The reader interview
As they tour and release a visual memoir, the dance duo answers your questions about their biggest gig, wooing Kate Bush and Bob Dylan, and troubling Björk with slap bass
Thu Oct 19, 2023, 2:45pm BST
You’ve worked with a lot of great artists – who’s the one that stood out? ShermanMLight
Tom Rowlands: “One Who Got Away” implies it was doable, but I had Kate Bush on the phone. I sent a track, she was very nice and said: “It’s a nice idea, but you’ll be fine on your own.” It’s fine the way it is.” But you have to aim high, right?
Ed Simons: We’re both big Bob Dylan fans and after a long conversation we thought, “Why don’t we ask Bob Dylan?” It got to the point where we were asked to write to him, so maybe he liked the idea. I’m not sure we ever wrote the letter.
Tom: We tried but were at a loss as to what to call him. Robert?
Ed: Bob, if you’re reading this, we’re still here.
Do you have any anecdotes about the late, great Andrew Weatherall? FulhamFreds
Ed: He was an incredible DJ, a funny guy and really nice to us. Shortly after our first record came out on Junior Boy’s Own we brought him in to DJ at our club Naked Under Leather in Manchester, but then had to move him to the University of Manchester’s student union bar, Swinging Sporran. Not his usual appearance. But to be fair, he did take off his shirt and beat it, although when he arrived he was heard saying, “Ed, you bastard!”
We were pretty speechless in his presence. I remember asking him in a nightclub what synthesizers he had bought. He said, “I’m waiting for the Chekhov warp.” By which I meant a new synthesizer we’d never heard of. A few weeks later I realized that he meant he was waiting for the “check from Warp” plates to buy new equipment. When we remixed “Like a Motorway” by Saint Etienne, we called it the Chekhov Warp mix.
Andrew Weatherall on stage at Sabresonic, London, 1994. Photo: Mick Hutson/Redferns
Tom: Our very first live performance was at his club Sabresonic, which usually featured real techno DJs. We didn’t consider ourselves professionals, so we told him we didn’t feel comfortable on stage. I think he realized it was wrong to do things, so he set us up at the back of the room on this makeshift toilet block, with the sequencers on the toilet.
Ed: I once looked in his DJ box and one record was labeled “Italian Piano Gallop.” Only leave in an emergency.”
I worked behind the bar Monarch in the chalk farm in the 90s and you DJ‘D with decks set up on a trestle table next to the bar. My best day at work. What was yours? Flanboy73
Ed: You never think, “That’s it,” but we looked back at the book [Paused in Cosmic Reflection, published later this month] and headlining Glastonbury in 2000 was a phenomenally good gig for us.
Tom: I always remember doing Galvanize at the Hit Factory in New York. There was a lot going on during the session, and I remember walking down 34th Street in Manhattan on a bright blue day with nervous anticipation. Then later he came out of this legendary studio with this amazing piece of music.
“A phenomenally good gig for us…” the Chemical Brothers performing at Glastonbury, 2000. Photo: Jon Super/Redferns
You’ve been responsible for some great remixes like Jailbird by Primal Scream. How involved is the original artist and are you usually given free rein? VerulamiumParkRanger
Ed: We would never take a hi-hat from the original track and call it a remix. We take the same ingredients somewhere else. In the big ’90s remixes we did for Primal Scream, the Charlatans, etc., people would come over and contribute or put stuff on tape. As far as free agency goes, only one record label guy asked us to change something drastically.
Tom: He didn’t get his way, even though when she recorded Björk’s Hyper Ballad she said, “I’ll never have a record with slap bass.” She made the right decision. How could we ever believe that “Hyperballad” had to be a slap bass odyssey? However, we reworked these parts for our track “Dig Your Own Hole”.
On your new album [For That Beautiful Feeling]you have overworked and obscure Teresa Harris rail. The DJ version (at Amnesia Ibiza) features a speech from Jesse Jackson that you previously sampled in yours Ariel [Tom’s pre-Chemical Brothers band] days. Are there any plans to release this? OffWorld1
Tom: There’s also a connection to Andrew Weatherall. He used to write down Jesse Jackson’s speech in the acid house days.
Ed: It’s from a gospel album by Aretha Franklin that Tom gave me for the 21st time, so it’s a sacramental text. We like to make different versions for DJing that we don’t necessarily want to release.
Tom: I was working on the music and then came across this obscure soul-funk record by Teresa Harris with the Gene Parker Quintet and did the vocals. The power comes from these two worlds colliding in really strange ways. If there is some crazy alchemy, we will always pursue it.
Can you tell us something about it? Wolf Alice singer Ellie Rowsell‘s writes down creditFeel like I’m dreaming [from the new album]? OffWorld1
Tom: Ellie is an incredible singer and a few years ago we did a lot of sessions with her to write a song that was never finished. When we were working on this album, we were DJing and returning to that gig, so we repeated the “Feel Like I’m Dreaming” part and put it in this other song. She receives recognition as an author because she came up with the texts.
The Chemical Brothers headlining the Isle Of Wight Festival, 2023. Photo: Dan Reid/Shutterstock
I remember hearing that when you first started doing sets you were paid in beer. How quickly did this turn into a pile of cash? 11LFO11
Ed: When we played at Heavenly Social, everyone who might buy us a drink was jumping up and down. We were paid in beer or cider, but we were just happy to be asked. Instead of going out on a Friday night, we DJed, took our friends and made a night out of it.
Tom: When we played the Hacienda in 1995, we each had a hotel room instead of sharing a car home. This felt like the first real gig. People from New Order’s road crew who were on that gig are still with us today.
I heard you turned down a gig at the Sydney Opera House because the sound system wasn’t up to scratch. Are there any other big opportunities that you turned down for artistic reasons? Bather
Ed: This story is quite apocryphal. There was a technical problem when hanging the speakers. We didn’t downplay the acoustics of the Sydney Opera House! We would love to play there.
As a fellow graduate of the University of Manchester, rumors are circulating about you Playing Bop in Owens Park is an urban myth? GreatestGeoff
Ed: That was the Friday night disco in the dorm. I was the DJ there and I was bad. I played cool records that I heard at the Hacienda, but we were freshmen, so I drank quite a lot, sat at the microphone and shouted something to Tom and our friends. After I was released, the first record my replacement played was “All Night Long” by Lionel Richie. They loved it.
Tom: I took part in the Battle of the Bands at the Oak House bar and lost it [student accommodation], where I set up my drum machine. I had completely forgotten about this until my eldest daughter went to Manchester and lived at Oak House. I walked in and thought, “Oh my God…”
You said that once when you first met Noel Gallagher He said something rude about it Tim Burgess. What did he say? Replica of a fireplace
Ed: It wasn’t rude. It was more like, “Tim Burgess did a fantastic job singing on Life is Sweet. I respect him, but I also support myself doing a similar job.” [which Gallager did, on No 1 single Setting Sun].
Tom: “I have my back!”
Ed: Well, I can’t do a Manc Noel impression. Words in this sense. But in Noelspeak…
Watch: The Chemical Brothers – Setting Sun
When you were told you had to change your name, what other possible names were on your shortlist? subsub
Ed: When we were called the Dust Brothers, we got a very nice but firm letter from the American Dust Brothers asking, “Can you please change your name real quick?” Suede had just become London Suede [in the US], so we would become the London Dust Explosion. If we had, I don’t think we would be having this conversation now.
Tom: Didn’t your mother suggest the Grit Brothers?
Ed: I think that was mom’s. Luckily, Tom suggested, “We have a track called Chemical Beats…how about the Chemical Brothers?”
How close is your relationship? Do you want to be brothers? dbates73
Ed: Tom has a brother who I like very much, but we have spent an inordinate amount of time together and have a shared history in our bones.
Tom: We used to live together, tour together, and vacation together, and we still see each other socially. We’ve probably spent more time together than most brothers.
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