Goldie Interview

Greeting us with a warm handshake and a grin full of his famous gold gnashers, we headed to West London to meet with none other than Goldie.

Releasing his 20th anniversary album, ‘The Alchemist: The Best Of Goldie 1992-2012′, on 11th March, the Drum and Bass icon, graffiti artist, DJ, actor and producer is as animated and effervescent as you would imagine. Plonking his feet on the table of the Warner Music boardroom, Goldie is comfortable in his own skin and ready to talk frankly about everything from his newest work to the rebellion of his generation. From stories of people hanging off balconies at the Hard Rock Café in Mexico, to playing at a private “gold” themed party at Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas’ house, to appearing in James Bond ‘The World Is Not Enough’, he’s done a lot and now it’s time to reflect.

Although ‘The Alchemist’ celebrates Goldie’s vast portfolio of works, he has also incorporated his newest record, ‘Single Petal Of A Rose’, inspired by Duke Ellington’s 1956 original of the same title, Goldie elaborates on how it came about, “It was inspired by Duke Ellington. There’s an original version of ‘Single Petal of a Rose’, it’s got fuck all to do with this version, as it’s an instrumental track, which hasn’t even taken a note from it. But it was an inspiration ‘cause I’m an artist. I don’t just sit there saying, ‘oh I want to make a tune like that one there as I need to make some money’. I find that’s really been a thing for me.” Featuring the vocals of Jade Jones (of Damage), Goldie continues on how the collaboration came about, “I think that ‘Single Petal’ was beautiful as it’s something I wrote for Jade, he’s got a great voice, and when he was coming out I was like ‘Fucking boy bands, load a fucking bollocks.’ But he’s got a great voice. And Emma [Bunton] said, ‘I don’t think he’ll ever be able to make a Drum and Bass record’ so I said, I’ll sort that out then.” And that he did. It’s a chilled track with all the electronic and bassy elements you could want after a long night out.

Goldie goes on to talk about when he was starting out in the early 90s and how his music has evolved over the course of time. “When ‘Inner City Life’ came out 20 years ago, I was completely alienated. You might as well have thrown stones at me, or darts.” Pausing, albeit very momentarily in his animated state, he continues, “I was just some kid, making tunes wanting to be different. We all did that, when we were kids, but I just happened to have a background in music, in terms of subcultures to throw the stones from. A lot of other people never had that kind of platform. There was a lot of electronic music coming out and you’d be thinking ‘Fuck me, this is machines doing this shit, I wanna do this’.”

Having not come from a classically trained background Goldie expresses how his generation went about creating electronic music and how and why he chose to create the kind of music he did, “…not having the ability to read music or be an engineer, I find it quite clever if you can vicariously do it through others. It’s a bit like wanking with your eyes closed with one hand tied up. You know, I think I just found it, for me, like a passive way of giving everyone the middle finger. I think it was some Freudian way of trying to prove – well everyone thought I was a fucking failure.”

Famous for splicing different types of music together from Bjork to David Bowie, Goldie has an immense capacity to realise his visions. Goldie admits how random his musical conceptions can be, “A lot of music I’ve done, like ballads I think, ‘It’s got no place on an album like this!’ [he shouts] then 20 years later people come to me and say, oh that record took me through some hard times when I lost my mum, or my dad died. A couple of people have said to me they’ve lost their loved ones, they O.D’d or something, and say that it took them through a really important time in their lives.”

Speaking about the importance of music to himself and the journey it’s taken him on, Goldie elaborates, “Music really carried my life. It’s all I know. I moved around every-fucking-where. I fucking was an orphan from the age of fucking three to 18. You’re in a place and someone’s playing Beatles, or then Steel Pulse and Marley. Everywhere was like a musical canvas and I was like ‘I’m confused!’ But I just took it all in. And that’s it really.”

Goldie recalls how he and his peers were received back in the early 90s with passion he states, “We were the bastard child of Rave music. We were the bastard child of House music. They fucking hated us. All these posh House people going ‘rebel rabble noise’. And we like ‘Fuck you lot’.”

Talking about how ‘Inner City Life’, released in 1994 was a nod to everything that was wrong with England, and the state of the UK in general when he returned from America, Goldie explains, “When I came back to England, I saw it falling apart. My first experience after leaving the institutes was going from one side of the estate to the other without your feet touching the grass. It was a big thing for a young boy. It was all Margaret Thatcher and everybody getting picked up for just smoking weed. It was fucked up. Now it’s all sterile and Big Brother.”

With a whole host of touring lined up to promote ‘The Alchemist’ released on his label Metalheadz, Goldie expresses, in his cheeky Brummy tinged accent, “It’s fucking closure innit. It’s like see you, bye. Next! I’ll never settle down, mate, I learned to wank with my right hand a long time ago. You’ve got to move it around, you’ve got to keep it fresh. You’ve got to try and do different things.”

With a positive outlook on life, or simply use negative encounters to drive his talents, Goldie has been and will continue to be a vital makeup of electronic music today, laying down the bare back bones on which others have taken inspiration and created from. “There’s a story behind all the music I make, whether people like it or not. Whether you’re rolling out and being a bit aggy when you’re younger, or you get to my age and start thinking a bit more, you can be a bit more thespian about it if you like. It’s still electronic music for me. It just has a heart and soul now.”

By Hannah Shakir

Read our review of Goldie’s ‘The Alchemist: The Best of Goldie 1992-2012’