Clubbing Magazine


Back in 1989 Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons met at Manchester University where they were studying Medieval History. In the early 90’s Tom and Ed started DJing under the name The Dust Brothers. Their sound was very unique and it brought them into a temporary studio -Tom’s bedroom, to make their first 12” “Song to the siren”. This was pickup by Andrew Weatherall and he signed it to Junior Boy’s Own and remixed it under his Sabres Of Paradise synonym. After they graduated from Manchester they moved to London and became residents at Weatherall’s Sabresonic club nights. The second single “14th Century Sky” EP was released in 1994, and was a milestone in dance music. This led them into remixing Primal Scream, The Charlatans, Saint Etienne, The Prodigy and Manic Street Preachers. In 1994 they changed their name to The Chemical Brothers and released the debut album “Exit Planet Dust”, a crossover between dancefloor music and rock music, defining the genre that would become known later as Big Beat. In 1997 they released their second album “Dig your own hole” including hits like “Setting Sun” and “Block Rockin’ Beats", and established them as the biggest band in their field. Their third album “Surrender” from 1999 was another big hit for the brothers, and hits like “Hey Boy, Hey Girl” and “Out of Control” stick to mind. “It began in Africa” a tribal techno workout was another major hit for them and was the predecessor for their fourth album “Come With US” that was released at the end of January 2002. In January 2005 they released “Push The Button” and the single “Galvanize” is a huge hit for Tom and Ed right now.
Did you have a clear initial idea of the new album when you were starting? - It started - just us thinking about doing another record, quite fired up and quite enthusiastic, after a long time away and we had a lot of ideas coming into the studio. We just really wanted to do another record; we just wanted to go back to the studio after 2 years of touring. We had no particular view of what it had to sound like at the end. Do you start from a blank sheet? - It is always the way it works, we can only really write and record when we have our studio, we are not on laptops, we like having our synths and stuff. When we are on tour we just concentrate on being on tour and adding to that, so we really don’t think about making or writing new music in that period. The focus is on the music that we are making every night as a part of the gig we are doing, so it is like a cycle of things. Does it get easier making an album? - I think it gets harder to make, we are searching for new sounds and new ways of doing things. It is not like we are personally songwriters, for us making songs and producing records it is about sound effects, creating sounds and emotions. It has become more difficult to find things that inspire us.
	Do you disagree in the studio? - Yea - we can be quite critical of each other. I don’t think that we could have lasted so long if there weren’t a basic understanding of what we find exciting about music. If something good is happening in the studio we both know it is happening and know it is good. The dynamic is for us to keep and to make that feeling between us. After about 11 years of DJing together and a massive amount of records that have excited us and a lot of records that we have made together, we still have, in the studio to have the same level of excitement. It doesn’t make us argue but it is frustrating in a way that you can’t hit that height, but when you do reach it is even more gratifying. There were times when it wasn’t pleasant making this record, because it is hard to get it to the next step where you can feel really buzzed up. How much editing goes into the tracks? - Because we have been working on the music simultaneously for 1½ year, we have been working on a pool of tracks, things sort of groves alongside each other so you get a feeling of things being a set of music. I like the way that this record works and it sounds like – you know music moves all soft of different places – it feels like it all fit in together. The way we mix the record together and the way we place the tracks is very important for us, and we spent a lot of time making it work.
Playing live how important is that for you? - I love playing live – but we can’t do that when we are writing and making a record, we don’t want to take down our studio for playing live. So we usually only play live after we have finished making a record. But I am looking forward to be able to create the environment where our music should be heard. It’s always been about that, even when we started playing live we spent all our money on getting surround sound systems and spending a lot of money on getting the right place to listen to our music. When we are in the studio we got amazing loudspeakers listening to – It’s just another experience than listening at home. People coming to our gigs we give them this full on sensory thing. Do you have the freedom to do what you like? - We have always had that freedom, when we came to Virgin, we had already made the first album. It was made without any outside interference, that was “Exit planet dust” and that record did well. It set this sort of template for people letting us go on what we wanted to do. We have been lucky – we have strong ideas about our music and what it should be and we think we are the best people to do it – and we do it. We both like music that means something to people, we experiment a lot, we like music that can effect you. If that has helped the music to be popular – it probably has -because of us liking that kind of music.
	How do you feel about remixing; whom does the track belong to? - I see that “Life Is Sweet” as a Daft Punk track and the Underworld mix of “Leave home” I see as an Underworld track as well. Remixing for us is just a fun part to do; it is not part of a big scheme, it doesn’t have to fit into an idea of an album or a single, it just a change of trying things out on other peoples music. Do you see the DJ role as artistic in the same way as a songwriter? - Yea I do – what some DJ can do is an incredible skill and people denigrate it by saying it is less of a skill of playing an electric guitar – watching someone like Sasha and Carl Cox is incredible. The technical virtue is amazing it’s a good sound that makes people go off at the same time, it’s something that connects with people. When we are DJing we are pleased if we put it together well and all has gone well. Many can play two records at the same time, but how to build a set and how to get people into the “state of mind” and the idea of playing records - playing different records is a real skill. That is something people don’t realize before they hear someone who can do it.
As DJ’s – do you DJ as a pair, track by track or are you taking turns? - It stared with us playing two tracks each, now it’s who is most confident about playing a certain track - but basically it’s taking turns each 20 minutes or something like that. Two records are always good, so you don’t just have to think one in advance; you have someone else to play the next one. So you can think about the two after that. It’s good to be two people because you can end up with a lot of records out of their sleeves. Can you beat mix? - No not at all. Only last year we got some decks and a mixer at home. It was more the fact when we started DJing in London in 1993/94 we just had these records that nobody else had. We had an idea of the music we wanted people to hear. That was our thing doing someone else wasn’t doing, so we still feel this is important when we are DJing – to mix things up, doing different things. How do you regard living in public life? - I think we have the right level of recognisability – if you want to go to a club late, you can get in. At the same time walking around the streets no one would be looking at you.
The interview with The Chemical Brothers was brought in Clubbing Magazine #3 released back in 2002.	Chemical Brothers website
Text : Christian Almind