Arrogant songwriter and all-around over-achiever Noel Gallagher knows quality when he hears it. Way back in 1994, before he and little loudmouthed brother Liam had conquered the U.S. with their skilled Fab Four parodies, the elder Oasis partner approached the Chemical Brothers with an offer they couldn't refuse.

"We've known Noel ever since he began Oasis," says Brother Tom Rowlands, the long-haired half of the Chemical duo. "We were talking with him at the Glastonbury Festival when Exit Planet Dust had just come out. He really liked it and wanted to do something with us then so we sent him the track that became 'Setting Sun.' It had that Beatles feel so we thought it might appeal to him. It's got that Ringo beat. Jokingly we thought, 'Let's try to make a track that sounds like 'Tomorrow Never Knows' and have Liam or Noel singing on it.' Then it came true."



Three years later it looks like the Chemical Brothers' dive-bomb boogie--a sweltering stew of '70s funk samples, '60s psychedelia and skewed hip-hop and techno--is about to spill over onto the Gallagher brothers' retro turf. With Dig Your Own Hole, the south London DJ team of Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands is being hyped as dance music's greatest hope, and maybe the Brit-born beast that ate alternative rock. Where Exit Planet Dust sounded like Sly & The Family Stone riding the soul train on planet Mars, Dig Your Own Hole treads closer to the dance floor, without losing the Brothers' brutal, block-rocking beats and acid-drenched space illusions. But then, not everybody is a fan.



"I think Liam gets a bit pissed when Noel asks us to support Oasis," says Simons, munching on a tomato and leek omelette in a Manhattan diner. "Then he has to listen to us. We played with them at Knebworth and he looked right curious."



"He's just mad for it!" laughs Rowlands, mocking the great eyebrowed Oasis crooner.



"He only likes the Beatles and who can blame him," replies Simons. Like the early Beatles some 25 years ago, the Chemical Brothers are combining (actually, recombining through the sampler) diverse musical strains into a sound more frenetic and uniquely recognizable than anything currently inflating the withering carcass of rock and roll. With Noel Gallagher's nasal vocals drifting over the track like an emaciated monk thirsting for water, "Setting Sun" is prime Chemical Brothers. As a looped sitar coils around a booming drum groove, seagull-like sirens wail overhead like banshees. Here, the middle east meets the west in a droning, drug-drenched soundtrack complete with a woozy hook and gobbledygook lyrics.



"There was a lot of rumor floating around that we had just taken a chant from 'Tomorrow Never Knows,'" says Rowlands, inhaling a BLT. "We'd been playing the song in clubs between some quite hard techno. It's a similar feel. We wanted to get that same disorienting, psychedelic effect on our track. That was a starting point for us, but we wouldn't steal from the Beatles."



Dig Your Own Hole is a tribute of sorts to all the funky greats of yesterday. Citing Public Enemy and the Beastie Boys, as well as hip hop pioneers like Mantronix and the Jungle Brothers as prime influences, the Chemical Brothers let loose with freaky funk samples, mad disco grooves and some ethereal chill-out music. Though tight-lipped about actual samples, the duo confesses to lifting Schooly D and Cool Herc, as well as new schoolers like Keith Murray. At the center of their dizzying groove-addled style lies the drumset, an instrument which the pair cut and paste, ad infinitum, crisscrossing records and samples until they get just the right beat to blow the lid off the sucker.



"Get Up On It," a party song of epic proportions, skitters over a jerking bed of Quincy Jones-sampled horns and whirring turntable scratches. Tom-toms zing through the air as the unnamed funky drummer works sassy fills.



"If you get the drums working, everything else will come," explains Rowlands. "'Get Up On It' has multiple drums from a lot of different records. We never really sample one particular break and use it straight. We mix things up, get the cymbals from one place, bass drum from somewhere else. That track has about six different rhythms with separate sounds playing against each other; you just get stuff that a real drummer just can't play. You can't get so many sounds going on with that kind of weight and precision. A lot of the sounds we sample are about that splashy, live sound but with a little more spark."



Like a goofy pair of actual brothers, Tom and Ed have trouble doing anything straight-faced. Abnormally hungry, Tom seems interested in the varying breakfast dishes that pass our table. A bowl of oats brings out an Inspector Clouseau impersonation.



"Do you want your oatmeal? Oh, let me have it my pretty little pet."



The waitress ignores the giggling DJ.



What do the Brothers do when they're not sampling and scratching? Well...



"This is our Monday to Saturday existence," says Simons. "We don't clock in and clock out but we're in our studio [the Dustbowl] pretty late. At least Tom is. I usually try to get home for the soap operas." "We do our fun projects on Saturday afternoon," adds Rowlands. "We make these totally illegal cutup records to DJ with. We take huge chunks of other dance records and mix and match them for our mixing tapes. That's us really letting out hair down and being naughty. Yoo hoo!"



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In Dust We Trust

Song To The Siren

Meeting at The Heavenly Social, a popular London disco that featured jungle, house and techno, the Chemicals soon found their warped dance tracks attracting clubgoers from every genre. Noel Gallagher's attentions iced the cake on Exit Planet Dust's ascension to cult status gone berserk. Even with global fame beckoning, Simons and Rowlands continue to work the dance clubs, while other DJs make bedroom music or concentrate on big remix bucks. "It's important to keep in the clubs," explains Simons. "A lot of people lose their way when they sit in their bedroom making music or in the studio. You've got to be out there hearing what's going on and watching how the records work on the crowd."



As the Brothers' geekish faces grace the covers of multiple U.S. music mags and MTV airs "Setting Sun" in heavy rotation, hopes are high that they will save the corporate music machine from the dreaded doldrums of alternative rock's demise. But the bros. aren't biting.



"It's a misconception that we're trying to stomp out rock music," says Simons, "or that we think electronic music is going to replace rock music. It's all crap. Central to our sound is that all this music exists together, it's not to the exclusion of anything else."



"There are a lot of people who have been into this music for a while," says Rowlands. "Things are coming around. Maybe we'll knock Bush off the radio!"



"It depends on what you see as the enemy and what you want changed," Simons concludes. "If our records are played and it means there is less Celine Dion, then that is a good thing. But being pitched as an alternative to alternative or to a Dr. Dre production seems a bit strange. But hey, whatever people want to listen to, it's all pretty free and easy. Isn't it?"

Thanks for the interview Irish. 8)



If I've said it once, I'll say it again, I love these early interviews. IMO, the early days of the Chems were absolutely groundbreaking. They pretty much created a genre of music out of nothing. It's awesome to read what they have to say about those times, and what they have to say about their music at the time.

I've seen this interview b4 and it's very good, I think I read it at yahoo launch.

a sound more frenetic and uniquely recognizable than anything currently inflating the withering carcass of rock and roll...save the corporate music machine from the dreaded doldrums of alternative rock's demise.

Never thought I'd read that in 2005 8O. How times have changed X-D .

The interview on the 93-03 DVD with Noel Gallagher talking about Setting Sun is pretty funny.