24 February 2023
Newsdesk
Tonight at 1am on Radio 2, dance music legend Fatboy Slim picks the songs that have had the most influence on his incredible music career in Mixing Influences… With Fatboy Slim on Radio 2 and BBC Sounds.
He talks about his school days, his punk phase, and the bands he saw live, the vinyl he discovered in record stores and songs he heard on the radio that stopped him in his tracks, with the show including songs by Donna Summer, The Carpenters, The Damned, The Clash and Chemical Brothers.
On The Damned: “After 13 years of being spoonfed the Carpenters, my brother Simon brought home punk rock. By the time the song had finished I'd bought the record off him. By the time the album had finished I was a punk rocker. Its the sound of rebellion that I was looking for in my life."
On Chemical Brothers: “Tom and Ed were introduced to me by Lindy Layton who I'd been in a band with called Beats International. I had this DJ set that I used to play - and she phoned me up one day and said you' know that set you played of slowed down techno and sped up hip hop ...there's these other guys in London called the Chemical Brothers doing it. It was like meeting your long lost family that you never thought you had."
On The Clash: "I was a hardcore punk rocker. Still the only gang in town was The Clash. They weren't scared to mix around different genres of music. They also politically influenced me hugely. They really educated me. The sentiments of being an only white guy in a reggae audience resonated with me later as being the only white guy in a hip hop crowd.”
The programme will feature a brilliant mix of music from different decades, different countries and multiple genres, including soul, hip hop, reggae, disco, blues, funk, punk, pop and, of course, dance, all of which, when brought together, have helped make Fatboy Slim one of the world's most successful and much-loved DJs.
