A much better interview than the last one...



Thank you, Google!







Oh, brothers, where were thou?

January 14, 2005



The Chemical Brothers aren't making a "comeback". Like Santa, they never really went away. Bernard Zuel unwraps the goodies they've left under the tree.



CHEMICAL BROTHERS

Hordern Pavilion, Moore Park

January 27, 7.30pm

$83.20

Bookings 9266 4800

They play the Big Day Out on January 26. Win tickets for the sold-out event in next week's Metro



Tom Rowlands, the once long-haired, bespectacled part of the Chemical Brothers, greets me this London morning/Sydney evening with the kind of telephone bonhomie you normally only get from a newbie market researcher. He sounds past chirpy, well on the way to dangerously enthusiastic.



"Fresh, I feel fresh," Rowlands says.



Ah, but how long does the freshness last?



Is he a mid-afternoon flagger?



"Depends on what I'm doing," Rowlands says. "If it's something interesting or exciting I can keep fresh for days."



Clearly J-Ho, Britney and other celebrity perfume spruikers have got it wrong - somebody should bottle Rowland and turn him into a celebrity deodorant. You don't need to be Siimon Reynolds to figure out that substantial sales awaits a campaign with a smiley face, a thumping soundtrack and a tagline like "keeps you fresh for days".



Advertisement

Advertisement"And nights," Rowlands says in a deep-voiced "announcer" voice. "That would be my catchline: And nights."



What would we call it? The Tom? Not a good name, particularly in London or for anyone who has watched The Bill, where the working girls are called Toms. I'm thinking Rowlands's Roll-On. Don't tell me it wouldn't work.



And it could prove a handy back-up for Rowlands and fellow Brother Ed Simons if this music lark ends. Not that there are any plans for early retirement for the duo who, with the Prodigy and Fatboy Slim, took the rave and club scene into the mainstream in the mid-'90s.



But those fellow big-beat pioneers recently released underwhelming albums, and British dance scene champions Orbital and Underworld also seem to be on a long sabbatical, so some could assume the Chemical Brothers must also be waning. One French magazine described their upcoming album, Push the Button, as a "comeback".



Rowlands grits his teeth at the description, pointing out it has only been about two years since their last studio album.



"It's not like we've been off trout farming for 10 years and now re-forming," he says.



"We've been pretty constantly doing our things. I think people assume when you put out a singles collection that's the end of your band, that's the death knell.



"That was being said when we released the singles box set, and it was a strange time for us because when we released that we had already begun working on the seeds of this record and we were really excited about it."



But the paper talk did have some effect on the pair.



"With this record we had a real spur: we didn't want our band to fizzle out," Rowlands says.



"People thought the Chemical Brothers are on the downward-shift kind of thing and we wanted to make a record which bucked that kind of thing.



"We're still keen on the idea of making an album, even though it's getting a bit of an outmoded idea in the world of downloads and people buying single tracks.



"We love the idea of making an hour of music that is an experience, that moves around and makes you feel different ways and has a resolution at the end."



Such an experience may be making a dance record that engages with the outside world. For example, there is a real sense of disturbance at the centre of this record.



"It's weird for us because usually our records are about amorphous, abstract feelings, and this record has those feelings but it also has more specific things," Rowlands says.



"We wanted to make a record that was connected, that you couldn't ignore, that meant something. The first track on the album, Galvanise, it's like a sort of party record - 'the time has come to galvanise, don't hold back.'



"It could be a party thing, but it's interesting that some people hear the Moroccan strings and stuff and 'world, the time has come to galvanise', it means to them it's time for action.



"It excited us that it works both ways.



"It's not a political record like a Rage Against the Machine, but it's taking notice of how the world is. It's a different time from 1997 or 1995. Then it was just hedonism."

nice

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Interview disc?



Skylined scratches his head.





First time I see something like that.

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i guess it'll be the same as the galvanize extra content video interview.

More googly goodness to soothe the waves of nostalgia at the moment. I looked up the Organic Rave that the Chems played in 1996. Long story short, I was there but their gig was a missed opportunity for me. Anywho - as you will read (hopefully) this article was written in 1996



Check out the parts I put in bold - it could read like any recent interview. The past is now, the future is present.

from Los Angeles Times, Sunday August 18, 1996, Home Edition



Secret Formula

The Chemical Brothers keep on experimenting with a heavy fusion of techno and rock that's shaking dance floors.



By Dennis Romero, Dennis Romero is a staff writer for The Times' Life & Style section



The searing dance single "Chemical Beats" starts off with an ominous, alarming loop before it's overtaken by a hard-edged guitar riff--the type that Beavis & Butt-head might emulate with their air-instrumental enthusiasm. The song continues to build, adding a funky cowbell and relentless bass. And then there's a simple sample: "Uh," it says, over and over. "Uh."



Throw your fists in the air and bow your long hair. With this 12-inch single in 1994, the Chemical Brothers, a young duo from Manchester, England, firmly established that dance music can actually rock--hard. Though others have tried to prove this point, from Afrika Bambaataa and Run-DMC to MC 900 Ft. Jesus and God Lives Underwater, the Chemicals have driven it home--and to America--with 1995's critically acclaimed crossover "Exit Planet Dust" and with the current dance-core EP "Loops of Fury."



With "Exit," which includes the bombastic "Chemical Beats," the Chemicals created a new formula for techno-meets-rock and proved they were more than a formula band, producing songs with more traditional pop structure, organic instruments and even human vocals (from the likes of Tim Burgess from the Charlatans, who sings the KROQ-friendly "Life Is Sweet").



But "Loops of Fury" takes this duo back to its roots, pumping out layer upon layer of the maddest hip-hop beats and the heaviest guitar samples. A remix of "Chemical Beats" is all stirred up with techno funk.



And that is, after all, where these two nerdish guys come from, musically.



Tom Rowlands, the long-haired one, played the guitar in a Manchester rock band and looked up to groups such as the Jesus and Mary Chain and early rave rockers the Stone Roses. Ed Simons, the one with the short, curly hair, was a bedroom musician, programming beats and finding inspiration in old school, East Coast hip-hop.



"Hip-hop and modern rock totally coincided," says Simons, 25, backstage at the landmark Organic '96 dance music festival at the San Bernardino National Forrest's Snow Valley ski resort. "Like when you were 16, you had Public Enemy and Jesus and Mary Chain. We liked all the rappers that had amazing beats: Marley Marl, Mantronix, T La Roc."



Adds Rowlands, 26: "I liked noisy music--My Bloody Valentine."



When it came to making their own music, they say, a unique blend of styles was only natural.



Says Rowlands, casual in sweatshirt and athletic shoes in a backstage tent as the sun sets on the outdoor Organic gathering of 6,000: "It all came together nicely."



Rowlands is from Oxford, Simons from London. The two met while studying history at Manchester University. The school lies in the birthplace city of the modern British dance scene, home to Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and the "Madchester" acid house sound. They tried their hand at traditional bands--both playing guitar--but took to the turntables as dance music took hold at the turn of the decade. Soon they were spinning an eclectic mix of hip-hop, funk and techno in the dance clubs' version of rock's second stage: the back rooms.



But soon those back rooms became so packed that they became the main event. The two started tweaking their sound in a home studio and put out the self-financed "Song to the Siren" in 1994. It was a funked up jam that recalled James Brown as much as any of the hippy techno that was coming out of Manchester at the time. They admit that a parallel sound was developing in San Francisco, with Dubtribe's eco-conscious bomb, "Mother Earth," coming out in '94 too. ("Both songs," Simons says, "really broke things up in the scene.") "Chemical Beats" soon followed and so did an album deal with Astralwerks in the United States and Virgin worldwide.



During their deejay days, the two called themselves the Dust Brothers but had to change their name after the U.S. production duo of the same name (known for its work with the Beastie Boys and, recently, Beck) protested in court--thus, "Exit Planet Dust."



Though they were never particularly known for their turntable technique, the Chemicals are much in demand as deejays in England and even have their own club night--the Social Saturday nights in London. This night, which often features their eclectic turntable mixing (which goes from straight funk to straight rock), is celebrated in yet another recent release, "Live at the Social," available on import from the Deconstruction label. The CD features the duo in all its turntable glory, building from rudimentary old-school beats (sampled from such figures as Eric B. & Rakim) to its own rock-ified sound.



"I mean, it surprises me that people even think it's interesting, playing old records along with new records and hip-hop records with techno," Rowlands says. "You can just do anything.



"It's a great art to be able to completely change the dance floor by deejaying."



"That's one of the reasons we make our records," Simons says. "That's one of our aims is to have that impact when our record comes on the dance floor."



Indeed, the Chemical Brothers' sound not only rocks, but shocks. Many deejays had a hard time playing "Chemical Beats" when it first came out because it did not fit in with the continuous, thump-thump-thump house mixes they were used to playing.



"They celebrate rock, they recognize it, they have a great perspective on the roots of rock," says L.A. radio and club deejay Jason Bentley. "But they upend it. They take a whole new song structure, the song structure of a house record, and make a psychedelic rock record."



Indeed, they recently recorded a song called "Setting Sun," an ode to the Beatles' psychedelic pioneer "Tomorrow Never Knows," with Oasis' Noel Gallagher as the lead vocalist. The single is due out this fall, but the duo gave the crowd at Organic a sneak peek with an instrumental remix that proved to be tie-died future funk. A new album is due out this winter.



"Techno is a pretty incredible sound," Simons says, "but there's other ways to approach dance music."





Copyright, The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times, 1996.

anType Escribi�:

They've been making those ever since 1997. 2nd disc in Anti-Nazi set was an interview disc... They already have FIVE interview discs. Where have you been?

Where have I been?!

In Uruguay!

A country where you don't even get to know that the Chem Bros are going to play in Argentina (2:30hs by SeaCat or 6hs by bus).

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