Underworld
SLIPPERY PEOPLE
Underworld Reinvent Themselves Once Again -- with a Live Album and DVD
Although Underworld's live album Everything, Everything marks the end of DJ Darren Emerson's association with the world's most adventurous dance band, it also heralds a new beginning. The dynamic duo of Rick Smith and Karl Hyde have veered off in another technological-tinged direction, experimenting with interactivity and images with a forthcoming companion DVD. Of course, Underworld are used to change -- evolving from early '80s new wave group Freur through a techno-industrial period to the wildly successful electronica incarnation that hit with "Born Slippy," featured on the Trainspotting soundtrack. Underworld's electronics expert Rick Smith spoke with Barnes & Noble.com's Douglas Wolk about the band's latest mutations.
Barnes & Noble.com: Why did you choose to release a live album?
Rick Smith: There was a specific moment of inspiration behind it -- when I was stuck in traffic, in the car. I'd been given some free studio time by a studio in London and a few days to mix in surround sound, and I had a feeling that we weren't going to be playing [as a trio] for much longer. There was a look in Karl's eyes. We've been playing together almost 20 years, and I thought, I know this look, the gigs are going incredibly well, every show we're coming offstage really elated, the audience is loving it -- how much longer is this going to go like this? Nine days later, we had a nine-camera crew that Karl and I paid to come and film the show, and we were away. Originally, all I wanted to do was record one gig on DVD, so the quality of the visuals would be excellent, and mix it in surround sound. It was just to capture this one linear, filmic thing. But as you start something, you have to modify ideas, and often they're the best things, because they lead you down the best roads. This was the most difficult project I've ever been involved in, and Underworld albums aren't exactly easy -- they can take a couple of years -- but this one was particularly stressful to the point of breakdown.
B&N.com: How does the division of labor work for live performances?
RS: To describe roles within the band has always been very difficult, because they're always changing. You can say Karl is a singer and a guitar player, but that's to deny the fact that I might sing. The conclusions that people come to, historically speaking, are invariably wrong. And that's okay. By keeping quiet, there's just this space where people can imagine who does what, and that's cool. People have come to see us since Darren's been gone, and they think it's great. The lines of communication are so simple now -- in all that time we'd never played with just the two of us, but now that we've had a chance to do it, it's incredibly exciting. I take responsibility for this engine which drives the shapes; Karl sings and plays guitar. What he does is very live, and elements that he introduces are extremely unpredictable.
B&N.com: Tell me about the Live Tomato Art Jam on the DVD.
RS: We wanted to take screens out on the road with us, and it's so expensive we'd never felt like we could afford it. [So] when we started playing larger shows and we could afford it, we went for it. Jason Kedgely and Graham Wood of [the design company] Tomato generated a large stockpile of images, and when we were out on the road we could "jam" on them with some fairly basic vision-mixing equipment. On the DVD, the art tracks move in parallel with the gig. You can swap between the strand that's mixed art and the strand that's just the raw images.
B&N.com: Do you ever get sick of playing "Born Slippy"?
RS: No! There was a period three or four years ago when I was sick of it, and Karl said, If you went to see James Brown, you'd want him to do "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" -- how would you feel if he didn't do it? Because we jam, it becomes a thing to be manipulated and fooled with, and it changes every night enough to keep us happy. When you see 40,000 people go completely mental as you drop a chord in, it's hard not to just think, This is great! Whatever you're feeling about it as a piece of art, it's incredibly satisfying.
September 12, 2000
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