Fatboy Slim

Fatboy Slim Artist Profile

With the possible exception of David Byrne, Fatboy Slim (aka Norman Cook) is the only grey-haired man in the world allowed to have Top 10 dance hits. Together with a similarly ageing turntable mafia (Pete Tong, Paul Oakenfold, Danny Tenaglia and Carl Cox), fortysomething Norm has helped turned dance music from a cottage industry into a multi-million pound enterprise. A standard bearer for big beat, Norm has specialised in taking little known soul tunes, sprinkling them with turntable magic and turning them into worldwide hits like Praise You and Rockafella Skank. Norm is the hawaiian shirt wearing, block rocking hedonist DJ. As well as an obligatory bottle of vodka, Norm now travels to his DJ engagements with the aid of a a masseuse since his spine became permanently slanted to the right - a result of him always wearing his headphones with head cocked to the right. As Norm says, this DJ lark, "it takes its toll!" Superstar DJ? He-ere we go... The alias Fatboy Slim started as a fun side project when Norm wanted to help out his mate, Damien Harris, boss of Brighton based dance label, Skint. But within a few years the Fatboy would become, well, a Fat phenomenon, with the album You've Come A Long Way Baby selling 5m copies worldwide and turning him into the world's biggest dance artist. Cook's early career as nerdy bassist in The Housemartins made him the least likely person to become a superstar DJ. Cook joined the Hull based group in 1986, replacing founding member Ted Key. Led by vocalist Paul Heaton, who would later form The Beautiful South, the band were precursors of Brit pop with their shiny, happy melodies and PC, right-on messages. When the band split in 1987 Cook became involved with the burgeoning acid-house scene, pairing with producers Tim Jeffery and JC Reid in 1989 to form Pizzaman. Together the trio enjoyed three Top 40 hits (Trippin On Sunshine, Sex On The Streets and Happiness) before Cook splintered off to record with similarly styled outfits Freakpower (Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out was a hit in 1993) and Beats International (Dub Be Good To Me was a No.1 in 1990) With the demise of these dance collectives (and The Mighty Dub Katz - anyone remember 1996's Just Another Groove? No, thought not) Cook decided to go solo. He signed to Damien Harris' Skint label as Fatboy Slim and released his debut single, Santa Cruz in late 1996. Follow ups Going Out Of My Head and Everybody Needs A 303, which featured on Cook's debut album, Better Living Through Chemistry, followed in 1997 and were minor hits, earning Cook the title of artist with most UK Top 40 hits under different names (seven). The Chemistry album mixed Cook's canny knack for a long-forgotten sample with furious, block-rockin' beats to create some fresh and innovative dance music. "To make one good tune, I need to have nine crap ones," said Norm explaining his art. But it was the following year's electrifying single Rockafella Skank that would establish Norm as king of the decks. The song reached No.6 in June 1998 and was typical of Cook's tinkering style. Taking a long forgotten soul tune from his massive collection of over 8,000 records, Cook ran the tune through his trusty old S950 sample and Atari computer until a dancefloor classic began to emerge. Despite calls of plagarism and theft from old farts no longer able to shake a leg at Ritzy's on a Friday night, Cook created something genuinely new and fresh with the tune, stretching and tweaking it into a dancefloor classic. "The starting point for me has always been the source material. You know... samples," explains mixmeister Norm. "I'm trying to chop it up so much that whoever played it originally isn't going to recognize it." In early 1998, Cook's remix of Cornershop's Brimful of Asha spent several weeks at No.1 in the UK charts and Norm's remixing talents were now in demand from everybody from Robbie to Madonna. Cook was also called in to add his remixing skills to Jean-Jacques Perrey's proto-electronica classic Eva, released in 1997. In addition to his work as Fatboy, Cook also recorded the Skip to My Loops sample CD, a popular studio tool sporting a melange of sample-ready drum loops, analog squelches, and assorted noises. Norm's next single, Gangster Trippin' provided him with another massive hit, reaching No.3 in October 1998. The single paved the way for Fatboy's second album, You've Come A Long Way Baby. The album, a brilliant crystallisation of Cook%u2019s ability to shape a dance tune, went platinum in the US and spawned his next single, the UK No.1 Praise You which also boasted a Spike Jonze-directed video that earned Norm three MTV Video Music gongs and two Grammy nominations. Most of the cuts on the album would eventually end up on TV adverts and film soundtracks, cementing Norm's reputation as the DJ du jour. Another hit, Right Here, Right Now, entered the charts at No.2 in April, 1999, dragging the album back to the top of the charts. Cook also recorded several mix albums, including the first disc of the Radio 1 compilation Essential Selection, Vol. 1 and his own On the Floor at the Boutique released in 2000. Inevitably Norm's next album, Halfway Between The Gutter and The Stars, saw our Hawaiian shirted hero taking stock of his newly found superstar status and not liking what he saw. "I definitely had pop star fatigue," reflects Norm. "The pressure of being in the limelight all the time was beginning to take its toll. For about three months my job was to go to awards ceremonies. When that was all I did, and I wasn't making any music I was getting hacked off with what my life had become. I'm not very good at being a celebrity." In 1999 he played two defining events - the boxing-themed face-off with Armand Van Helden at London's Brixton Academy, and a legendary show with The Chemical Brothers at Red Rocks, Colorado (the first time these superstar artists performed together in America) - which effectively closed a chapter in his career. Time to move on. "I thought, 'Actually maybe I can do something with a bit more power and soul rather than just thrills and spills,'" mused Norm. Norm's mates the Chemical Brothers suggested he work with guest vocalists. Norm eventually hooked up with Macy Gray and the pair recorded two songs together the hormonal funk of Love Life and the breakbeat gospel of Demons. The album's lead-off single was Sunset (Bird Of Prey), adapted from an ambient track that Norman had written wrote several years ago and drawing on JimMorrison's American Prayer poetry album. The reflective nature of the tracks were a symbol of Norm's newfound direction although Ya Mama and Mad Flava were still old skool, big beat Fatboy. Despite mixed reviews for the album, Norm was happy that he'd avoided repeating himself with the party lovin' You've Come A Long Way Baby album. He also stretched his talents by joining up with Blur for production duties on their Think Tank album. Norm was in the headlines again in 2002 after a tragic death on Brighton Beach during his Big Beach Boutique gig. Cook had planned for 100,000 revellers on the beach but 250,000 turned up. 25-year-old Australian nurse Karen Manders died after falling from a pier balcony The event eventually cost Cook £200,000 and he had to spend another £75,000 on the clean-up. Cook's miserable 2002 was followed by an even worse 2003 when his wife, DJ and TV presenter Zoe Ball briefly left him, taking their son Woody with her. Now, finally, ahead of Norman's long-awaited new album, the pair are back on track and Norm has returned to the idea of big each parties, gurning manically on stage and generally, livin' large. (He played to over 200,000 people in Rio in May but a planned Big Beach Boutique III event in Brighton has been blocked by the council) His new single, Slash Dot Slash, revisits the cartoon, big beat japery of his heyday with an accompanying fun lovin', anarchistic video featuring grafitti mad nudists! (The promo was banned by TV show CD:UK who feared copycat grafitti incidents). An album, Palookaville, featuring guests including Damon Albarn and Bootsy Collins, is out in October. "I'm known as a party animal," says Norm. Rock and roll is sold on the legend. People don't want to see my stamp collection do they?"

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