Well folks, what can you say about this man that hasn’t already been said, and said a hell of a lot better than I can at this particular moment. (Sleep deprivation leaves me grasping for the simplest of words). The following is an interview I did with Andrew Weatherall at last year’s EP. Fascinating character!

JS: Thank you for taking the time to do this.

AW: No problem at all.

JS: That was a pretty immaculate set!

AW: Well it would want to be after nearly twenty years!

JS: After such a long time, do you still get the same buzz from what you do or has it changed for you now, do you maybe enjoy it in a different way?

AW: No, it is the same buzz, it’s a little less scary because I’m actually reasonably proficient at what I do now. When I started I was very slap-dash indeed. I had the confidence of ignorance, which is a steal from Orson Welles, when he was asked how did you make Citizen Kane, he said well it was just the confidence of ignorance. And that’s kind of what I had when I started, and now it’s the confidence of a little more knowledge. I think when you have the confidence of ignorance you’re a little bit brash and a little bit arrogant and that’s the way I’ve changed. I still get the same buzz but as a person I’ve changed a great deal. I think I’ve still got stuff to prove to myself but I don’t think I’ve got anything to prove to anybody else. When I started I thought I had to prove things to people.

JS: What about a gig like tonight for example, would you still be a little nervous beforehand?

AW: Oh yeah, of course, totally and absolutely. Who wouldn’t be standing in front of x thousand people, but that’s the buzz. Anyone who goes on stage gets it. It’s worse when I sing with my band obviously because you can’t hide behind other people’s records, but it is that nervousness that drives you on. You’re taking a massive risk and any risk is gonna make you nervous. But the bigger the risk, when it pays off the better it is, you know.

JS: Would it be fair to say that you’ve maybe chosen the path that was out of the spotlight, was there a reason for this or was it the music that you chose to make?

AW: Yeah, I was never really that happy. I liked the spotlight a little bit when I first started cos my name was in all the magazines that I read when I was a teenager, you know, and that was quite nice but when you get into the spotlight it detracts from other things and when you get into the spotlight you have to do more press, more interviews and it takes you out of the studio and it stops you working and you get distracted. I had a little bit of a taste of it maybe ten or fifteen years ago but just found myself getting frustrated because I was spending hours doing things that weren’t making music.

JS: Dance music seems to go through cycles, and recharge and rejuvenate itself every so often where do you think we are at the moment?

AW: Well in a way it never took over the world. I mean a lot of pop music nowadays has dance music production, whether that’s R’n B or kind of disco stuff. But I heard on the radio yesterday that a million guitars were sold last year, ten years ago everyone was going “turntables have overtaken guitar sales” but it’s completely turned around the other way now. And it’s gone back to rock’n roll. The record companies are more interested in signing rock ‘n roll bands but having said that you’ve witnessed this festival, and it started off from what I can gather as a dance orientated kind of festival and I’m booked up until next year ( laughs) so there’s a very healthy scene. It’s just that superclub thing died a little bit of a death, which is kind of good because that wasn’t really about the music, that was about a sort of easily purchased lifestyle, and the music was kind of secondary but we’ve got away from that and it’s gone a little bit more underground and it’s all about smaller clubs and local DJs creating their own scene you know.

JS: In the last twenty years who have been the real innovators, who are the guys who have stood out for you?

AW: Well I can only say the people who have inspired me to DJ so I’ve got to take my hat off to Danny Rampling. Danny Rampling and Paul Oakenfold did clubs that single-handedly kicked off the acid house movement. Danny Rampling and Paul Oakenfold in a small club with 200 people in ’87 ’88 has pretty much led to why there’s 4000 kids in that tent out there although they probably don’t know it. Through the years, Eddie Richards, a very unsung hero, Richie Hawtin, God ehhhhhhh Ricardo Villalobos, a current DJ. I don’t know just anybody from that kind of generation that’s still going I think you’ve gotta give them credit because you don’t do something that long if you don’t believe in it, I don’t think so anyway.

JS: Is there anything about the way that technology has revolutionised the business that saddens you, as somebody who has seen so many changes?

AW: Yeah totally, absolutely. It’s a good thing and a bad thing, music technology, the ability to make music and listen to it can be a good thing but it’s like any technology in human hands, we’re like chimpanzees with a new toy, you know what I mean and basically at the moment, how I see it with ipods and downloading everybody’s walking around with a big box of chocolates in front of them and all they’re doing is they’re taking the chocolate out, taking a little nibble and then going “oh I dunno about that one” and putting it back in the box. They’re not really digesting and they’re not really taking their time. You know you get these magazines and it says download track one, six and four and it’s taking any kind of development out of the music. It’s a great thing that all this music is available but human beings are greedy creatures and we’re currently in an age which is kind of like the tyranny of choice. Too much choice can be a really bad thing, it just confuses people and makes them skim the surface of things. And also at the moment the sound quality of ipods and downloads it’s not that brilliant. I won’t go into the technicalities of it cos I’ll just sound like a boring fool. I’m not a luddite by any means I don’t want to smash things up or destroy things but hopefully we’ll calm down a little bit and use the technology and the choice a little bit more wisely than we are at the moment. There’s just too much stuff out there and it’s making life very hard, you think all this stuff should make your life better but ultimately it doesn’t, I think it depresses people a little bit.

JS: What still keeps the music coming for you, what still inspires you today?

AW: The fact that I’ve lived as long as I have, heard all this music and I can still get excited every day by music. I can literally be in a small town anywhere and I can go in to the town centre and I know that I can walk into either a little cool underground record shop or Woolworths and find something that’s gonna blow my mind, you know? Be it a cheap compilation cd in Woolworths or an underground techno record. I just know that every day I can still get a shiver down my spine four or five times a day from music that I’ve not heard before.

JS: Do you think music can change somebody’s life?

AW: Yeah of course it can, definitely, it changed my life. It can change your life physically, mentally. When I was eleven I heard early rock ‘n roll records – Elvis Presley, Danny and the Juniors and I thought it had come from another planet! And that totally changed my life, that led me on a route which has led me to discover, not just music, but literature, films, art, and theatre with music as the starting point. If you read interviews with people, musicians who will mention a book or a film, you’ll hear a piece of music and you’ll associate it with a film. Music for me was a real catalyst that opened my eyes up to so many things.

JS: Finally are you working on any new stuff at the moment?

AW: I am indeed, we’ve just finished a new Two Lone Swordsmen album, I’ve been very productive, I’ve finished the Two Lone Swordsmen album and I’ve got my very first solo single coming out. I had a very strange year last year and I didn’t really do much work but I had lots of experiences that enabled me to write what I think are really good songs but I thought I’d better stop what I was doing before I died and I wasn’t able to write those songs! It’s an album and psychotherapy session really! And I’ve just got back in to doing art work and I’ve started painting and doing print. So it’s all very exciting.

And with that I left it though I could have talked for hours. What a true legend!

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