But Fatboy never played that enigmatic DJ game. He instead rummaged through decidedly uncool genres most of his peers wouldn’t touch–touristy calypso, goofy surf rock–and pitted them against computerized beats and effects to concoct the most slamming dance tunes around. The result: “You’ve Come a Long Way” went platinum, and paved the way for acts such as Moby.
All this, and most people still couldn’t pick Fatboy Slim (a.k.a. Norman Cook) out of a police lineup. “Like most DJs, I enjoy being anonymous,” says Cook from his home in Brighton, England, where he recorded his new album, “Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars,” in an upstairs studio carpeted with AstroTurf. “You don’t have to have your face airbrushed, tidied up and put all over the record sleeve. I don’t appear in my videos, either, so I can continue getting older, balder and fatter, and no one will know. It makes the whole process a lot less stressful because I don’t have to hold my stomach in all the time, metaphorically and physically.”
The thirtysomething Cook lets it all hang out on his new and third album, where he samples obscure Jim Morrison poetry on the single “Bird of Prey,” a fiery gospel sermon on “Stop the Hate” and thrashing metal riffs on “Ya Mama” (also on the “Charlie’s Angels” soundtrack), turning it into a club-pumping melee of beat and groove. Though he uses recognizable personalities on this album (a Fatboy first) –from funky live rhythms by Bootsy Collins to vocals by Macy Gray–this record is not as accessible as his last. There are less traditional song structures beneath the studio pyrotechnics, and more club-savvy effects to placate his inner rave child.
It’s apparent Cook isn’t cultivating his role as the mainstream’s favorite DJ. While he once claimed he made dance records for people who hated dance music, “Gutter and Stars” is an ode to the club culture he sprang from. “The last album had crossed over so much, I felt this one could afford to do a little less of that,” says Cook, who’s been in the lens of Britain’s paparazzi since his marriage to BBC talk-show host Zoe Ball. “There was a lot of rock-guitar samples on the other album that were there to invite the rock crowd over. I was saying, ‘Listen to dance music; enjoy it.’ Now I’m saying, ‘I invited you in on the last album; let’s see if you really like it’.”
Cook doesn’t really need the attention: his experience as a bass player in the ’80s new-wave band the Housemartins fulfilled his ego’s meager rock-star requirements. Besides, he prefers DJ’ing because “you’ve got the decks between you and your audience, so no one knows when your fly’s undone.” It’s the small things that make Fatboy happy these days, no electronic-music revolution or Mercedes commercial required.
