TF Archives

Fatboy Slim Regrets 'Fucking In Heaven'

Author: Skruff
Friday, November 10, 2000
"If I'd known that six year olds were going to be listening to it, maybe I wouldn't have put Fucking In Heaven' on it, or not repeated it so many times." When Norman Cook's last album, 'You've Come A Long, Baby" first hit the shops in 1998, few predicted it would catapult the one-time Housemartin to multi-million pound superstar *pop star* status. 2 years on, he's bigger than Oasis, newly married to UK TV/radio star Zoe Ball and is just about to release his follow up, "Halfway Between The Gutter and the Stars,' an album he admits is intended to be "mature". "I'm not supposed to be making music, so yeah, I was trying to make it more adult orientated," he told mezzmusic. "It worries me how many six year olds liked the last album. It wasn't the demographic I was looking for, frankly."


mezzmusic: How much were you actively trying to return to your dance floor roots-

Fatboy Slim:"Although I've flirted with pop quite a lot over the years, I come from a dance music background. And the amount of respect and support I have from the dance music fraternity keeps me going in the leaner years, and they're very forgiving. But I'm always conscious of always going back to my roots and the music being based on club music with an element of pop in it. The dance music comes first, but then if I can make it really radio friendly, then that's nice. But after the last album I was really worried that I'd be straying too far from my sort of dance club roots. I was going to award ceremonies and hanging out with celebrities, rather than going to nightclubs."


mezz: What's the most difficult aspect of fame-

Fatboy Slim:"The most difficult part was after I got married, I sort of said to everyone 'that's it, I'm not promoting the album anymore'. And Woodstock was the last thing I did. But of course Autumn (Fall) is the Awards season and I found myself going over to America for an Award season almost every 3 weeks. And that bit is all the promotion, and having your photo taken. And talking to people you don't like. All of that showbiz side of it (the music business) I've never actually liked. But it was a necessary evil, to make music. But when I found myself not making music and just doing the celebrity bit, that was when I snapped and said 'Right, I've got to start the new album, because I can't do this anymore."


mezz: Do you prefer staying out of the camera-

Fatboy Slim:"Yeah, you'll notice that I never have my photo on records. I never have....err,... I have one fleeting cameo appearance in the videos. I don't like having my photo taken and I don't think I'm interesting and attractive to look at."


mezz: What are you expectations for the new album-

Fatboy Slim:"I figure it will be less successful than the last one. But that's not a bad thing. I think it will be received well, that I've tried to progress and do something different. I think it will get good reviews but then it just remains how much the songs get into people's heads. Sometimes you have to wait until you're hearing it out and on the radio to know whether it's good, or if it just sounds good on the first couple of listens. But I'm not worried about being 'slated' (criticised) by reviewers. Everyone I've spoken to has said it's really good, you haven't just done the same big beat thing. At least I got brownie points for that."

http://wwwgutterandstars.com

http://www.skint.net

Tags