THE best place to appreciate what the Chemical Brothers have done is in the middle of the packed dancefloor at the Heavenly Juke box in London. Any big beats boutique will do but the Jukebox, that do-what-ya-like successor to the infamous Social, when DJ Jon Carter is supplying the block, `rockin' beats and funk-off attitude on the turntables, is the heart of the chemical beats world. Twisted hip-hop, distorted drumbeats, looped vocal samples and a large squirt of those acid squelches: it's clear the rest of the brothers have now worked it out for themselves.
Chemical Brother Ed Simons is standing on the edge of the floor observing the mayhem, looking bemused and amused by turns., The formula (if you can call it that) that he and musical partner Tom Rowlands used to kickstart their particular magical mystery tour while they were at university in Manchester has become some thing of a fulcrum for the big beats scene. You can spot the similarities in the output of such labels as Skint, Wall Of Sound or Concrete.
"Some of the acts, like Death In Vegas, have a lot of textures to their sound and a lot of good ideas. A lot of those big beat acts have been inspired by the same things which inspired us rather than being directly inspired by The Chemicals. The records we haven't been too fond of have been records which have taken our blueprint and just copied it." No imagination whatsoever. It's meant some club nights are wall-to-wall acid squalls with breaks and beats over it. Quite boring really."
This description could never be applied to The Chemicals. Since emerging as the Dust Brothers (before US producers with the same moniker forced a name change), Simons and Rowlands have soared, remixing everyone from Primal Scream to The Prodigy, celebrity DJing gigs with Oasis and Paul Weller, resident DJs at the original Heavenly Social and, of course, undertaking the Chemical Brothers own logical progression.
It's due to a number of things. The debut album Exit Planet Dust was one of the biggest selling albums of 1995: their gobsmacking live show brought more followers into the fold and those two No 1 singles (Setting Sun with Noel Gallagher warbling over what could have been The Beatles' Tomorrow Never Knows reworked through a coffee blender and the recent Schooly D trip Block Rockin' Beats) have also played a significant role. As they prepare to release album number two, the innovative and ambitious Dig Your Own Hole, the Chemical Brothers stand at the cusp of greater things.
Like America for instance. If new-wave-of-new-rave acts such as the Prodigy, Underworld, Orbital and the Chemicals are to really succeed on a global scale they must take on more than just Manhattan. The Chemicals have already begun the process: Setting Sun is still climbing the US Hot 100 and there are 250,000 pre-sales already clocked up for Dig Your Own Hole. It's a good base to be getting on with.
Ed is as modest about this as he" is about most things. "I have never understood bands who go on in interviews about how many records they've sold in America or in France or whatever. We're doing OK, we're quite happy. For US, it's exciting to go to the States, see bland drivel like Counting Crows or whoever non-stop on MTV and realise that you're giving the people something fresh and exciting. It's new to us.
"There are only so many times you can return to certain places in the UK so it's quite a thrill to go somewhere where they've never seen anything like you before."
There's another important facet to the US angle in the Chemical scheme of things. "We make our music by going there to buy boxes and boxes of records. We ship them back home and go through them for samples and sounds at a later date. You get some amazing drum sounds on some freestyle hip-bop albums."
Those records provided some of the impetus for Dig Your Own Hole, The Chemicals' great leap forward. "We were really confident and wanted to actually stretch ourselves and take what we were doing to the limit. Still, I wouldn't like to diss [put down] the first album. It's strange for us to read reviews which say the first album was a bit patchy, a bit all over the place. That was what we were doing at the time, we thought it was totally cool, it had a lot of spunk to it, a lot of energy.
"But the main sound on the first album, great big beats with a distorted riff, I think we've heard a bit too often so we went looking for new sounds."
Collaborators also played a part. Besides Noel Gallagher and a return visit from post-modem folkie Beth Orton, indie mavericks Mercury Rev came into the picture on the albums' standout climax, The Private Psychedelic Reel.
"With that track, we realised there was nothing more we could do with it. We had been listening to Mercury Rev and thought it would be a good idea to get in the brass ensemble they were touring with. It was good because we were realising our limitations and bringing someone else on board to add that little bit extra.
"I suppose because of our indie background we would be aware of a band like Mercury Rev whereas others on the dance scene would never have heard of Yerself Is Steam."
Collaborations also work the other way and the Chemical duo are top of many mainstream acts shopping lists when it comes to garnering credibility and kudos. "Untold bands have approached us about getting involved - the likes of David Bowie, The Rolling Stones. We've both done stuff with The Charlatans but that's the only production we've been involved with. We enjoy being our own band, we get enough kicks out of our own stuff without going away producing other people. It fudges the issue really - we're quite happy to tour and put out cool records rather than having to, provide the cutting edge for other acts".
"Despite what people think, U2 have never actually approached us about production. On this round of interviews, it's been the standard question - `what do you think of U2?' When we were in Dublin in March, the respect and - affection they're held in by the people we were with and the effect they've had on the city has really revolutionised the way I see them. We even stayed at the Clarence and it was brilliant so I'll never talk bad of U2 again.
"Still, it's strange to hear they're interested in meeting you - especially when you can remember being 12 or 13 and they were playing at Red Rock or wherever."
BETWEEN fielding offers from the has-beens and leading the charge of the wannabes, Ed and Tom simply get on with things. They seem incredibly unaffected by what's going on around them. Have they ever fallen out with each other? "Yeah, we've had quite a few rows, mostly over abstract things in the studio. When we were mixing and editing, there was a lot of shouting over that bit there or those bits over there. That's where we get the most argumentative. Other than that, we get on fine. We're mild mannered guys."
