06 November 2019
Newsdesk
This November, BBC Radio 6 Music has ‘Something for the Weekend’ celebrating 20 years since the Chemical Brothers captured the spirit of 90s rave culture on their classic third album, Surrender. All the programmes are available live and on demand on BBC Sounds.
On Friday Lauren Laverne and The Chemical Brothers (8 Nov, 7-9pm), kicks things off with Lauren talking to the duo about the music that has meant the most to them over the course of the last two decades in this special. In the show, Tom and Ed pick tunes from the likes of Beastie Boys, Spirtualized, Derrick May and New Order, reflect on their own back catalogue and share stories from both their live shows and the studio.
Lauren Laverne said: “It’s great to be celebrating this classic album on 6 Music. The Chemical Brothers have been such an influence on the music scene, so it’s been a lot of fun catching up with them to hear their influences and great stories, and sharing some of their favourite tracks with our listeners.”
Also on Friday, Nemone (8 Nov, 11pm–12am) features a special Chemical Brothers mix along with her usual eclectic mix of new and old skool dance, electronica, beats, breaks, funk and hip-hop. On Saturday 9th November, the 6 Music Classic Concert (2am – 3am) has highlights of Ed and Tom's memorable set at Glastonbury in 2000, presented by Chris Hawkins. Rounding off the weekend, in Sunday’s Now Playing (10 Nov, 6-8pm), listeners create the playlist with presenter Tom Robinson asking for their favourite song from a DJ or producer and looking into collaborations of when electro meets rock. Also on Sunday, The Chemical Brothers pick their own hour long playlists - Tom Rowland’s Playlist (1am) and Ed Simon’s Playlist (2am) where listeners can expect tracks from likes of Underground Resistance, Skee Mask, Brittany Howard and Shasta Cuts.
The Chemical Brothers told Lauren Laverne:
On working with Bernard Sumner of New Order: “He came down to the studio late Friday night and his guitar roadie dropped off his guitar. Then Bernard tuned his guitar by playing Love Will Tear Us Apart. At the time we were like ‘Oh wow this is really happening!’. He was such a nice guy, he really got into the collaboration.”
On the KLF: “They made an album, 1987, it was just made of samples and that just seemed such a ridiculously amazing idea when I was 16. But I remember writing a letter, because there was an address on the back of the record, and I wrote a letter asking what the samples were. King Boy D actually wrote me a letter back giving a list of what all the samples were! It’s on my wall at home.”
On their album, Surrender: “The room we wrote Surrender in, we had a studio upstairs in a big studio so there was bands working downstairs. A band were upstairs having food in the living room. Tom had been working on the riff that’s ‘Music Response’ . I’d go in and out, and one of those people in the band asked me ‘how does he do that?’ and I said ‘what do you mean? He’s been working on that riff for four days now! That’s all we’ve heard coming out that room!’ A lot went into making that record, so it’s good to look back on it 20 years on.”
On Richard Ashcroft: “We had Richard Ashcroft in the studio, doing the song The Test. And there was one line in it, and I said ‘Oh maybe we should….’ And he just looked at me like ‘Nah’. He was right.”
