Funny thing, chemistry. You can put two or three elements together, and get a spectacular reaction. But if you get the mix wrong, you can end up blowing up the lab. Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons have been tinkering around in their own musical laboratory since 1993, and the concoctions they've come up with so far have been nothing short of sublime. Interviewing the Chemical Brothers, however, can be a somewhat inert experience. Talking to Tom Rowlands, the long-haired half of dance music's finest alchemists, I find it hard to follow the usual rock interview formula. The new album? There isn't one due out this year. The famous girlfriend? Neither Tom nor Ed play the celebrity dating game. The backstage fights? Sorry pal, there's not even a hint of animosity between these sonic siblings. Doesn't leave much to talk about, except the music. And the last thing you want to talk to a pop star about is their music, right? Give us plenty of sex 'n' drugs, but please, don't bore us with the rock 'n' roll details.
The Gallagher brothers might give good copy, but The Chemical Brothers give great, explosive, mind-blowing music, and when they headline the Creamfields festival at Punchestown Racecourse tonight, they'll make Oasis look like the boring old dinosaurs they've become. Block-rockin' beats, loops of fury and pumping psychedelic reels - the Chemicals have all the ingredients for an atomic finale to this day-long dancefest, and they're bound to administer them in dangerously large doses.
The magic doesn't materialise out of thin air, however. For every Setting Sun or Let Forever Be, there are endless hours in the band's London lair - their studio in Elephant & Castle.
"The way we work is quite time-intensive," says Tom. "We spend a lot of time making the records. It's not something we want to rush; it has to be right by the time it comes out. I think we've had a good work rate to have three albums, two mix albums and all the remixes and stuff. It's not quantity, it's quality. We try and get a natural cycle of doing things. You make a record, and then you go on tour to play it, and then you make another record." Birth, school, make a record, tour, make another record, do a few remixes for bands like Primal Scream, Spiritualized and St. Etienne, make another record, collect a Brit Award for Best Dance Act, headline the main stage at Glastonbury, fly straight over to Ireland to headline Creamfields.
The pair met while studying at Manchester University. Tom was playing in local bands, while Ed was in thrall to the acid house scene, but their first musical experiment - 500 pressings of Song To The Siren - was potent enough to impress superstar DJ Andy Weatherall, who signed them to his Junior Boys Own label. At first they were The Dust Brothers, but an American production team already held claim to that name, so Tom and Ed became The Chemical Brothers. The rest is chemistry: breakthrough sales for their second album, Dig Your Own Hole; a Grammy award for Block Rockin' Beats; a chart-topping single, Setting Sun, featuring Noel Gallagher on vocals; and to top it all off, a glorious third album, Surrender, with guest appearances by Gallagher (Let Forever Be), Bernard Sumner and Bobby Gillespie (Out Of Control), Hope Sandoval from Mazzy Star (Asleep From Day) and Mercury Rev's Jonathan Donahue (Dream On). Somehow, Tom and Ed have managed to surf above the trends and fads of dance music, staying vibrant and relevant, and avoiding the undercurrent of disposability which has seen other dance acts sink fast.
Hey Boy Hey Girl was the techno tune of Summer 1999, but you can bet your bottom dollar that their next album will spawn another summer dance anthem. The Chemical Brothers could lay claim to being the elder lemons of dance. Ed is just about to turn 30 (Tom will be the DJ at his party, natch), but neither feels old, creaky, or out of touch. "It's making music that keeps me excited. If the music excites you, it doesn't matter what age you are. I still go to clubs and I still go to see DJs. I know a lot of DJs who are a lot older than me, and I'm 29. I look at someone like Norman Cook - he's a lot older than me, but he's firing on all cylinders. Music reaches people of all ages, man," says Ed.
The popular view is that The Chemical Brothers tend to reach more parts of the student body than anywhere else. They're the ultimate college dance heroes: slightly nerdy, obsessed with technology, and in thrall to the indie icons who guest on their albums. "To us, these people weren't indie icons, they were people who made really exciting records, and music that we were into. They just happened to be from that area of music. We make dance music, and one of the things that was interesting to us was to work with people who didn't make dance music. So we worked with rock musicians or alternative musicians. We came from club music, and they came from somewhere else, and when the two met, and it was put through our way of making things, that made it exciting."
"For us, going to university was just something we did. It was something we both wanted to do. We were interested in books and learning, but it didn't mean that. I dunno, it's weird, but back then, being a student meant you were supposed to be listening to all this rainy music and not going out. But we went to Manchester University and went out to The Hacienda to hear Graham Parker, Mike Pickering and John Da Silva. At the time, few of the other students were interested in doing that - they preferred to go to the rugby dinner. That sort of distinction doesn't exist anymore. Everyone's into dance music, and all the boundaries have been broken down, including this archetypal view that students are only into indie music."
The Chemical Brothers headline Creamfields at Punchestown Racecourse today. See The Guide (Weekend 12-13) for more details
