In the late ’90s, the era of DJ superstars, when some of his peers used to make eyebrow-raising claims – Paul Oakenfold famously justified his paychecks by noting that he was not just playing records, he also raised his hands showing people in the crowd and smiling, concluding: I’m having fun – Cook regularly provoked their anger by refusing to take his job seriously: “A monkey could do what I do”, was one of the most famous statements of. He does not say anything like that today – “I think”, he smiles, “I was probably a little exaggerated when I said these things, because I was a musician [in the Housemartins] and all my musician friends used to say, “but you’re just playing records” – but he suggests to his students that the most important thing to remember about filter knobs in the mixer is to “make a face when you’re turning them”. “This is mine,” he adds, leaning forward and throwing his head back in ecstasy. Handling music excites you. So it is gratifying to see people who find it difficult to go through this process Cook is here as part of an NHS funded charity event for people with severe mental health problems, which also includes singing workshops, samba classes and sound therapy. “I really wanted to make music accessible to everyone,” says Natalie Rowlands, senior event therapist who planned the events, “to break down the stigma surrounding mental illness, build people’s confidence and have really high quality music workshops.” in really nice places. “A lot of the people here have been musicians in the past, but they’ve been through so much, they’re coming out of it again and that gives them an amazing opportunity.” “Natalie approached me and I was interested,” Cook nods. “It ‘s something that really confirms my life, it’ s good for me to see people who have never touched a deck of cards before coming in between two pieces and thinking, ‘Wow!’ Sometimes I can feel a little awful about what I do for a job and seeing that innocent joy about the way you can handle music: it ‘s exciting, it excites you, it gives you a nice warm feeling. “So it is gratifying to see people who are having a hard time going through this process.” Brighton shocked… 250,000 fans flocked to Big Beach Boutique in 2002. Photo: Everynight Images / Alamy It seems faintly surprising that Cook has time to get involved. At 58 – and almost a quarter of a century after Fatboy Slim’s commercial peak as a recording artist – the DJ program sounds exhausting: Switzerland, Poland, Glastonbury, France, Berlin. Two nights on Brighton Beach to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Big Beach Boutique, which attracted a legendary 250,000 people and plunged the city into a stalemate: then there was so much uproar that Cook then left the country after at the suggestion of then-neighbor Paul McCartney. “It turned out that if you put all the people who go to small nightclubs in one place, there were many of us,” he says. “This is limited to 7,500 people, it is in a pen on the beach and the glass is not allowed in the area. It is a very big Big Beach Boutique. ” It all comes as a huge relief after what he calls an “interesting” lock. “My whole job is to get a lot of people to socialize and do everything we shouldn’t have done. For the first two weeks I was thinking: what should I do? “ Like many DJs, he posted weekly mixes on the Internet, “which kept my mental health on track, and I had the summer I always promise myself. “Then in the fall, my son went to university and my daughter went back to school and the walls started to close soon.” Eventually, he got a job serving in his cafeteria in Hove. “We had a Covid case, we lost two-thirds of our staff and so it either closed or all hands on deck. I worked there for seven months. People walked along the beach because that was all they were allowed to do and there they got their coffee at the end of the walk, so they felt like we were the last bastion of community and connection. It was interesting, because I have never done an honest job for years. It held me logically, really. But the return was happy. “ Return Fat Fatboy Slim plays Coachella 2022 last April. Photo: Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images for Coachella In May 2021, he played a mask-free show in Liverpool as part of the government’s Event Research Program to see if it was viable to return to mass rallies. “It simply came to our notice then. There was this thing “if it goes away, it could be stuffed for another six months. Our job was to try first and then go all-in and just lick each other’s faces and get involved properly and see what happens, something we were all ready to do. I felt strange for the first two minutes and then… »He smiles. “It was the time when the clock showed 12 on New Year’s Eve, but all night. Just kiss strangers, hug strangers because you could. The DJ is a two-way street, it’s a conversation, whether you are a DJ without an audience, for live streaming or whatever, he is just a middle-aged man playing records in his kitchen. You forget the euphoria and the connection. Within three minutes, it was “why are my heartbeats so fast?” Oh, I’m excited, I’m excited to be here. I remember that feeling. “ Despite Covid, Cook’s career as a DJ seems to have evolved into an arena, unaffected by changing seasons, tastes or his decision to stop, more or less, making his own music. He told the Guardian in the early 00s that if his records stopped selling, “he would seriously consider picking them all up”, and proved true to his word after the 2004 Palookaville failed to meet the platinum success of previous Fatboy albums. Slim. His 2009 album Brighton Port Authority – which was completed with many guest stars, including Iggy Pop and Dizzee Rascal and a complex story about a fake band’s career – attracted few fans. Since then, few tracks have been released, although one of them, the 2013 Eat Sleep Rave Repeat, was a hit in the Top 3 that caused a meme: variations of its title have been circulating on the internet to this day. “My enthusiasm for making records has waned a bit. But my enthusiasm for DJing never waned. And because I enjoy it so much, it’s not just arena tours, I play in clubs all year round. It’s like freshman week – the new hiring is at the forefront of clubs. There are children who go to “My parents used to play your records when I was growing up” and because I play in their local club on the street, they come and see me with interest and – “- he laughs -” another soul is mine. “ Family Fun… Cook with Daughter Nelly at Camp Bestival in 2021. Photo: Dan Reid / Rex / Shutterstock However, there are clear indicators of the time that passes, mainly the fact that his children have started to work with the DJ. Nelly’s 10-year-old daughter played in a live stream for Camp Bestival during the lockdown: there was a wonderful moment when Cook tried to adjust something to the mixer and he was kicked out. Woody’s son, meanwhile, is “the right full-time – he did five shows last week. He got involved with DJing because his roommate was a DJ. Two months after he left home: “I will become a DJ now”. All those years I could have passed on my wisdom and he did not want to know! Last summer he played in Ibiza at Mambo and I was with him at the DJ booth. As soon as the sun went down he played At the River by Groove Armada and I burst into tears! I can remember when he was sitting in the corner of the DJ booth, he could not even see from the top – it was the only safe place to put him, because there was such chaos all around. Me and Zoe [Ball, his ex-wife] never but never pressed it on either of them. But he loves it and chooses it completely independently “. So it seems that at least some of the participants in today’s workshop have. I talk for a while with Jess, a 34-year-old drummer, who was in music school until her mental health “hit me hard”. She says it came at the suggestion of her support worker – “You can just disappear into nothingness in creativity, but you just have to stay somehow and put yourself out there again.” He found the right beats quite easily and “really loved it”: “It makes you want to pursue it more and think, ‘I’m good enough, I’m in this world, I’ve not got over it.’ Back in the restaurant, the sound of drum’n ‘bass is still ringing. Another participant seems to have fully grasped the mixing, including the filter knobs. Cook steps back and looks. “Well, I can not teach you anything else now,” he smiles and gives her a five.
