Returning with an epic new album
Hey Nick, been a while – nice to speak to you again. So a brand new album out this week, ‘Thousand Mile Stare’, which we have to admit has amazing production. One of the guys in The Buzz Chart room said it could have been the soundtrack to ‘Bladerunner 2’. How long has this long player been in production?
“Well I have to say that is a very cool compliment to be paid. I started work on the project early January 2011, not long after I finished ‘Giants’ the previous album. So feel like I’ve been hard at it for nearly 4 years!! And now super busy with promo, interviews and remix requests!!! Going a bit mental truth be told, but so happy to be busy!”
Can you talk us through the album, what are your highlights?
“Highlights have to be the collaborations, Aggi Dukes, Kate Walsh and the fabulous Vigri boys! I spent a week in Iceland recording and writing with my new bezzy mates Vigri. Super emotive epic widescreen stuff and very excited by it all.”
Your love of music didn’t start at an early age as I recall, you were pushed into learning all sorts of instruments with your brothers that you hated – including the violin. It wasn’t until you discovered artists like Vangelis Gellis and Jean Michel Jarre that your conception of the world of music changed…?
“Oh yes, that about right, I can remember now the pained look on Mr Hewit’s face, my violin teacher… Not my very best moment. I was indeed schooled in many instruments and found it just a chore. Then the fateful day I discovered synthesisers and set me off on a totally mental journey, and little did I know where that was going to lead!”
How did it feel when you received all of the rejection letters from record companies after sending them your demos, was there ever a moment you thought to yourself this maybe wasn’t for me. It’s a hell of a lot easier to get a record signed these days!
“Wow how I remember that…It was super tough, chasing a pipe dream, I can remember you had to want it so much and be talented and just get a bit lucky. You used to get the standard rejection letter… blah blah blah. It wasn’t until dance broke and the ability to press your own track up and send to the movers and shaker of the time made it possible to make any headway in the industry! I can remember ‘Offshore’, an instrumental on the A list at Radio One, not to mention the edit was 4.20mins…it was pretty much unheard of back then.”
Five years ago you stated that “the music industry is still full of fools, crooks, lawyers, winners and losers.” Has your opinion on this ‘wonderful’ business changed since then…
“Not really, it’s still the only multi-million pound industry I can think of where you don’t need any qualifications to be a success. That’s not strictly true obviously, but not far off it. I would like to think there are less chimps involved as things are tougher now, the margins for error have been removed. The days of the big record companies are nearly at an end and little labels and artists controlling their own destinies are now more the norm. This can only be a good thing. I still shudder when I watch the idiotic ‘Brit Awards’…. a terrible manipulated farce that represents most that has been wrong in the industry for years.”
One thing that did puzzle me reading through your old press was when you were asked about Ibiza. You often gave the impression that you were/are fed up being asked about Chicane and Ibiza, stating once that “I can’t say Ibiza had great influence on me, no more than the Isle of Wight did.” I find that unbelievable really, the Chicane sound epitomises Ibiza in the late 90s, surely a wonderful hippy island lying in a blue ocean had some sort of effect on the music you were making?
“Umm, no I think that was kinda the truth what I said back then. What you don’t mention is I drew identical inspiration from the Isle of Wight as I did when I first visited Ibiza…a beautiful ‘away from the mainland’ kinda mindset. It’s such a strange thing to say, but from an inspirational point of view I find them very similar. ‘Offshore’ was written about being on the beach at the end of the summer… everyone had gone home and I was the last kid on the beach. I drew emotive core values from the beauty and loneliness that the place can sometimes offer. So when I visited Ibiza the vibe on offer made perfect sense to me. There are a couple of dreadful places on the Isle of Wight though… frightening!”
Trance is bigger than ever in 2012, the Dutch are once again leading the world. What are your thoughts on the state of trance and the producers doing it today? Who stands out for you?
“I don’t understand trance at all it makes me feel weird and then my teeth start to hurt…Ha!”
You have worked with some very well know vocalists over the years. Sir Tom Jones, Bryan Adams and Natasha Bedingfield amongst others. Who was the most fun to work with, who surprised you?
“Bryan was cool, but Tom was a legend and we chatted about lots of mental stuff, being mates with Sinatra and Elvis, stuff like that. He also loved playing with my band and had great fun doing stuff like the Jonathan Ross show.”
You have had some crazy live shows, my favourite was the 6000 people who crammed into that cock fighting arena in Manilla. What have been some of your most memorable live shows…?
“Oh yes Manilla…how could I ever forget. There has been so many wild shows, we played in an empty swimming pool in the Philippines, an acoustic nightmare, but great all the same. I remember another show where some numpty plugged a fridge into the audio power supply, so every time it came on, which was about every 4 mins, the show shut down…that was a long night. Then there was the night I seemed for some idiot reason to drink absinthe before the show…Spent the entire show trying to kill the drummer, then puked, dislocated my shoulder…etc. it got a bit worse after that and don’t think I can mention any of it…”
Loving that answer! When asked what their favourite year of trance was, everyone says 1999. What was yours and why?
“You know, I might have to agree, it was a great year, but I’m not sure, I’m hoping there is better to come…”
Your love of speed is well documented, snowboarding, driving cars far too fast. What is your latest obsession out of the studio?
“Hmm, I did get the RS4 tuned to over 600bhp and was clocked over 200mph, very daft. Sold the Lambo & 355 and got into silly things on a bike…Carbon everything road bikes and mad mountain bikes..stuff like that.”
You have a massive show at Koko in London on April 27th, how has the British crowd compared to the rest of the world over the years – are they more restrained?
“I dunno, the core Chicane nuts are a little mental and they will be givin’ it large at Koko. I did do a show in Deli last year that was just so off the hook it was hard to match. I had to walk back through
the crowd to leave the venue and got mobbed and security had to step in…It was a Bieber moment!”
Have you had any mad obsessive fans over the years? Any one in particular who you will see wherever you go?
“I think the most hardcore fan has to be a fella known as ‘Jay’, he is mad enough to get a Chicane logo tattoo and wants me to do a show in his pub car park. Love him to bits, we need more crazies like him…”
When making a piece of music, most artists have firmly in their minds that five minutes of radio fame. You however look at making a Chicane in a different way. Discuss….
“Chicane has always been about the big picture. I have waffled on for years about trying to describe what I do as ‘wide screen dance music’. The creation of an album as a piece in its entirety is very important. I like to think I have crafted the long players from beginning to end. What I am kinda furious about is how Steve Jobs of late Apple fame has sort of tried to kill this with the ‘cherry picking’ concept. It has all but destroyed the once buoyant compilation market. I find it a lazy and destructive concept. We seem to live in a culture of just ‘tracks’…I for one think that is a little sad and one dimensional.”
So we come back to yours after the show, what is the Chicane Back To Mine 10 you play us to mellow us out…
“Some Vangelis of course, Hans Zimmer – Elysium, Hybrid – Finished Symphony, Tangerine Dream – Love On A Real Train, Eric Serra – Cruise Of The Dolphin Tribe, D Note – Garden Of Earthly Delights, Way Out West – The Gift, Oasis – Champagne Supernova, Hans Zimmer – Vide Cor Meum, Chicane – Windbreaks…”
We all have regrets. Do you regrets ruining your agent’s image as a high-roller by posting a geeky pic of him when he was a young boy on the Chicane Facebook page recently for his 40th?
“Ha! Yes he thanked my for that…might need a new agent now yeah?!!!”
Well Steve asked me to ask you “Is it true that when you drink strange coloured spirits you always dislocate your shoulder?”
“Ahh I think I might have covered this regrettable incident earlier on…Always read what is in the tin…I had one glass and turned into Bez.”
What has the summer got for you touring the album, where are you heading…?
“All over as usual, Ibiza to Abersoch…Estonia, Bulgaria, Hungary….anywhere they give me beer…”
And finally, what’s your favourite Chicane track of all time?
“Far too hard…current favourite is the new album opener ‘Hljop’ – totally unpronounceable of course!”
‘Thousand Mile Stare’ in out now on Armada Music…
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