< Continued from page 3
Surprisingly though, the way people were turned on to Faithless isn't the way the band would've seen it happening. While all their chart success came from a re-release of "Insomnia" the re-release was only prompted due to massive demand for the deleted single. They would've preferred to re-release "Salva Mea." instead (which has since happened in the wake of the success of "Insomnia") "Insomnia was such an afterthought for us in a way," quips Rollo.
"Because for the album we wanted like, an answer to "Salva Mea," but "Salva Mea" is the song we loved and "Insomnia" we only just liked. We just wanted to use the same sound again later on in the album to build the album up again. The song was like, not done in a day, but it was no more than two days worth of work, because it was actually put there to bring the album up again, but we ended up liking it enough to release it as a single, which, when released did almost nothing -- it did exactly what the other one did, get to #24 in [Britain] and then in the middle of [1996] we started getting calls saying the track was this number in this chart, and then it just started selling everywhere, and then we re-released it here of course. This is over a year and bit later than when it was originally released. It's been sitting around for that long, and suddenly everyone started buying it."
Taking from my own personal experience as a DJ, "Insomnia" was always a massive record. While not being the most DJ-friendly tune in the world, there's a certain element to the record which never fails to capture the crowd, no matter what you play around the tune.
"It's really weird, you know, because You never know when you're in the studio, however loud you play the record, the effect it will have on the crowd." Of course, once Rollo finally did hear it out in a club, he got the full picture, and it surprised the hell out of him. "I think that's one of the best, most exciting things about dance music is that records do take a life of their own once they come into the club. Once they go on those big speakers they suddenly they have a power that they just don't have anywhere else. When you make one, you don't know what ingredients are going to do that, so you can't set out and formulize it or anything." I guess it's just magic, my friend.
All of this pop chart and selling stuff really does surprise the band. Sometimes groups have expectations which get met, but Faithless never imagined moving millions of records and charting high all over the world. "I remember sitting next to Maxi, Jamie and Sister in the studio and saying, 'if this sells 60,000 copies around the world wouldn't that be amazing?' and we all had a laugh at the thought of it even doing that. Also getting signed to Arista is kind of like, even though nothing has happened in America, and maybe nothing will, but it seems like some surreal dream which I'm waiting to wake up from."
But things were not always so rosy for the group. When Reverence debuted last spring, critics and fans alike were quite in dis-belief of the lack of 120+ BPM club tracks on it. Even DMA's own "London Report" columnist Ian D didn't quite understand what was going on, and said "avoid it at all costs," in his review, but the band didn't record the album with the intent on just doing club music. "I love house and I love dance music," Rollo urges. "It's where I come from, but I think for me and most people, that when you go home you listen to a lot of different types of music and that' s what I wanted to do on the album, because Maxi had so many intelligent things to say about the world and the way we are and stuff like that, and I wanted to bed that down and back up what he was saying."
Surprisingly though, the way people were turned on to Faithless isn't the way the band would've seen it happening. While all their chart success came from a re-release of "Insomnia" the re-release was only prompted due to massive demand for the deleted single. They would've preferred to re-release "Salva Mea." instead (which has since happened in the wake of the success of "Insomnia") "Insomnia was such an afterthought for us in a way," quips Rollo.
"Because for the album we wanted like, an answer to "Salva Mea," but "Salva Mea" is the song we loved and "Insomnia" we only just liked. We just wanted to use the same sound again later on in the album to build the album up again. The song was like, not done in a day, but it was no more than two days worth of work, because it was actually put there to bring the album up again, but we ended up liking it enough to release it as a single, which, when released did almost nothing -- it did exactly what the other one did, get to #24 in [Britain] and then in the middle of [1996] we started getting calls saying the track was this number in this chart, and then it just started selling everywhere, and then we re-released it here of course. This is over a year and bit later than when it was originally released. It's been sitting around for that long, and suddenly everyone started buying it."
Taking from my own personal experience as a DJ, "Insomnia" was always a massive record. While not being the most DJ-friendly tune in the world, there's a certain element to the record which never fails to capture the crowd, no matter what you play around the tune.
"It's really weird, you know, because You never know when you're in the studio, however loud you play the record, the effect it will have on the crowd." Of course, once Rollo finally did hear it out in a club, he got the full picture, and it surprised the hell out of him. "I think that's one of the best, most exciting things about dance music is that records do take a life of their own once they come into the club. Once they go on those big speakers they suddenly they have a power that they just don't have anywhere else. When you make one, you don't know what ingredients are going to do that, so you can't set out and formulize it or anything." I guess it's just magic, my friend.
All of this pop chart and selling stuff really does surprise the band. Sometimes groups have expectations which get met, but Faithless never imagined moving millions of records and charting high all over the world. "I remember sitting next to Maxi, Jamie and Sister in the studio and saying, 'if this sells 60,000 copies around the world wouldn't that be amazing?' and we all had a laugh at the thought of it even doing that. Also getting signed to Arista is kind of like, even though nothing has happened in America, and maybe nothing will, but it seems like some surreal dream which I'm waiting to wake up from."
But things were not always so rosy for the group. When Reverence debuted last spring, critics and fans alike were quite in dis-belief of the lack of 120+ BPM club tracks on it. Even DMA's own "London Report" columnist Ian D didn't quite understand what was going on, and said "avoid it at all costs," in his review, but the band didn't record the album with the intent on just doing club music. "I love house and I love dance music," Rollo urges. "It's where I come from, but I think for me and most people, that when you go home you listen to a lot of different types of music and that' s what I wanted to do on the album, because Maxi had so many intelligent things to say about the world and the way we are and stuff like that, and I wanted to bed that down and back up what he was saying."
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