp3 intervieuw link here , so that we keep it all togheter...its the one from the thread that mukman openend.



http://www.toazted.n....php?artist=594



it's pretty funny.

Bwahahaa! Ed is so cheeky in this interview! Love it!

I can't believe Tom has 2 kids now. Where once i would have been shattered, i now feel a joy for him that cannot be described in words. Little Tommy kids running around... this world is now a better place :-)



[In my dreams he's still a single 24 year old with long gresy blonde hair.



Take me Tom - i'm yours. *drools*

X-D Chi, you crack me up!

Hahaha i just wanted to say that. Chi your cute hahahaa X-D

quality interview sneaker, love the addition of techie talk bizness - gonna have to check out some of those soft synths now X-D

Hope you all don't mind I've bumped this thread. The following isn't an interview, but the way it's written is kind of cute and includes song titles within the context of the article.



Anyway, enjoy.



Here Comes A Soul Saver

by Pierre Stefanos



You could call them archetypal post-modernists, but The Chemical Brothers are beyond such an obvious classification of their artistic achievements, abilities, or intentions. They may not have been the first DJs to reach cult status, and they won't be the last, but they've done more than made passably interesting music. During the course of the '90s, they changed the very vernacular in which we all speak.



Where do I begin in describing what The Chemical Brothers have truly done to popular culture? Their three studio albums and their countless remixes of other artists' tracks have had such an widespread influence on fashion, music, club culture, and even mainstream advertising, you could say they've created a monster on the verge of being out of control. It doesn't matter if you actively dislike their music, you can't get away from it. Their loops of fury have entered the sub-conscious of society, whether we want it to or not.



Ain't it cool?



Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands have helped to breed the fuck up beats of Death In Vegas guru Richard Fearless, launched Beth Orton's solo career with her haunting turn on "Alive Alone," and with "Three Little Birdies Down Beats," gave everyone from The Crystal Method to Lo-Fidelity Allstars the recipe for American success. Fatboy Slim didn't name his first album Better Living Through Chemistry for nothing. The Chemical Brothers aren't dance purists either. They don't stop the rock influences from taking over, in fact they embrace it. Tim Burgess and Noel Gallagher gave the duo credibility among rockists by making memorable guest appearances. And just as the Brothers have expanded their collaborators' electronic ideas for their own music, Tom and Ed have constantly rethought and altered the sound they patented not so long ago.



Their debut album, Exit Planet Dust, emerged from an elektro-bank of block rockin' beats that cascaded over the heads of the crowds on one too many mornings at their weekly slot at the Heavenly Sunday Social event. The crowds that fled to outdoor parties in the country which started at dusk and finished under the sunshine, underground warehouse parties in London that blasted all night, and clubs from Brighton to Glasgow playing that house/rock/indie/funk megamix found themselves lost in the K-hole, hooked to the Brothers' music. Response was immediate and clear - In Dust we trust said the masses, and the younger siblings of those from the acid house generation found life is sweet when it comes in Chemical form.



Things took off for the Brothers from their opening "Song To The Siren" salvo, but nothing prepared them for the rise of (drum roll please) "electronica." Dig Your Own Hole , as we were told by the powers that be, was to be the first album to give the American rave generation the full impact of big Chemical beats. The industry chose to get up on it, like this was the new rock 'n' roll. It certainly sounded like it. Under the influence of ecstasy soaked psychedelia, it also featured rock's calling cards like hip-shaking moves, crash-bang recklessness, anthemic production values, and other parent-irritating aesthetics. The industry told us not to leave home without it, and for a while, the kids followed their advice - that is, until it became obvious to them that they were being sold a product. Even Tom and Ed knew that the "electronica revolution" was a load of bullshit and never played into it, which is not very rock star-like when you think about it.



The sad part of the whole fiasco is that Dig Your Own Hole is a modern-day symphonic masterpiece. Where their counterparts often make a paint-by-numbers muddle, the Brothers are after a greater picture. Their concept is simple - dance music need not be one-dimensional nor strictly for dance floor consumption. An album becomes more than a collection of mixes, it becomes a melting pot of The Beatles, Daft Punk, and Primal Scream. They'll take anything that sounds great and piece it together in the most unimaginable and twisted way. Surrender could have been the setting sun of big beat, but instead, The Chemical Brothers re-branded their vision and style. They delved into Euro-disco on "Got Glint?" and "Hey Boy Hey Girl." They reprised their "The Private Psychedelic Reel" experiment with Jonathan Donahue on "Dream On." Even the methodical ambient trance of "Asleep From Day" signaled a change in The Chemical charter. This was an album of blatant genius and uncommon creativity; it signaled a long and likely groundbreaking residency in clubs and CD players world-wide.



Just as anyone who has sat in a music appreciation class can tell you, there are lots of world-renown classical compositions that have lasted the test of time because they changed how people heard the music. Similarly, the very fabric of Tom and Ed's sound is so fundamentally appealing, yet so intricately astute and revolutionary, it's no wonder that the "big beat" phenomenon has reached such a wide spread audience. If there is nothing that provides a greater physical and mental release than a night at the club, then The Chemical Brothers are shamans of the soul, preaching to one nation under Chico's groove. To them, the music comes first and it's all about letting people find their religion out on the floor. So pay no mind to those waiting for the big beat to fade away into obscurity; shut up and dance and let forever be as maddeningly free and explosive as The Chemical Brothers' ultrasonic beats.

oh thats so cute....

A new one!



http://www.stubru.be/



Go to ALL AREAS @ ROCKWERCHTER

( if it doesn't load just click in the white )

Scroll down , than click DONDERDAG 29/6 ( Wich should be 30/6) There u will find Chemical Brothers and New Order...Just watch the pics and u'll understand. Click on "luister" under the text to listen to the intervieuw...!

For other artist check :

Vrijdag ( Friday

Zaturday (Saturday

Zondag ( Sunday





It's pretty funny , Tom and Ed try to speak dutch X-D

to make it a bit more clear

Go to VERSLAH ALL AREAS DONDERDAG 29/06



And if u clicked on"LUISTER" and the player didn't work , it says "BROWSER NIET ONDERSTEUND" than click on off the tree top links u can click on.

oak bazook X-D that they are :D

new interview with steve dub engineer of all the chems songs pretty much.

taken from miloco studios website



Steve Dub - Producer & Engineer

Interview with Steve 'Dub' Jones



Via phone, 27 Sept 2005



Intro:



Settle down ladies and gentlemen for the first installment of Milc's interview with Steve 'Dub' Jones. Our in-depth trawl through the inner workings of Miloco's beat-filled almost-resident and persistent purveyor of Chemical Brotherly Madness, Minty Royale Clors and Alabama-soaked Truelove...



A month at Miloco rarely slips by without a visit or two from our favourite (alleged) speaker-mauler. So hunker on down and discover the teenage meanderings, apprenticeships and realisations that transformed the humble 'Steve Jones' into the mighty 'Steve Dub'...



Interview:



MILC: You've recently been in Miloco with Madness [for their latest album The Dangermen Sessions, Volume 1]. What was it like working with the Nutty Boys?



STEVE DUB: Oh it was interesting. We picked up the project after they'd already done a lot of the recording. They were making this covers album of old Jamaican classics. They're all such precious recordings for them to be attempting that a lot of people weren't sure that they should, but they were full steam ahead: 'No, we're going to do such and such' - and brilliantly so - and put their own identity on it.



MILC: I read that Woody [Daniel Woodgate] said they'd recorded it 'old school' and then you'd mixed it 'new school' - would you agree?



STEVE DUB: Yeah, yeah, it was that kind of thing. I produced it with a guy called Seggs and we gave them the luxury of hiring in lots of nice old keyboards and things. We worked up in The Toyshop & spent a lot of time with Mike [Benson] getting his keyboard sounds, trying to capture some of the Studio One vibe if we could, which is a hard thing to do, so we hired in some interesting keyboards. An old Vox Continental, a really nice organ, instead of this Hammond he'd been using before, and it sounded much better straight away.



MILC: So you did quite a bit of re-recording as well?



STEVE DUB: Yeah, we did a lot of reworking. We reassembled a lot of the drums, and the bass...and we worked on this old keyboard called an RMI which was one of the first synthesized keyboards - it's from the 60's and apparently the Beatles used one. It's a really weird keyboard. It's got a synthesized clav sound, a synthesized piano, a Harpsicord , a synthesized something else - it sounded really good.



MILC: And this was all done in The Toyshop?



STEVE DUB: Yeah, we spent weeks up there reprogramming. And then some time in The Garden re-recording stuff. I think we spent a 3 months in all on it. And considering that when we got it the album had [already] been recorded, it goes to show how much 'additional production' can mean sometimes. Additional recording and production, can still [mean] 3 or 4 months of work. And it is really nice to do that because sometimes it's just 'Here you are: mix it'. But I got this and said, 'No, it's not right, we need to re-record it to make sure it's as right as can be before we mix it.'



MILC: And do you think after all that everyone went away happy?



STEVE DUB: Yeah. The project meant a lot to them and they wanted to put the time in. With budgets being what they are you don't always have the time you might want, but when you're working in a place like The Toyshop, which doesn't cost the earth, it's possible. It's not always possible to use somewhere like The Neve Room for weeks on end - that's when it starts to get expensive.



MILC: Do you think that type of thing will become more and more commonplace with the advances in home-studio recording - that people will just bring things to a studio for a final mix?



STEVE DUB: I think so. Yeah, absolutely. I tend to use The Neve Room just for mixing now.



MILC: And to destroy a lot of speakers, so I've heard...



STEVE DUB: Allegedly...Well I always claim that I, erm, have often gone in there after someone else has... after they've burned the life out of them...



MILC: Okay...



STEVE DUB: ...Cos the first time I turn them up they blow up! But it's not just me! I work with Tom Chemical, from the Chemical Brothers, a lot and he turns it up quite loud. But yes, apparently I have a reputation...



MILC: So how did you start out - how did you get to where are you now?



STEVE DUB: When I was 17 and retaking some O-levels and taking a Geology A-level and not doing very well at any of it and totally disinterested. I decided to just not go to school anymore and picked up the Yellow Pages and rang every studio in London - literally - and when I got to 'L' I got an interview with Radio Luxemburg...



MILC: What, you just rang and said, 'Hello, I'll do anything'?



STEVE DUB: Yeah, just rang and said I'm looking for a job as an assistant tape-op. I'd been down to the local Hospital Radio three times so I said I had "experience in radio" and they gave me an interview and I got a job as a junior...can't remember what it was...like a runner, basically, in Radio Luxemburg's studios at Shepherd's Market near Hyde Park. So I worked there for a year or two. They had a little radio production suite and they also had a lovely old Neve desk recording studio, and so it was whilst working there that I realised I was probably more interested in the recording side of things. At weekends I used to get my friends down there and record their bands and i really liked it... I was then lucky enough to get on a YTS scheme down at a studio called Konk, and I worked there for about a year and then got the sack but luckily got a record deal at the same time. It was for a record called God is in the House, with my mate George. We were called Rumble Dub and got a deal with Pete Tong and thought 'That's it, we're off!' Then this guy called Steve Trevell appeared, out of the mist, with a Studer 24-track and an Amek desk and a load of outboard. He'd recently lost his studio space and said: 'I need somewhere to put this.' It was hilarious, carrying all this gear around London and storing it in various places - I remember the Studer tape machine was kept in a friend's flat for a while...taking it up in the lift and wheeling it down the corridor...So we put all the gear in this little place in Clapham and that became Dada Studios. And that's where a lot of things happened for me. I did a lot of stuff for people like Billy nasty and Dave Wesson- early progressive House stuff. People like Hard Hands started using that, and through that I met Leftfield, and then The Chemical Brothers. We did a remix of a the Leftfield/Lydon record and basically I've done everything they've ever done since, bar about three tracks.



MILC: It must be fantastic to have that kind of established relationship, do they (and you) have anything coming up?



STEVE DUB: Yeah I think so. I think he's starting to write a new album. But with them [The Chemical Brothers] we tend to do three week slots in The Neve Room - they do spend a long time in there, probably about 9 or 10 weeks.



MILC: And so at what stage would you tend to get involved? Do they come in and it's all there and written?



STEVE DUB: Well some tracks yes, and some tracks no. What we do is - working to an Audio work station - get an idea of a track, get a sound up, get a really interesting sound on the drums, say, or a certain part, and that'd be printed back into Audio. And then we'll log that and he might take that back home and carry on working on it. Or another time we'll do an entire mix, he'll take it home decide to rewrite some of it. But he'll love the drums, for instance, or the bass, but we'll start everything else again and totally rewrite the track on top of those elements.



MILC: So you've got total flexibility...



STEVE DUB: Yes - total flexibility, and it makes it good fun cos the mixes on a lot of those tunes come about over quite a long time, so you have time to live with things and assess them and make sure they are really good.



MILC: That must be a nice thing, a more organic approach...



STEVE DUB: Yes, exactly. And the whole thing is just layers and layers that've come about over time - y'know, sometimes the drums were mixed a year before. And then the final mix will be the from the stems: the drums, bass, and a guitar from somewhere, then a whole load of new sounds he's written and then a vocalist on top. Other stuff can be a standard mix of, you know, 60 channels of everything you can imagine...



MILC: When there are a lot of guest artist collaborations - with the likes of The Chemicals and Mint Royale, for example - do you find it a tricky thing to manage?



STEVE DUB: Well, yes, sometimes. You have to have the whole thing ready for that moment. It's quite awkward. Say you're in for a week and you've got four mixes to do, and a vocal, and a guitar and bass overdub, it's then quite tricky to say 'Okay, the vocalist's coming in on Tuesday at 2 o'clock'. But so far, touch wood, it's worked out fine. And it does give you a deadline to work to, which I think is quite healthy to be honest.



MILC: And how do you manage the fact that they're just walking in cold to a session that you've often been working on for weeks?



STEVE DUB: Well it depends on the person. Usually they've had the track up front and demoed it. But again it depends. With The Chems they'll have sent out stuff months in advance and set up all the collaborations before we go anywhere near the studio, and probably demoed it up in a home studio whether they've given it the go ahead or not. In fact there's probably more stuff that hasn't made the records than has - y'know if they've sent it to a singer and it just hasn't worked out. But there's a real craft in what they do in finding the right person for the right track - I don't think enough people realise how hard that is to do - it's not an easy thing. It takes a lot of effort. And time and money.



MILC: So do they tend to write things first and then think: 'So-and-so would be good for that', or do they set out to write a song with a specific person in mind?



STEVE DUB: I think they start with the tracks. And then, after an amount of time, it'll become apparent if they want a vocal on it or not and then they'll start chatting amongst themselves about who'd be right for it. They tend to go for quite un-obvious choices - they spend quite a bit time thinking about who'd be an interesting collaborator to work with - and then they might not be able to get who they want, or they didn't come through with what they wanted, and then it's back to square one.



MILC: That must be awkward for them to deal with?



STEVE DUB: Well yes, and on some tracks it's happened three or four times. Whereas others it's just spot on there and then.



MILC: I know you've got quite a lot of co-writing credits over the years, but do you do any of your own material?



STEVE DUB: I do yeah. I used to do a lot of Techno and House: this band called Sour Mash, and Vinyl Blair, and Shi-take with Zoom Records, a lot of instrumental stuff. But because of the time and my age I wasn't too conscious of the publishing side so I signed it away to some...someone who...who wasn't too interested in returning it to it's rightful owner. And he's long gone, moved to Australia, so the publishing for all those tunes went with him...



MILC: Do you feel that the level of collaboration you tend to enjoy now satisfies your creative urges?



STEVE DUB: Absolutely - and I'm writing things with a few different people at the moment. But you know, if it's a situation where it's going to happen then it does, and if it doesn't it doesn't. What I do varies so much. Sometimes it's just straight mixing, other times it's a lot more involved than that, and sometimes it's somewhere in between. It might just be adding a couple of sounds, or a bit of programming, or I might be nowhere near the computer at all.



MILC: Is that what keeps you interested - the variety of projects?



STEVE DUB: Yes, exactly that. If it was the same thing on every project then I would get bored. I don't have any set systems - I tend to try and approach different things in a different way and take on the role required for each new scenario. With The Audio Bullies and the Chemical Brothers for instance, cos the things are kinda quite close [stylistically], I try and use the equipment in a different way to try and get a different sound on them. Like with The Chemicals there's a lot of compression on individual sounds while the Audio Bullies might use two or three compressors on the mix. So I'm conscious of that - especially working in the same studio a lot - of trying to change things around a lot to get different sounds out of the same pieces of equipment.



MILC: And do you like coming back to the same place - you've been in and out of The Toyshop for years now, for example?



STEVE DUB: Yeah, yeah, I really like that space. And The Neve Room too: having worked in there for some 11 years now, I know the room and I love the room and I feel really confident in the space. And I think that's really important - especially if you're working with acts you haven't met before, it's nice that you're comfortable...and from the feedback that I've got, whenever I've got a client to come along they tend to use the place and love it and will often come back again and again.



MILC: Well that's excellent news all round...



STEVE DUB: Exactly. They just need to clone the room now cos quite often you can't get in there. And with a lot of the other Neve rooms in London closing down it's getting problematic at the moment. But let's see what happens - they keep threatening to build another studio at Miloco...it would be good...



MILC: There's obviously been a lot of different styles involved in the various things you've done - what would you say is the one thing that attracts you to the idea of working on a project, that lures you into signing on the dotted line?



STEVE DUB: Well to be honest it's when you meet the people. It's more to do with the personalities - do you think you're going to have fun doing it - cos ultimately it's got to be an enjoyable experience. Even though it's challenging sometimes, and you sometimes wonder what you're doing, but 80% of the time it's good and I think if you enjoy making it then people enjoy listening to it. So I'd say it was more about the people you're going to spend 14 hours a day with in a confined space - you've got to get on with them and have fun and connect when you make a record. Obviously you've got to like the music too - but I'd say equal quantities of both. Because no matter how much you like the music, if you meet and don't really get on then I don't think it's fair to work on the project - you want to feel you're giving your absolute best. I don't like to just cruise through a situation. , I want to be stimulated, I want to like to be challenged.



MILC: Do you find time to give yourself a break?



STEVE DUB: Oh yes. I like to take breaks in between projects. I don't understand why people work week-in week-out without a break - to me that makes no sense at all.



MILC: Presumably you get 'tired ears' as it were?



STEVE DUB: Tired ears, tired mind, no life - I don't think somebody in that state is giving it their best. I think if you walk in to do an album project and you've maybe had three weeks off and been away for a few days and your head somewhere else then you walk in and you're really keen to get on. Whereas if you walk in and you've had like two days off in four months do you really wanna hear another drum kit being set up? Maybe at 21 you do, but certainly not anymore. And, like you say, your ears - my ears just can't take it anymore.



MILC: And with the beat-heavy stuff you tend to be involved with...



STEVE DUB: Yeah, though to be honest I don't tend to monitor that loudly all the time. I mean some of the people I work with are just mad, and I'll walk out the room when they turn it up full on. But they're DJs and they want to be aware of how it'll sound in a nightclub, and it's absolutely their prerogative to do that, and I wouldn't ever question that. So I just keep an eye on it from slightly outside the room - out of the firing line...

That's a really cool interview with Steve Dub. It's neat to get that sort of insight of working in a studio and working with all those people. It's one thing to hear about the technical side coming from a band, That comes out in interviews and such. But an insider view brings a whole new perspective to the studio technicalities when it's coming from someone who's outside of the band, yet closely aligned with it at the same time.



He has a great attitude about what he does, I like what he said about how enjoying the people he works with is important because ultimately you can hear it in the music. Even more given how much we get sucked into the daily grind of work, eat and sleep - he keeps everything in check and knows when he needs a break so he can regroup and refresh.



Very nice read, very nice find, irish fan!

Thanks so much for posting this irish fan. It's a fantastic insight!

irish fan Escribi�:

Steve Dub - Producer & Engineer

Interview with Steve 'Dub' Jones



Via phone, 27 Sept 2005



MILC: It must be fantastic to have that kind of established relationship, do they (and you) have anything coming up?



STEVE DUB: Yeah I think so. I think he's starting to write a new album. But with them [The Chemical Brothers] we tend to do three week slots in The Neve Room - they do spend a long time in there, probably about 9 or 10 weeks.

I like this bit the best. (!)

COME WITH US ERA INTERVIEW:





'Drugs and clubs? That's the only test people have now'



Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons, aka the Chemical Brothers, tell Alexis Petridis about writing, DJing and the demise of national service



Friday January 25, 2002

The Guardian



Chemical Brothers



As Ed Simons knows only too well, the Chemical Brothers have something of an image problem. When the topic comes up, his face takes on an expression somewhere between pain and bemusement.



And well it might. In the past eight years, Simons, 32, and partner Tom Rowlands, 31, have amassed an enviable list of achievements. The Chemical Brothers have presided over one of the most celebrated British clubs in history.



Article continues

Their four startling albums have broken new ground and invented new genres, and been rewarded with number-one singles and a Grammy (bizarrely, Block Rockin' Beats snatched the 1998 gong for Best Rock Instrumental). Their live shows have transcended the usual presentational dilemmas faced by electronic dance acts, offering a stark, dramatic and mind-blowing son et lumi�re experience to wild acclaim.



Their appearance at Glastonbury 2000 drew the largest crowd in the festival's history. They have sold more than 6m albums and their 2001 single It Began in Afrika may well be the most wilfully extreme and experimental piece of music ever to make the Top 10. However, as Simons says, glowering: "The nerdy-guy myth is pretty well-travelled."



Simons is by nature a worrier. A smoker since the age of 13, he admits to "sitting here stinging" over the handful of criticisms in the largely positive reviews of their fourth album, Come With Us.



But there is certainly truth in his view that the Chemical Brothers are largely viewed as "nerdy squares" by the media. Delight is taken in the duo's uneventful middle-class upbringings in Henley-on-Thames (Rowlands) and South London's Herne Hill (Simons).



Much is made of their past as students. They met while studying medieval literature at Manchester university - an early single was titled 14th Century Sky, in tribute to their love of the period. Both specialised in Chaucer. Despite the evenings they spent DJ-ing and exploring cheap "loony soup" lager and amyl nitrate, both scored 2:1s.



"We weren't into the just-getting-by ethic at all," says Simons, his voice tinged with suspicion when their studiousness is mentioned. "We did history and some people treated it as a joke, something you could just do two weeks before the exams started. We treated it as something we really enjoyed and got a lot out of. It's the same with making our records now. It's what we do, so we work really hard at it."



It's not just their past that leads people to assume the Chemical Brothers are a pair of aloof boffins. The most common adjective used to describe Rowlands and Simons is "diffident". Part of the problem is their dislike of that pop-star staple, discussing your personal life in interviews. Simons famously described such behaviour as "an odd way to carry on". Rowlands won't even countenance discussion of the lyrics he occasionally contributes to Chemical Brothers tracks.



They chose their friend, folk singer Beth Orton, for the vocals on Come With Us's solitary ballad The State We're In because, says Rowlands: "I can't imagine saying to one of the other vocalists we've worked with, like Bernard Sumner or Noel Gallagher, 'These are the words for my song, can you sing it?' " Attempts to probe any further into the song's meaning are rebuffed with a silent, enigmatic smile. Eventually, you just give up and ask about something else.



Further fuel has been added to the nerdy-guy myth. There's the suggestion that their closeness is a bit peculiar. At a time when manufactured bands largely consist of hand-picked strangers, the duo claimed to have only spent two weeks of each year apart since meeting in 1989. They were flatmates for three years.



These days, they live three streets apart in west London. Rowlands is married with a baby daughter and Simons is in a long-term relationship. Tellingly, both have a tendency to leave sentences hanging in mid-air, half-finished. Rowlands describes the harsh, percussive hammering of It Began in Afrika as "jungle noises... spaceships... future primitive". It's as if you should instinctively know what they mean.



"If I'm in the studio working on my own, I can feel this kind of...presence," says Rowlands. "This Ed presence around me, looking over my shoulder, going: 'Oh, I don't know about that.'"



"We don't really have an element of friction between us," says Simons. "We're friends, and our friendship is more important than the music that we make." He pauses. "Some of the time."



There are certainly a lot of in-jokes shared between them, but, in person, the Chemical Brothers hardly resemble an impenetrable and foreboding cabal. The duo are amiable, chatty, possessed of a dry wit and a keen sense of dance music's ridiculousness. Simons was tickled by a recent TV show featuring a DJ's rosy-hued recollections of minds being opened during 1988's Summer of Love: "Bricklayers used to come up and give him poetry while he was DJ-ing," he says.



The only people Simons and Rowlands seem to have upset during their career are Boy George (who demonstrated his grasp of the Wildean bon mot by dubbing them "the cunt brothers") and a crowd at Ibiza's Space club, who were reduced to tears by a Chemicals DJ set.



Nevertheless, some people express a sense of disappointment that Rowlands and Simons don't embody more of their music's characteristics. They forget that anyone who did embody the prevelant characteristics of an average Chemical Brothers record would be relentlessly aggressive, monstrously loud, overblown and under the influence of vast quantities of psychedelics. Brian Blessed in a frothing, LSD-induced fury. Someone you'd spot a mile off, then cross the street to avoid. The last person you'd want to interview in a cafe at Westbourne Park in London at 11.30 on a Sunday morning.



By contrast, Rowlands and Simons pass unnoticed as they sip their herbal tea. Their anonymity is slightly surprising. Aside from Keith Flint, the Prodigy's idiotically haired, extravagantly pierced, make-up-sporting frontman, the duo are probably dance music's most recognisable couple.



Neither glamorous nor particularly nerdy, Simons and Rowlands still have something inexplicably striking about them. Recently, one music magazine reported that female Japanese fans felt the pair inspired "kawaii - the love one feels for small furry animals". As Julie Burchill once remarked of Slade guitarist Dave Hill, the Chemical Brothers have faces you are unlikely to forget.



Rowlands is additionally memorable because he doesn't actually appear to have changed his clothes for the past eight years. He may have finally divested himself of his long raver's tresses (a hairstyle he maintained long after even the most redoubtable raver had given it up as a bad job), but today, as every day, he sports slightly flared jeans, battered trainers and tinted spectacles. The duo's international success, their number-one singles, their increasing wealth - none of it has had any impact whatsoever on his wardrobe.



Perhaps he has his mind on higher things. Rowlands and Simons claim that the way records like Come With Us sound - overloaded, crazed, saturated with distorted beats and psychedelic noises - has less to do with their own personalities or drug consumption than an ongoing desire to make the listener feel "overwhelmed by sound".



When they start discussing their music's ability to "mess with your mind", they don't sound diffident at all. There's something of the mad scientist about their excited talk of concepts such as their bewildering "Turin Shroud Theory of Implied Music" ("It must have been a good afternoon when we came up with that one," nods Rowlands sagely), and their musical quest for transcendence.



"If you can sit in front of a computer in the studio and feel totally transported by the sound you're making, then that's the most fun there is to be had making music," says Rowlands. "Sometimes when we're onstage, playing a track like [1997 single] The Private Psychedelic Reel and it's really loud, you just don't feel that you're anything to do with this piece of music. It's just happening and you're holding onto the sound desk, going, 'Fucking hell!' It sounds like there's a plane going over your head. I don't feel, 'Wow, I've created this thing - I'm in an incredible position of power.' I'm just experiencing what the person in the audience who hasn't made the music is experiencing. It's all about giving me dem feelings."



"We like doing it to ourselves," adds Simons, succinctly.



Nevertheless, they have become used to their music's unpredictable effects on others. The unfortunately coiffeured "world's fastest heavy metal guitarist" Joe Satriani sent them a cassette featuring him frantically soloing over one of their tracks ("I think that's one for the Chemical Brothers Anthology box set," says Rowlands). Then they received a puzzling video from former Van Halen vocalist David Lee Roth "of himself, running around his house, getting up to no good, with one of our tunes in the background and him singing over the top of it".



Even Roth's curious behaviour was topped by an Australian fan who calls himself Dan Rad. "He used to rap over our records and then send us the tapes," says Rowlands, shaking his head. "It was just him shouting all this obscene stuff. 'She tells me I'm listening to my music too loud so I say faack off yew baaah-sted! My eardrums are fackin' bleeding, yew drongo!' We haven't heard from him in a while, but we're going to Australia soon. Perhaps he could get onstage with us, do a bit of MC-ing."



They may not look particularly mythic, but in the past eight years, that's exactly what the Chemical Brothers have become. The story of their reign as DJs at the Heavenly Sunday Social - a club held in a packed, grubby Marylebone pub basement during the summer and autumn of 1994 - is enshrined in dance-music legend, and talked about in hushed and reverential tones. To have been present during their four-month residency is still a badge of honour, an e-generation equivalent of having seen the Sex Pistols at the 100 Club. Listen to the audio clip (1min 25)



The Sunday Social's fabled reputation is partly due to the number of celebrities who turned up - Primal Scream, Tricky, the Stone Roses. There was something groundbreaking and thrilling about the music Rowlands and Simons played at the Sunday Social.



Uniquely for the time, they were unconstrained by the rigid generic boundaries of dance music. Pounding acid techno was mixed in with old Beatles records, hip-hop, ska, the Manic Street Preachers - anything they felt would fit the mood of druggy abandon.



Rowlands and Simons were doing nothing more complicated than playing records they liked, but the results were refreshing, unpredicatable and kaleidoscopic: a mix that, for the first time, placed the notoriously insular world of dance music in a wider context.



This filtered through into the Chemical Brothers' albums, which pitched unlikely guest vocalists against their unruly sound. Their debut, Exit Planet Dust, offered a collision of distorted hip-hop drums with techno effects and guitars. U2 guitarist the Edge claimed it was his favourite record of 1994. "It said, 'This is the way forward and what we should all be doing,'" commented Norman Cook, who later adopted its style to vast success as Fatboy Slim.



Their second album, 1997's Dig Your Own Hole, featured Noel Gallagher on the number one single Setting Sun. It proved to be one of the most influential and pivotal albums of the 1990s, an evocation of the clubbing experience remarkable both for its musical breadth and its emotional depth.



Dance music has always had problems expressing anything more profound than the earth-shattering notion that dancing and drugs are fun ("Not such bad things to say," smirks Simons). But Dig Your Own Hole shifted from euphoria through numb nihilism to desperate melancholy. Like Rowlands's sartorial sense, it remains unchanged by time: no mean feat in the accelerated culture of dance music, where styles and genres are rendered obsolete overnight.



Today, the venue of the Sunday Social is now a chain pub. More bizarrely, the boundaries between rock and dance, which the Chemical Brothers did as much as anyone to destroy, have been hastily erected once more.



In Manchester, nu-metal-worshipping Moshers and garage-loving Scallies are involved in running battles around the city. Rock has returned to its workmanlike roots. Earthy, earnest musicianship in the early 1970s tradition is big again, and regards artists armed with samplers as deeply suspicious.



Dance music, meanwhile, has greedily abandoned any pretence of innovation and become risibly frivolous and disposable: it is the province of DJ Alligator and Do You Really Like It?. The Chemical Brothers may still express the desire to work with artists as disparate as Bob Dylan ("We got word back that he'd like a formal letter, telling him exactly what it would entail," Simons smiles) and US rappers Outkast, but elsewhere the twain no longer meet. In 2002, the only place you're likely to hear a rock star collaborating with a dance act is Come With Us, where trad-rocking Richard Ashcroft sings over wriggling beats on album-closer The Test.



"There's no cross-pollination going on," agrees Simons. "The rock music that's big is so boring. The idea of us doing a Travis remix... what would that be?" "It would be pretty rubbish," says Rowlands.



But if times have changed since the days of the Sunday Social, so have the Chemical Brothers. Their previous album, 1999's Surrender, contained tracks called Out of Control, Under the Influence and Got Glint? - the latter being Rowlands and Simons' slang for "Were you out until 11 o'clock in the morning?" Despite the nerdy-guy myth, the strict work ethic and the aversion to celebrity hang-outs such as the Met Bar, the duo were well-known in the dance scene for their love of a hedonistic party.



By contrast, amid the invigorating mayhem of tracks like My Elastic Eye and Galaxy Bounce, Come With Us features Richard Ashcroft plaintively moaning: "I almost lost my mind, but now I'm home and I'm free." If Rowlands looks exhausted during our Sunday meeting, it has less to do with druggy excess than the sleeping patterns of his six-month-old daughter, Matilda. It all sounds suspiciously as if the Chemical Brothers, like most clubbers when they reach their early 30s, are feeling domesticity dragging them away from the strobes and sound systems.



"I really love the words about being home and being free," nods Simons. "For five solid years, I've gone out every Friday night in some form or another, but now if 10 o'clock on a Friday night rolls around and there's nothing on, I'm in for the night. I think both of us feel out of that trap, where we have to be out every night. It's not everybody's idea of freedom, sitting around at home, but for me it is. There's a tyranny of going out. That track's called The Test because you do end up wondering if it's some kind of test you were putting yourself through."



Rowlands continues: "It's the only test that this generation has, really. People need to go through a rite of passsage and because there isn't national service or something anymore, you build your own thing. It sounds stupid, but it's true."



We live in an era when club attendance figures are plummeting and the chill-out album reigns supreme. But if Rowlands and Simons are feeling the lure of the sofa, where does that leave their brand of punishing dancefloor psychedelia? Does their future hold nothing but odes to the simple pleasures of family life?



Simons snorts. "Nah. We still like to stand in the studio with the speakers on full pelt, listening to something that takes you back into that... "



Characteristically, his sentence tails off. Rowlands takes up the challenge: "When you're in a club and you hear a record for the first time, you get excited, the music overtakes you. That feeling is what I like about music. If you feel that way, other people feel like that as well... "



Aware his partner is rapidly running out of steam, Simons steps in again: "Just feeling absorbed by sound, giving in to it, feeling unselfconcious about dancing, feeling emotion triggered by the way a track's going." He looks at Rowlands and frowns. "Am I talking out of turn?"



"No," says Rowlands quietly. "I think you're talking perfect sense."

Ah, I remember this interview! With the infamous Ibiza event that upset the club goers.



I like how they move back and forth in not just this interview but a lot of interviews - they fill in each other's thoughts, complete each other's sentences. Then again that's not so unusual given that they're friends first who've known each other for years.



I love these bits:

...female Japanese fans felt the pair inspired "kawaii - the love one feels for small furry animals"

hehe! I mean, how cute is that?

"...I can feel this kind of...presence," says Rowlands. "This Ed presence around me, looking over my shoulder..."

hmmm. Ed is everywhere, maaaaan! X-D

Yeah, I've always loved that interview. Especially this bit:

Nevertheless, some people express a sense of disappointment that Rowlands and Simons don't embody more of their music's characteristics. They forget that anyone who did embody the prevelant characteristics of an average Chemical Brothers record would be relentlessly aggressive, monstrously loud, overblown and under the influence of vast quantities of psychedelics. Brian Blessed in a frothing, LSD-induced fury. Someone you'd spot a mile off, then cross the street to avoid.

X-D



I really get a kick out of the fact that they are/were history buffs. Maybe my history degree will come into some sort of use after all. :D Although, I think I'd feel more embarassed and intimidated talking history with Tom & Ed than I would if I just gushed like a fanboy.