FROM THE CLOSE CAMARADERIE OF THE UK’S EARLY DANCE MUSIC SCENE TO MAJOR MOVIE SOUNDTRACK WORK TO SUFFERING FROM NERVES AT GLASTONBURY, ONE HALF OF ORBITAL SHOWS US BEHIND THE SCENES

IAN WADE

Orbital have been one of the pioneering dance acts of the last 30 years. From their humble beginnings knocking up the rave conqueror Chime via a journey that’s taken in illegal raves, winning Glastonbury, stunning soundtrack work and a brace of amazing albums, brothers Paul and Phil Hartnoll have become pretty much national treasures of rave. As the duo sit tight, busily composing new stuff, Paul regaled Classic Pop with tales of life as a legend…

You supposedly recorded Chime in a cupboard under the stairs…

Yeah, it was an under-the-stairs cupboard that had been converted into an office, because both my parents were selfemployed so they both worked from home for their bookwork – that kind of thing. My dad was a builder, so he knocked the wall out and put a desk in there, and they then both moved to run a pub when I was 17, so that area then became my studio – the Orbital HQ – and started spreading across the living room as I stayed at the family home while my parents ran the pub.

What was the ambition – was it to just get the tracks out there?

No, to be fair, I always remember this and still cringe, but it was the single-minded determination and arrogance of youth. I remember doing my CSEs, and someone asking me ‘So what are you going to do?’ because I had a bleached Mohican at that point, and I said ‘You’ll see me on Top Of The Pops within the year’ – and he didn’t see me on there within the year, but he did actually see me on there in four years.

That was my single-minded determination –I hadn’t squared it all up at that point, but I decidedly early on, inspired by ska and that sort of thing, that I was going to be in a band, and then I got into proper anarchopunk like Crass and Flux Of Pink Indians and decided I was going to be in that kind of band, and yet somehow I thought I was going to be on Top Of The Pops and yet in that kind of band – obviously the two things don’t go together, but in my head I was going to make it happen.

Then I got into synths as my taste in music was softening, and I got older and started playing in local bands, and then I made friends with my brother – as when I hit puberty, I didn’t want to know him! – so when I was 16 and he was 20, he’d been in London and had some good connections with friends and music there, and him and his friend Jeremy used to come down and stay and have some crazy party nights, and Jeremy would always bring loads of records down. I would get my head blown off by some of this crazy avant garde electronic music at the time – bands like Severed Heads from Australia, and Front 242 from Belgium, and things like that… stuff you just didn’t hear in Sevenoaks. And then along with Kraftwerk, who I’d always loved anyway and you know, people like The Human League and that kind of thing.