TextMi-Latest: Interview: Fatboy Slim talks about Global Gathering 2006

Fatboy Slim gets the Q & A treatment about Global Gathering 2006

Article posted on 11th Jul 2006 at 16:44

So Global Gathering apparently you’re coming home from you’re holiday early?
No I’m actually commuting from Andalucia especially for Global Gathering, yeah I’m flying back, doing the gig and then flying back to my holiday, for my birthday, so just think about how much I’m giving up to be there. Now Woody’s in school we have to have holidays during the school holidays and there wasn’t a two week slot in the whole of the summer, so that was the easiest one to commute to.   No lear jets just EasyJet.

What can the crowds expect from your show, for anyone who has not seen you play live?
Well to anyone who’s not seen me play live, I don’t play live.  No it’s just me DJ-ing but we’ve got a very elaborate production involving an enormous screen and lots of visuals and the same old same old me wearing a bad shirt, waving my arms round in the air. I don’t know cause when you play festivals, when you put on the beach parties and our own shows, we know exactly what to expect.  But obviously festivals like Global Gathering, we have to work around the other acts so we do it as much as we can, but we definitely do a big screen show like we did at Glastonbury and Brixton.

How come it’s actually taken you six years to come and play Global Gathering?
Because it took them six years to invite me? I was already booked to do you know, another festival. I probably have been invited but then I already had a booking.

When you see smiley faces, what memories do they bring back?
Memories of smiley faces, memories of strange trips that I’ve been on, places that I’ve been. I don’t know, now it just reminds me of, its like my logo and I see them so much around the house and everyone at gigs always gives me smiley things so yeah now it kind of just reminds me, its kind of just the corporate logo for FatBoy Slim.

What are your top festival tips?
My top festival tips are err bring stout footwear especially for dance festivals, I always think its funny when girls turn up in stilettos its like erhhh.   Always have something waterproof because that normally stops it raining. It’s the time that when you forget to bring any waterproofs, that’s the time when it rains but if you’ve got waterproofs that’s like insurance against rain and finally kids pace yourself, pace yourself, I speak from experience that you have to pace yourself at festivals

Who else are you looking forward to checking out at Global Gathering?
Speaking of the other people playing I haven’t seen Tongy play for ages, I’m gonna check him out and Groove Armada I am a very big fan as you know.   It will be like Groove Armada first, Tongy second and possibly Tiesto.

Obviously when you go to Glastonbury you take your now infamous Winnebago, will you be taking that along to Global Gathering?
I won’t be taking my famous Winnebago love bus because I won’t have my family and my mates there, because they’re all in Spain having fun, so yeah I’ll just, hopefully get a hotel room. I don’t know if I’m staying on site or not, probably I’ll get, I suspect I’ll get a hotel room and get the first flight in the morning.

So what was it like when you were playing on the beach in Sydney and Brazil, how can you sort of convey the emotions that might have brought?
I think the beach parties, especially Rio and Bondi Beach, I mean Bondi Beach on New Years Eve, it can’t fail to be fantastic, errm, sort of mental Ozzy crowd, a lot of Brit ex pats and one of the most beautiful beaches in the world apart from Brighton, to do it. Well, they’re really exciting, they’re quite, they’re a different entity to most gigs, the preparation to set them all up and the worry about weather and safety and stuff like that.
So, they’re a little more intense, but when you know its working, you know when I get half way through the set and think this is working, yeah, the intensity of it is much higher than you’re average club gig.

When I did the Bondi Beach there weren’t so many boats and there were definitely no surfers because I was playing on the beach with the sea in the background cause Bondi Beach is kind of a natural slope, there’s a part going up and so I had my back to the sea, so no anyone who came in a boat, all they would see was the back of the stage and the crowd, I think there was, well actually I don’t know if there were any boats there because I couldn’t see them, I was facing the other way.

We decided because the sand is really fine on Bondi Beach, we decided to make the clean up easier and to save people’s feet because dancing on sand is so hard so we decided that we’d put the stage on the beach and the audience were on this park. It’s kind of like a natural amphitheatre rather than flat and it’s not easy to dance on sand.

Do you ever play Brit UK club venue?
Yeah, the Boutique. My favourite UK venue is of course the Big Beat Boutique in Brighton, it’s my home, we’ve been going there nearly ten years now, it’s great because I don’t have to sort of book it, I just turn up and play when I feel like it, or when I’m about.  And it is the shortest trip home yeah.   I could actually swim home.  The building where the boutique is The Concorde II is Victorian, it wasn’t a theatre, I don’t know what it was, it was at the end of the Volks Railway and there was a lift going up the cliff behind it and yeah, it’s very Victorian, much better than the scout hut we were in before.

What do you think of the Midlands based club scene right now?
I must confess I don’t know anything about the Midlands club scene right now because I haven’t been there for a few years. I played GodsKitchen a few years ago and that was great, but I just, yeah between doing the beach parties around the world, I haven’t had time to visit the Midlands I’m afraid. So it would be good to get back there.

So do you have a favourite town, town or city like Birmingham, Leicester or perhaps Nottingham?
I think my favourite Midlands town would have to be Nottingham because we use to do the Social up there and Venus.  Nottingham I used to play quite a lot and Leicester I played once, Birmingham I’ve only played once, I’m not very big in the Midlands I don’t think – yet!

Have you ever been to Stratford Upon Avon?
I’ve driven through it on the way to Long Marston, but I can’t think why I was going to Long Marston, it must have been some other festival.   I remember trying to get to Long Marston it definitely rings a bell, I remember driving through Stratford Upon Avon thinking this is very pretty and there must have been some other festival on the same site, but this is going back to like the Housemartin days probably.

OK, so how’s the new album going?
The new album is going spectacularly, it went in at No2 in England, it’s No1 in Japan, it’s No1 in Australia, so I think that one goes down as a success, which is good, because your Greatest Hits, it’s the sort of thing, it’s an ace you can play only once, and if you get the timing wrong, like the  Jacksons  Faithless absolutely cleaned up for the summer which is what we are trying to do.   The Chems didn’t’ really do very well, Daft Punk disappeared without a trace, so yeah it’s the most edgy I’ve been out of all my albums.  If I make a new album and I think no-one likes it and that’s one thing, I think if you do a Greatest Hits and its like no-one buys it like oh so my whole career just amounted to nothing or everyone you, oh you liked me then and now you hate me, so yeah it was very satisfying to know that people still had affection for me that those ten years weren’t wasted.

So when do we get to hear new Fatboy Slim material?
New Fatboy Slim material won’t be around for a while, and that was kind of half the point of me doing a Greatest Hits, I’m doing other things like the musical with David Byrne and a soundtrack for a film, I’ve got another very exciting project which I can’t tell you about.   So at the moment I’m not quite sure what the next Fatboy Slim record should sound like so there’s no point in doing it unless I’m really sort of motivated, so I’m taking a pause for breath and planning my next move.   And in the meantime I’m doing side projects, you know being Norman Cook and not Fatboy Slim which is quite fun.