Our chemical romance

Chemical Brothers Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands have outlasted the dance-music scene that spawned them. Simons tells Jim Carrollwhy the chemistry is still there

BACK when Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands were medieval history students at Manchester University, longevity in dance music was about months rather than years. When they released their debut single, Song to the Siren, in 1992, they hoped it would lead to a few more DJ-ing gigs or, maybe some remix jobs.

An eventful 15 years and 10 million album sales later, Simons is on the promotional trail yet again, this time to sell the duo's sixth album. As with the previous five, We Are the Night is choc-a-bloc with collaborators; the roll-call this time includes Pharcyde rapper Fatlip, nu-rave kingpins Klaxons, Austin band Midlake and singer-songwriter Willy Mason.

The album also reiterates the Chemical Brothers's position as dance music's great survivors. After all, such mid-1990s peers as Underworld, Leftfield, Prodigy and Orbital have either failed to last the distance or seen their stature diminish greatly.

"We've never regarded it as a competition or the survival of the fittest," says Simons. "When you talk about the bands that we were in tandem with when we started out, all the people involved in those different set-ups are still happily making music even if they're in different situations.

"Underworld are involved in a lot of web-based stuff and I think they are as happy now as when they were signed to a big major label. I bumped into Liam Howlett the other day because he has a studio round the corner from where I live and he's busy writing another Prodigy album. We took a certain route and so did they."

These days, the Chemicals have a whole new set of peers (including, ironically, two other ex-Manchester University students in Simian Mobile Disco) and the presence of such young bucks as the Klaxons on their album shows an astute, if subtle, courting of the new school.

Simons points out that they've always worked with new acts. "I suppose people associate us with the more iconic and established artists like Noel Gallagher, Flaming Lips and Bernard Sumner who we've worked with. But we've also worked with people who are just starting out. It's exciting to work with them and it freshens things up. It would be very restrictive if we just confined ourselves to working with people we've come up with.

"Going back to when we made our first record, that's how we hooked up with Beth Orton. She was just starting out when we met her after I moved into her old flat. It has been a constant thread to work with new acts, the likes of Bloc Party and Magic Numbers or, on this record, Midlake. Then there's the Klaxons, who are making music that we like and we thought there was a spark there to make it worthwhile to go into a studio with them and see what happened."

It will be interesting to see if the Klaxons themselves have the longevity of the Chemical Brothers. Simons attributes professional survival to a continued satisfaction with their working relationship.

"I still love the records we made during the 1990s, but we made them in very different circumstances. The relationship between us was much more intense then, and we were together every day for about six years in some form or other.

"As you get older, your life gets different and you do drift apart. I live in London now and Tom lives in the country. But when we come together, that intensity in the working relationship comes back to the fore."

It might also explain why neither one has ever gone solo.

"The music we do as the Chemical Brothers is fairly broad-reaching and there's room for everything there. We have never limited ourselves to certain styles of music. So you don't have two people who are frustrated by what they're doing, as you might have in some bands where members go solo.

"One day, I'm sure we'll work apart, but I think we've made our best music over the last four or five years and that's pretty unusual for a band who've been together for so long."

We Are The Night is released today on Virgin Records. Chemical Brothers play the Electric Picnic on September 1st