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Interview
by Jesu Dega
6-12-2001
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| Basement Jaxx in da armchair |
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Perfect roots
Basement Jaxx create music of own specifications and should have won the Mercury Music Prize
Basement Jaxx’s second album, ‘Rooty’, continues the story of the 1999’s ‘Remedy’ and its secret is music that is mass commercial and yet street-cred; the two members know how to score hits with cheesy songs such as ‘Romeo’ but make it sound cool enough not to be able to dislike it. Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe have knack for partying and that is reflected in their music, it is an open invitation to get you dancing finery on.
‘Rooty’ is full of uplifting music of rhythmical variety that doesn’t shy away from disco or Latin beats. Great ingredients are put into the blender and their tonic is a potent medication for heart, soul and body.
“We make music for ourselves,” Buxton observes about the band’s artistic credo, “because we find no other music to satisfy our aural needs. We started out because we shared passion for music but found that it was all stagnant, predictable and in the hands of the big boys who were really milking it.”
Frenetic defiance
Basement Jaxx’s offer a seeming chaos of sounds – cybertronica, ragga, soul, salsa, pop – with some amateurish enthusiasm, that are miraculously transformed into tracks that find a way to engage one’s whole being. Club music can be repetitious and imitative but there are forces that try to break out of the norm and popular demands.
“Simon and I didn’t get together,” Buxton explains further, “to jump on a band-wagon or were trying to become part of a certain dance scene. We wanted to make music that was adventurous and interesting because we weren’t getting it from anywhere else. We have different musical tastes but that worked to our advantage as we strive to mix and shape very different sounds into a whole you could dance to or simply just listen to.”
Buxton, son of a Leicestershire vicar, a church chorister until the age of 18 and a contemporary of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke at Exeter University, and Ratcliffe, a Dutch-born former punk who had dropped out of college to play in a jazz-funk band, met in 1993 and found common musical interest despite their different backgrounds and tastes. As soon as ‘Da Underground’ EP appeared in 1994 it attracted a lot of attention and quickly led to signing to an independent imprint rather than to a music giant.
“Music industry works in waves,” Ratcliffe offers his wisdom, “and as long as you are fashionable… We felt that all interest from the majors was down to seeing us as the next-big-thing and not for our music. Our music is the most important and without it we are pretty much nothing. If we were aggressively marketed we might have had a greatest success and totally exploited for a couple of years and then, the company would have moved onto its next thing.”
Shape of fame
Having ditched musical convention to amalgamate sounds into songs that could be messy but supremely danceable all the same, the Jaxx have refused to accept their star status and get isolated in its luxury. After playing huge places around the world the two simply felt cut-off from their street roots and countered it by launching a monthly club in a pub’s backroom near their South London’s homes.
“At once we felt,“ Ratcliffe remarks, “totally separated from where we came from. All the success was demanding its pound of flesh and, although we are very proud of what we’ve achieved, we couldn’t start behaving like stars. That’s for Mick Jaggers and Rod Stewarts of this world, we are just two normal guys making music that some people like.”
Balancing fun of DJing at the pub that provided the title for the current album and controlled (commercial) periods appear to satisfy the two. But, their low profile might be seen as lack of ambition.
“No, not at all,” Buxton denies enthusiastically, “we are ambitious but not in a sense that is visibly noticeable. We don’t crave to get into the papers for going to parties, openings, premieres, clubs with the celeb-crowd. That’s not our scene and as long as we are able to make music that makes us happy, that’s all that matters.”
“Some DJs have become stars in their own right,” Buxton concludes the conversation, ”and that’s fine. If people are happy to be celebrities as well, we respect that. We don’t wish to be tabloid fodder, it is so trivial and cheap, we aspire to other things like the quality of music.”
Tour dates:
04 December – Corn Exchange, Cambridge
06 December – Brixton Academy, London
07 December – ibid (9pm – 3am)
08 December – Octagon, Sheffield
09 December – University, Cardiff
12 December – Corn Exchange, Edinburgh
13 December – Barrowlands, Glasgow
14 December – Apollo, Manchester
Jesu Dega
14-2-2005
Basement Jaxx’s album ‘Rooty’ is out now on XL Recordings
Basement Jaxx’s single ‘Where’s Your Head At?’ is released 26 November 2001 on XL Recordings
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