You have had an extraordinary career spanning over
the last 15 years club culture in Britain. Which effect have this had on
you?
It means that I don't have a life outside the music. The reason I've
managed to stay doing it for so long is because the music is the most
important part. It sounds a bit corny, but it is like that.
I'm still obsessed by music, and every minute I'm not doing music is a
waste of time to me.
So the reason why I've been able to stay in the game is because I've never
lost the obsession and hunger for new music. It's as simple as that. If
you put that amount of time into music that I do the rewards hopefully
turns out.
How do you manage finding the time to be involved in
all these activities?
Well, I don't get the time! Luckily, I have people to do the business side
of things, because I'm a really, really bad businessman. A lot of the day
to day running of stuff, like legal bits & pieces of running a label, I
don't actually do, because I just wouldn't have the time physically to run
a label. With so many labels around it’s a seven-day a week job.
Fortunately I have good people whom I trust helping me out with these
things so I can concentrate on making music.
What has changed in the culture you've been a part
of all these years?
As far as I see it, club culture and dance music is now crossed over into
pop culture, there's no division anymore. This has come around with the
increased information from the Internet, cable-TV etc. When I started off
it took like a year or two to go from the underground into the charts. Now
everything is so fast that it only takes 2 weeks to go from club to pop
music. The culture where I started has gone into pop culture. I'm not
involved in pop culture, but I think it's really funny that I've was
partly involved with something that has gone pop. Where I come from,
things like Throbbing Gristle, then got into acid house and has developed
into house in the charts. I think it's quite bizarre how it's has gone
from basically two clubs in London in 1988to a worldwide phenomena within
a matter of years. That's the mad thing to see how it has developed. Some
people in my sort of field get's fucked off the mainstream, but I don't
give a shit and just think it's really funny. To me it’s just like
watching a crazy film or another planet. It's annoying sometimes when it's
causing that people who really loves their music aren't able to make a
living because of it but that's just the way it goes sometimes. If you're
involved in experimentation don't expect to become a millionaire. It's
important that stupid things like this exists as an opposite in order to
show people the good music there's around-
Could you tell us the story of your musical partnership with your friend
Keith Tenniswoode?
It started like 4-5 years ago. Keith was an engineer at my studio and we
had like 2 weeks in the studio, so I just went out and bought loads of old
records from secondhand stores. We decided to do it like I just pulled a
record from my bag and whatever I pulled out we had to sample and make a
track from it. Basically we made a double album in 2 weeks, which was
really quick and really enjoyable. I intended to put it out as a limited
edition of 500 copies, but the distribution company told me to make a
proper release. It did ok, it was “The 5'th mission”
album. From there Keith and I really hit it of in the studio and working
with Keith brought the fun into making music again, which a few years
prior had been lacking. We just learned from each other and still do and
have a laugh together doing it. When the fun goes of it there will be no
more 2 Lone Swordsmen records.
Did you start of making music on your own or where
there an engineer involved all the way?
The only reason I was asked to go into the studio was because I had a good
record collection.
Various groups heard me DJ and liked what I was playing and obviously
realized that I had a good ear for music. I'm not classically trained so I
went in with an engineer. After all I don't like solitary work in a
creative process. I just like the fact to have someone with me
inspirational wise.
You contributed with a remix to Future Sound of
London's “Papua New Guinea when it was initially released in 1992. Was it
for the same reason they wanted you to do a remix?. What's your point of
view to its re-release this year?
I'm really critical when it comes to my previous works. You can always do
something better, but if people still likes it, it must be ok. I always
think that I could made something better, technically speaking. But they
reason why they wanted me to do a remix was because I played the original
which not many people where playing it at the time. So I believe they
wanted me to remix it because I helped making that record become more
popular in England.
When it comes to venues and music around the globe,
what is doing it for you right now?
I read this article in an English newspaper and there was this guy saying
that there are not so many ideas in dance music at the moment. And I was
like, for fucks sake, I got really angry because I think there are so much
good music and so many great labels. It's very hard to pick just one but
do you know the label Shitkatapult?. I really like that as well as World
Electric.
So many great records and labels so it hard to mention just one. I know
that every day I got into a record shop I'll came out with a bag full of
records that are going to blow me away.
I like straight up dance floor techno, I like abstract hip-hop, Country &
Western etc.
There's just soo much music as well as old music to be discovered. I just
started to buy late 60's/early 70's psyche/garage music. That's a whole
new world to me, which I know the basics of. People think that I've got a
really big record collection, but if I had it my way, it would be
five times as big. It all goes back to that hunger for music; I want to
hear something else all the time and just impatient to expand my horizon
and get blown away al the time.
What can we expect to come from you music wise?
As the cliché goes: Expect the unexpected!
For the next 2 Lone Swordsmen album we are going to use a lot more live
instruments.
Not just using samples but “live” samples recorded from a band rather than
just taking stuff of records. I'd like to put old, dirty sounds into the
computer; I don't like clean stuff in my music.
To me that's the way forward. Funk s always got to be dirty It has to be
horrible and grimy.
What is to expect from the new Primal Scream album,
which you been involved in producing?
I've only just heard the new album yesterday, and it's really amazing.
It's like The Stooges meets Drexciya or something. Imagine taking a flight,
having one weekend in Detroit and the next weekend in Berlin. It's
absolutely brilliant. What I like about it is that working on
“Screamadelica” was like photograph of that time, where this new album
feels like a photograph of my time, the time I'm living in. It feels
really relevant to me and hopefully that's why people want to pick up on
that. That why “Screamadelica” was so good, because it was like a snapshot
of their lives and it's the same thing with this new album.
“Sreamadelica” was quite an Ecstasy album. The new one is more like dirty
speed, Hells Angels speed (laughter).
What about remixing other people’s material?
We’ve just done a remix of Beth Orthon and she likes it so much that
they’re going to use that version for the next single. We’ve done a remix
for Slam, which has got Dot Allison singing on it. That’s about it, I
think, at the moment because we’ve been working on the Primal Scream
album.
On my label there’s a remix compilation coming out and I’ve remixed one of
Keith’s tracks.
We were supposed to start off on 2 Lone Swordsmen music in January but we
kept getting tracks from the Primal Scream album and remixing them. But
we’re going to stop doing remixes for 2 months and do some music. We’ll
just do remixes for friends and small labels, where we got a few things
waiting. We just never stops recording music and the good thing is that I
got my own label Warp allows us to release stuff on other labels as long
as it’s not called 2 Lone Swordsmen. We record for 2 months and get maybe
20 tracks out of it. Which we listen to and think; ok this is 2 Lone
Swordsmen tracks, this is something else. That’s the good thing of our way
of working because if we want to put it out under this or that name for
different music. We like to just put it out it’s not important that people
knows who made it! That’s what it’s about to me; I’m not bothered about
putting my name on it. I’m bothered about pushing good music. That’s also
why I don’t do many interviews; I don’t go on the television because the
music is more interesting than I am. I mean come to my club and listen to
the music, don’t sit in front of the camera and ask me what are my
favorite fucking colour and other stupid questions. It’s just really lazy
journalism; they don’t know who you are, they don’t know what you do it’s
a total waste of time. In 1992 I’ve taken too much ecstasy , I was hanging
out in the rock’n’roll world and thought I was the really big guy around. But that’s all right because I was young and had fun. But you realize that
you can’t do that forever, you got to kind of disappear and say to
yourself: Ok, Taxi for Weatherall! and back out of the door with dignity.
That’s what I did 5-6 years ago, I just left the party you know what I
mean: Thank you very much I had a great time, you’re all lovely. Drinks
we’re great, the drugs were marvelous, the ladies were fantastic, but I
really got to go into my bunker. But I know that you have to show your
face every now and then or else people thinks you’ve moved to another city
or something. So you have to do an interview or two every now and again in
order to show people: This is what I’m doing this is what I think. I don’t
think I’m better than anyone or I’m the king of whatever scene.
You’re not going to open every magazine and say to yourself: Fucking
Andrew Weatherall again. Basically you just need one good magazine, so
people know what you’re doing and then Taxiiii and then fuck off.
Thanks for taking you’re time!
You’re welcome
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Copyright Clubbing Magazine 2001-2004