From producing Primal Scream to being a punk DJ, Andrew Weatherall’s career has been a long, varied and - above all else - fascinating one. And now he’s been asked to surmise all that musical diversity in a new mix for Ministry of Sound’s Masterpiece series… Defected’s Ben Lovett asks where he started.
Andrew Weatherall is on holiday. Kind of. The seriously fabled DJ, producer and remixer is taking a break from the “bleak indie ghetto” in which he is normally to be found making eclectic, visionary music. “It’s tough being in the ghetto all the time” he smiles, “every now and again you need time out. The world of shiny pop and commercial records is a nice holiday for me, but only that. I have no issue with it but if I stayed too long it’d stop me thinking.”
We’re here, of course, to talk about Weatherall’s Masterpiece, the latest addition to Ministry Of Sound’s acclaimed Masterpiece mix compilation series. Weatherall follows luminaries Gilles Peterson and Francois K, with much the same remit; to scrunch a lifetime of deep musical influences onto just three discs. And, to be fair, whilst his album has been released by one of clubland’s biggest commercial machines, it’s clear that its music remains untainted.
“I didn’t want this record to be functional only” he explains. “There are too many mix CDs out there now designed only to create the kind of blind rush you experience in a club. They’re too prescribed. With Masterpiece I wanted to convey the essence of me; I wanted a greater level of personality and, thankfully, I was allowed to get on and distil my soul onto the three mixes.”
Was it a difficult process, considering his 30-odd years in music? “I’m really obsessive about what I do and that became a bit of a joke in the studio” he admits. “I resisted computers, insisting on using live versions of everything. It had to flow properly, representing me as DJ. I wanted it all to be right; I took my time with track selections.”
The first disc opens with a track from Weatherall’s new band The Asphodells, A Love From Outer Space, which references his cult London night of the same name. “The night has been so good over the past 18 months. It links my past, present and future and offers such a wide array of sounds. The atmosphere is special; it really reminds me of when I first started DJing and is kind of what I wanted to convey with Masterpiece.”
If Weatherall has been enjoying himself with Ministry then he is already preparing his next underground moves. He recently launched new vinyl-only label Bird Scarer, already demonstrating its fiercely maverick intentions thanks to output from “analogue curator and multi-instrumentalist” friend Timothy J Fairplay - there are several undisclosed plans there. Previously recording together as Rotters Golf Club, Fairplay and Weatherall are also now forging on under trippy, goth-edged alias The Asphodells. On top of that lies myriad non-conformist remix commitments (including a dub-stepped Madness) and production work (buddies Primal Scream have been back in touch about work on their next album).
“It’s difficult in this musical day and age not to have a look or brand. When you consider the explosion of electronic music in America, that trend has just accelerated; everyone needs an image” Weatherall comments. “It’s become something of an art staying in the shadows.”
Weatherall’s back-story needs little re-telling. As a young teen he was distracted from humdrum suburbia by the glam rock styling of a David Bowie album cover, which opened his eyes and ears to other dynamic things. Punk DJing followed, Boy’s Own, Rampling and friends, and then a succession of idiosyncratic and highly influential studio projects for the next two decades – remixes of Primal Scream and the Happy Mondays, production as The Sabres Of Paradise (early Nineties), Two Lone Swordsmen (with Keith Tenniswood, late Nineties) and latterly as himself. Released in 2009 on Rotters Golf Club, Weatherall’s debut solo album A Pox On The Pioneers was widely praised; but there remains so much else to mention, not least production work for Bjork, James and the Manic Street Preachers. His is an extensive body of work.
Weatherall’s lengthy career has been shadowy in the best possible sense. Ever since it took off at the tail-end of the Eighties, Weatherall forming Boy’s Own with Terry Farley and co., and playing pivotal dance nights Shoom, Spectrum, Future and Trip (alongside Danny Rampling, Paul Oakenfold and Nicky Holloway), he has maintained an impressive equilibrium between reputation and obscurity. Any self-respecting club nut would quickly recognise Weatherall’s name and significance but struggle, in turn, to pinpoint a face or particular sound.
It seems like the perfect position; is he aware of it?: “Absolutely. When I started out, my real name was broadcast by accident rather than a pseudonym I had in mind. Someone fucked up a poster for one of my first gigs and that was that. I remember my first ever magazine photoshoot too; I insisted on wearing a hat, scarf and sunglasses because I wanted my music to remain hidden. I’d grown up with artists like Adrian Sherwood [legendary UK dub producer] who had this cool mysterious element to his craft. I wanted that too; it had a great impact.”
Weatherall’s carefully managed resistance to over-exposure is still firmly in evidence today. Whilst some DJs and artists bask in the digital glow of Facebook and Twitter, social media hype isn’t for him. “It’s one of the main ways that I can control how I’m represented out in the wider world” he says. “The extra attention doesn’t help me make the music I want, so I ignore social media.”
But it’s not nearly as simple as that. The relentless viral spread of social media is down to interlinked networks of people; Weatherall might choose to batten down his own cyber hatches but others are always on hand to track his movements. It’s a reality he does acknowledge: “The irony is that I have people working for me who post things on my behalf but I don’t fuel it further – personally - than I have to. I do get grabbed for photos at gigs too and I know some of those images will get uploaded. It makes me feel a little uncomfortable but then the attention comes from a nice place and, as my good lady wife told me a few months back, and in the spirit of Oscar Wilde, it is worse not being photographed or written about at all!”
Weatherall is similarly philosophical about the divide between pop and underground. “I live in the shadows but shadow walkers like me still need the pop industry” he remarks. “Underground music scenes have long fed the mainstream ones and that interesting relationship helps keep the underground moving. Again, look at America; it’s taken the mainstream there 10 or 15 years to properly catch-up with underground electronic music and whilst most of it isn’t to my taste, it has created a positive halo effect on what the entire electronic community does. There’s a better understanding.”
And the shadows, according to Weatherall, are still there. “They’re harder to find” he says, “but there’s still lot of interesting electronic music getting made and played today. I actually eased off of the DJing for a bit and only properly back in the saddle a couple of years ago, but the right gigs were still coming in from all over the world; gigs across a wide spectrum of sounds. That was really encouraging.”
It is only recently that Weatherall has started to come to terms with his sonic legacy. “I always thought I hadn’t done that much” he reflects. “I was never ever satisfied, which is a good thing but you can’t dismiss your past. I’ve realised that now. After three decades in music I’ve grown into myself; I’ve woken up to how good my past was and what impact it has had.”
Conversely, he always felt that his profession – electronic music – would blow up; would become more than a handful of muddy, late Eighties M25 raves: “Even at those raves I could see that the music would go far. I was actually quite protective of it, because I thought it was my special thing. It made me a bit of an arse on occasions. I’m a lot more measured these days. I get on with my music and let everyone else do what they want to do.
“If someone like Guetta [David] wants to cross from the underground to pop music I have no problem with that. I won’t deride his decision or lose sleep about what it means for electronic music. I’m completely happy with the shadows and my occasional holidays to shiny pop land. I actually like watching pop videos on TV, if only because watching your enemy helps remind who you really are!”
Words: Ben Lovett
Masterpiece Created By Andrew Weatherall is out now on Ministry Of Sound Records.
