Q&A: Fatboy Slim

Interview by Ralph Moore. Originally published in Mixmag in December 2009.

2009 has been a year of big moments for Norman ‘Fatboy Slim’ Cook. In March he went into rehab for a month to cure what he refers to in this searingly honest interview as ‘a disease’. Thankfully, he looks back on the experience as a wholly positive one, and now leads a life behind the decks (and beyond them) that’s a long way from the half-a-bottle-of-vodka-and-?orange habits of yore. Aside from beating his drinking demons, his other big moment came in July, when wife Zoë told him there’ll be a new baby Fatboy (or Fatgirl) joining the family, something that will mean guaranteed early morning (rather than late night) shifts all over again…


This will be your first Christmas without alcohol. How does it feel?
Well, I’ve done my first wedding without alcohol, my first Glastonbury without alcohol, my first Ibiza without alcohol and I found a way of making them work so I’m confident it’ll be fine.

Is it difficult to DJ if you can’t drink?
It’s not that it was difficult, it’s that it’s different when you’re not out of your mind. It took me about ten shows to get comfortable and not feel awkward. And feel a bit left out. So I just get into a different mindset now, which is what sober DJs have been doing for years. It’s honing your craft rather than just having a party. A lot of my crew will say I’m a lot better now. I always thought it was unprofessional not to be on the same level as your audience – and that’s one of the things I hid behind with my drinking for years. I played all summer and got to love it, and as everyone who saw me this summer will agree, I’m enjoying it more than ever.

Are there other DJs you see in a similar predicament?
[Laughs] Now that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it! I wouldn’t preach to anyone – there are a lot of people my age-ish who are slowing down naturally. But because of the disease of alcoholism that I’ve got, there’s no off switch. Most of the DJs I know naturally cane it less rather than doing it all the time.

Was there a day you decided to go into rehab?
No, I thought about it for about a year and thought of every way to try and stop on my own. And then decided that I would have to do something serious about it. But between deciding and doing something about it was a few months.

How is it day-to-day?
You have to cling on to all the good bits of it, because occasionally it is a bit dull. To be honest, it’s worst when you’re having a nice meal and you can’t have a glass of wine – you can’t do that any more. The way I see it is, no thrills, no spills. Occasionally I miss the thrills, but I don’t miss the spills.

So you never sneak a sip?
Never. I can’t have alcohol ever again for the rest of my life. And if I start again I’ll go straight back to where I was. That’s what that month in rehab taught me.

Do you still have an affection for vinyl or even play them?
Yeah, definitely! I only use Serato for DJing but for playing records around the home, I have a tremendous affection for the art form that is vinyl. Part of me thinks ‘get with the times, grand-?dad’ but when I was a kid saving up to buy tunes on a Saturday morning, that meant a lot to me and stirred my heart and soul: downloading is just a little bit too easy.

Of course, it doesn’t help that there are barely any record stores to buy music in any more!
Also, you can’t teach kids things something just because that’s what we had. You know, it’s like our parents saying, ‘We used to sit around on Sunday nights and make our own entertainment!’ Things do move on.

It seems a shame though – you and Sven Väth were the masters of waving records around your head.
[Laughs] I can still do that! But now I’ve got Serato I’ve got coloured vinyl to do it with – I just have to put them back afterwards.

What’s been your best single and album of 2009?
Armand Van Helden’s remix of MPHO’s ‘Box N Locks’ is the one – no-one else has picked up on it but that’s my tune of the year. It’s got that devil-may-care stomp and is just a really banging tune with Armand’s pyrotechnics. My favourite album is The Flaming Lips ‘Embryonic’.

How does [Norm’s nine-year-old son] Woody react to your music now he’s growing up?
He’s aware of what I do for a living and he’s been to a couple of gigs. He said, ‘It’s really loud and everyone waves their arms around in the air!’ And I was like, ‘Yep, that’s about it!’ He’s in a band at school – he plays bass, of course. Did I encourage that? [Norman played bass both in The House Martins and also Beats International] No, they had three guitarists so I told him he’d only have to play one string at a time if he played bass. And you get more chicks.

Will becoming a father again affect your career?
No more than it did when we had Woody. Being a DJ is good for being a parent as you tend to work Saturday nights and not the rest of the time. When you’re in a band, you have to go off and tour for three months.

So will the big beach parties be starting again in 2010?
I’ve got the baby coming in January but by the summer I should be back up and running with the big ones. Our idea was always to take a year off, as much as for Brighton as for me!

What does Mixmag mean to you?
I miss the time when dance was so in the throb that anything you said in Mixmag would be in The Sun the next day… it was funny at the time but at the moment I’m glad it’s not! Now it’s gone back to being for our people by our people, which is good because it’s not quite so tabloid-y. And it’s more about the music rather than the japes we were getting up to. And the covermount CDs – they’re still a good barometer of what’s going on.

Mixmag asked Madame Tussauds to do a waxwork of you – would you have been up for it?
Actually, it was suggested but I wanted it on the grounds that I would be able to send the head to photo shoots. I was doing a session with Rankin and he showed me a picture of Kylie and said what do you think? I said it looked great and he said it’s not Kylie – it’s a waxwork.

Will we see any new Fatboy Slim material soon?
I’m working with Hervé – there should be something out soon. I always worry, ‘Is it good enough to be an FBS tune?’ But now with downloading, you don’t have to create a big build-up.

Is David Guetta having your crazy career a decade on from ‘Praise You’?
Him and Dizzee and Armand – I’m much more happy for them to be there than me these days. It’s quite a scary place to be and hard to maintain that momentum.

Read more: Mixmag