Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Episode 134: Sister Bliss

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

Ayalah Bentovim - known as Sister Bliss - is the woman behind Faithless, which she created in 1995 with Rollo Armstrong, Jamie Catto, and the legendary Buddhist rapper Maxi Jazz.Maxi died in 2022 and Ayalah talked to me about how she’s managing to keep him as part of the show, as they prepare to go on tour for the first time in 8 years.We also talked about how she took her son Nate on tour as a baby and how he adapted so brilliantly to life on the road, with Faithless. Nate has just turned 18 and Ayalah shared with me how he still keeps her grounded even if she’s about to go on stage in front of thousands of people. This is definitely something I can relate to!!Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Sophie Ellis-Bexter and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it work. I'm a singer and I've released seven albums in between having my five sons aged 16 months to 16 years, so I spin a few plates myself. Being a mother can be the most amazing thing, but can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions I want to be a bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. Welcome to spinning plates So I'm gonna tell you something funny I started this year January One cat and as I speak to you under my roof there are now six cats. How did I go from one

to six? Well let me tell you. So beginning of the year I just had Titus. Titus is now nine. He's a big boy, alpha. When I got Titus I had two older cats. They were called Kenicki and Rizzo, brother and sister. I adored them. Sadly they died, both of them aged 17 actually. They probably died two years ago. So for a little while I was happy just to have one cat. I wasn't really ready to get back into having new cats. I was quite sad about Kaniki and Rizzo. They were lovely cats, especially Kaniki. I was very close to that cat. So this year I started thinking maybe it's time to get more in the brood. Richard went away on tour. That must have been around May. And I was suddenly like, yeah, now's the time. Gumtree, cats, go and pick them up.

Here they are, Betty and Don. They are great cats, by the way. I really am really happy with them. I can't imagine not having them now. And when I got them, I've got Don's, the boy, like big fluffy thing, very sweet. Betty is very, very petite, like noticeably petite sister. And I took her to the vet to be done, as I took Don.

And the vet said, Betty does not weigh enough. You need her to be a little bit bigger before we can actually do the operation on her. You can guess where this is going, can't you? Took her to get the operation. It's too late. And then on Monday night, Betty gave birth. Oh, so cute! Under my bed. I'm actually not too fazed because I've got homes for all of them.

And of course, I will then get her neutered because we can't have her wander around getting pregnant. But yes, all the cats that have been born, should they all thrive and survive, they will all find their little homes. And right now, I've got to say I'm actually loving it. Betty's been amazing. I've kind of got new respect for her, I have to say. And I mimicked what happened to me when I was little, because I have a memory, one of my earliest memories actually, of my cat when I was small giving birth in a cardboard box under our bed. Well, actually under my mum and dad's bed.

So I did exactly the same thing. I made a little cardboard box with some soft things inside for Betty. She went in there, had her babies. Initially there were four. Sadly one of them didn't survive 24 hours. And now we've got these three absolutely beautiful little kittens. I don't know if they're boys or girls. I haven't really touched them yet. I've given them very, very tiny strokes, but I don't want to interrupt what's going on there because Betty just needs to be with her babies for a little bit but they're so cute.

There's one that's kind of like a tortoise shell, one that's kind of like a dark gray and light gray sort of tiger stripe, another one that's more like just all dark gray. Very very cute, very very cute. And yeah, it's a nice little energy in the house having these small sweet things and I gotta say my animal instinct is crazy first of all I didn't really know until now that cat pregnancy is only eight weeks how quick is that we didn't find out she was thought she was over halfway gone and then just amazing seeing this tiny cat she's only eight months old herself and

she just has gives birth and then she gets them all cleaned up and she's feeding them all the time and she'll suddenly have a little stretch if they're having a sleep and then she's back in the box feeding them away. Life is good. Yeah that's how I went from one to six cats in the space of like six months or something stupid. What a crazy thing. So yeah the moment it's a house of cats. What else have I done this week? I've done a couple of things. I filmed the video for the new single, Freedom of the Night. It was another collaboration with my favorite video director Sophie Muller, who's now done, I think

we've done like 15 videos together or something. My lovely friend and long-term head of glam, Lisa Lorda, did my hair and makeup. And I don't really want to tell you too much because I think it's better when you'll just see it, if you plan on watching it, but suffice to say it picks up where it's like, say, carrying on from Murder on Dollars 4. Should we say that? From the video of that? Because when Murder had its big adventure earlier in the year, a little resurgence, Sophie and I were in touch because she filmed the video for the original Murder and Dance for Back in the Day and when she said to me about doing this new video she said well do you want to do something completely different or do you want to do something that you know acknowledges what happened

or would you want to carry on like nothing's changed and I was like well somewhere in the middle really I don't really feel the need to have a new new era exactly however I guess every new album feels like a new beginning and it'd be nice to acknowledge the relationship to the past because I'm a bit obsessed with that kind of thing I love links and layers and stories and involving people so yeah nice stuff. And I wanted to try and have, well it was nice to be able to have a little nod to Saltburn as well because the choreographer for Saltburn is a brilliant woman called Polly Bennett who I met working together and I really liked her very much and I said to her please will you come and choreograph the video so she did so that's a nice thing as well. So you know, it's got like a good,

it's got good heritage already and let's see what it's like. So I did that on Monday, no, Tuesday and Wednesday. And then yesterday I also, I did some of my radio show, so my kitchen disco for Radio 2, BBC Sounds. and then in the evening I came home and had some brilliant, brilliant volunteers from St. John's Ambulance come over and give me and the kids a little refresher on first aid, which I try and do every sort of 10 years or so because I think I'm a bit of a panicker in a crisis and I just want to have it in my armory of what I do and so you know if if anyone passes out if anyone becomes

unresponsive I'm there guys I've got my 120 BPM little compressions I can attach a defibrillator let's go it's good I mean it could actually make the difference who knows so thank you to them and yes thank you so much to my guests so I spoke to sister Bliss in her studio last week I trotted over to see her and we had met before a few times a couple of years back I did a few gigs as part of this festival called pub in the park which like travels around the UK and Quite often I would be on and then I'd be supporting the headline act sister bliss of faithless doing an epic DJ set truly truly joyful and

big and anthemic and You know the thing about faithless is they make that kind of music that feels like the essence of life, like the essence of communal dance, just proper, pure clubland, you know, the real deal. So good. And Sister Bliss is the musician behind it all really. She's the creative force, creating the beautiful chord changes and that landscape and that vision. And she is a smart woman. She knows her stuff. creating the beautiful chord changes and that landscape and that vision and she is a smart woman, she knows her stuff, she's lovely, she's very honest and open

and a grafter and the proof is in the pudding isn't it really. I mean those songs, those tracks still sound incredible and it's amazing thing really because I suppose back in the day Faithless were pretty groundbreaking and now it's all grown up and the people that were into it back then, the peers of that music are all grown up and it's now become part of the fabric hasn't it which I think is a real a really glorious thing when something becomes the foundations are so solid now and they're about to go on tour all over the UK and Europe for about six weeks starting from I think from just the beginning of November and running into the December and the London date is in Brixton and I've got some

friends that going and I might trump up a long if I'm here because I would love to see that and it's their first tour in eight years so this is significant isn't it that's a big deal and obviously they lost their amazing vocalist Maxi Jazz back in 2022 but I knew that they would find a beautiful way to honor his memory and keep things feeling celebratory and up-beat and open for their show so I think anyone who's going it will be a treat. So Sister Bliss otherwise known as Ayla she has a son called Nate who is now 18 and he used to tour with Faithless and go around with them so what

I bet I mean maybe at one point I should interview all the offspring of all the guests just to see like the other side of the coin Maybe when they're all in adulthood, like how did it work out? You're your mother's ideas for you But yeah, I bet he's got some stories of life on the road Amazing thing, but also it made me really laugh. I mean I did say dial at one point Wow I wish we'd had this conversation a while back just for the solidarity because she was making me laugh listening to her say about, you know, the times when having a mother can be very grounding, you know, you can be

right about, you know, putting your makeup on, about to take to the stage in front of thousands but you'll still get, you know, the text messages coming from home of like, I can't find where I left my laptop charger or my homework's due in tomorrow, can you help me with such and such? So yes, can very much relate. Anyway, here's Ayla and I, so yeah, we're in a studio having a lovely chat and I'll see you on the other side. Well, this time next month you'll be on your tour. How are you feeling at this point when you're about to go off on tour?

Actually really excited. To be honest, keeping up with the tour and planning and thinking about it just distracts me from really difficult things in normal, quote unquote, normal life. So I absolutely love it. I can't wait. I can't wait to see everyone again. Because it's quite a long tour. I was looking at the dates it's like six weeks? Yeah something like that I mean having been doing this you know over 30 years I suppose it's not long in the scheme of things when we used to sort of go to America a drop of a hat

and then suddenly to Japan the next day and then Scandinavia the next like the most crazy routing. This is a lot easier in one way because it's just the UK and Europe and we can pretty much do that on on a bus which is also very enjoyable because you like to have buses. Do you know I do. Me too. Do you sleep well on them? Not always, not always. I just like the camaraderie. Yeah and the little bunks. I really do and just the silliness that goes on. I think being on tour is just a license not to have to grow up. It's so true. When I was a kid I used to like it when I could hear people being

up late like my parents if they're friends around or something and a tour bus can be like that. You can leave people downstairs having the drinks and you're like I'm just going up to bed and you can hear the chat. I like that feeling. Yeah definitely there is a sort of communal aspect. I do sometimes think I would be very happy living in a commune. But then I read about them and then they seem really awful. But I suppose the bus is a lovely midway because you can come home. But I have to say every time I come home it's just fraught with problems like, you know, whether leaks or the central heating doesn't work.

It's always something domestic that just yanks you back into your life. Yes. And, you know, normality. And not least having a child, it does that very well. And when I say child, your son just turned 18, so it's quite a milestone, isn't it? Maybe culturally rather than literally. Yeah, I would say absolutely culturally. Literally, he is still maybe 15 in the mind.

We were doing a festival in Berlin about three weeks ago. It's kind of the end of the festival season and just about 10 minutes before we're going on stage, I get this call going, Mom, mom, I've run out of pants. I'm about to go on stage. I'm getting my head into the show, where we're going and I'm almost sort of mentally rehearsing and then I'm pulled back into the domestic hell of North London and then like he puts salt in the washing machine. I was like what are you doing? Ran out of plates as well. That was earlier in the afternoon but um where's your dad? Why isn't he helping you with this? It's quite funny I did think that that affects you because I've really only seen you in your professional guys when you're all sequined and about to DJ and be fabulous. But I can very much relate to that.

Yeah, it's ridiculous, isn't it? I'm still micromanaging my domestic world from the side of the stage. I bet guys don't have the same distraction. It's always the mums, I think, being a working mum in the world of music. It's a very sort of, what would I say, sort of under-researched area. Yes. And that mental load that women are just expected to take, it just continues. It doesn't matter that you're a fully professional trying to hold together a tour, making new music, all the creative decisions around that.

Someone's still got to hoover up the mess when someone's built a glass of wine or work out how to teach the child how to use the washing machine. It's ridiculous. Yeah, and I think, I don't know if you have the same thing, but because I am the one that says yes to the and I think, I don't know if you have this same thing but because I am the one that says yes to the work I do it means that I then feel I have to take on everything because I'm the,

I've decided to do these things so I must be able to just actually get them done as well. Does that make sense? So it's not like I'm in a, I'm not like within a contract, um, you know long term. We're self-employed. If we don't work, we don't earn. That's the flip side of it. We are actually creating safety for our family. And I think it shouldn't be a sort of modern and unusual concept that a woman should be a breadwinner.

It's the aspect of support that is, it's very murky. I mean, I couldn't have done what I do without having a nanny, which I started having when Nate, we went on tour when Nate was six months old. He was brilliant as a baby. He used to sit in a rubber ring in the middle of the tour bus and just gurgle away and it was really, really sweet. He just went everywhere.

He was happy to be with anyone. But when we were on stage, you know, he was, nanny was putting him to bed but I could afford to do that at that point you know we were probably in our most imperial phase playing huge arenas headlining festivals all over the world and I could afford to bring my son with me I couldn't be separated from him I mean that's not why I had a child so in a way he's grown up in this environment but there was never any chance to get over

the shows or the tour or spend a day in bed. You know, I remember coming back from Glastonbury and then literally having maybe half an hour sleep and still taking him to nursery the following morning and slightly chuckling to myself thinking, God, if the mums at the nursery gate could imagine what I'd been doing the night before, you know, they just wouldn't be able to, they wouldn't be able to compute because it's not that usual. It's quite an extreme lifestyle isn't it? Yes and I think, I mean I think there's a kind of gloriousness in that isn't that because you're thinking I've managed to do this incredible thing that meant so much to me that's so enriching with your for your soul to play Glastonbury and

Then as you say like chuckling like oh, yeah, but there I am in the nursery, but then it's also I am Sometimes really pulling yourself as thin as you're going to get those things to be in all those places But that idea of having Nate and then him being six months on the tour bus and playing those, I mean what's your memory of all that time? Gosh, hazy. Look, very happy. They were amazing shows. We had an amazing time. It was wonderful to have him there in some ways. In other ways I felt very pulled in two directions and a man wouldn't be expected to do the same thing in the same position. You know, the sort of family are at home and you can be really involved without having that pull into the other world and I do think it forces you to compartmentalise or it does

for me, the only way I can cope with my slightly mad life is to compartmentalise it. In a way, Nate's quite integrated in that he's been onto, he's known the band since he was a baby. It's been amazing going out again, this kind of reprieve, if you like, this tribute for Maxie and the new tour that we're doing now. We hadn't gigged for eight years, but it was fresh in his memory because the last time we did tour,

he was a sort of conscious human. He wasn't a baby anymore. He was at school and he was operating the lights and enjoying pressing the button for the lasers and things. So he totally, you know, it's created amazing memories for him. But you know, as a human, I don't always want to be a mum. I just want to take that hat off sometimes. Of course, I will always be that. It's not something you can just step out of. But I would like to just not go home one day if I want to stay out it's

just not an option you know I've always come back really quickly from gigs sometimes people have stayed out to go to like an f1 or you know just enjoy the place where you are take a few days off go traveling I've always had to come straight home because there's always that domestic world and I never like leaving him because I can't take him all the time especially when I'm DJing. When they're little they're portable and they can come around like you know you're saying when you're small. Yeah and then they have their routine and he doesn't like, you know, he loves sleeping on a tour bus but you know I can't just keep pulling him out of school that wouldn't be appropriate.

In a weird way some of my gig life has really worked with Nate schooling. The fact that we were not active as a live band for eight years has coincided quite nicely with secondary school. But then I could time my DJ gigs. But I've said no to a lot of stuff. I mean I'm sure there is more global domination I could have, you know, enjoyed. But I've just said no to countless tours because it didn't work with school and there was no one else to look after him because his dad and I are not together and his dad was living in LA for, well gosh, about seven years. Right, so yeah.

That was, there was just nobody else to depend on. I mean I knew there would be a lot of crossover with what you're saying in my life but actually it's, I sort of wish we'd had this conversation like maybe like 10 years ago or something because there's so much of what you said, that thing of when you said, you know, there's things you've had to sacrifice in terms of the experience of traveling and the things you love and the things you've been doing for a substantial amount of time before he came along. And then you suddenly do find yourself making trips as short as possible and not having that bit that would make it the next day's lie in the next round of drinks, the extra bit of fun, any of it really,

just make it as edited as possible, get the work done, get home, be where you need to be. And how sad because I'm never going to live those days again, but that's the compromise, it's the eternal compromise isn't it? Yeah and who's to say that if you'd done it differently, you might have thought in retrospect I didn't gain as much as I would have done if I'd gained if I'd been back home with my boy. So there's the flip. And when they're little you have that thing where you can travel around them and they get older they don't want to school all these things. So I totally get it. It's only it's quite a magical little chapter when they can just be you know, here they are in their car.

It's usually in a basket. Off we go. And give them to people. Yes. I mean. Yeah. He was so happy. He was like a little mascot. And he would like Maxi. We traveled with one of Maxi's very dear friends who's also a photographer and a videographer and he just took photos all the time. And Nate would just sit on his shoulders and Nate, he'd just take him off. We'd be in Latvia or somewhere and they'd just go off for the day. Max and I would be doing loads of interviews or press or have to go to a TV station and he just got to hang out with the band who just played with him.

Amazing. You know, and then they could give him, give him back at the end. That's lovely. And then what I like is that also that when you bring your small person around like that, they get really good at socialising with different aged people as well, which I think is really good for kids. They hang out with adults, adult company, and I think there's some benefits to that too. And plus music, like you were saying, it keeps us young. Like people are quite good, aren't they, musicians at like playing with kids because we've essentially not really grown up ourselves. Yes, I totally agree with that. Yeah. And he's very confident. I said, well, you know,

I said what you can do and what hopefully this experience has given you, you can just walk into a room and make friends with people. That's a gift. That's a life skill that will enable you to travel far in the world, wherever you develop your skills and passions. And, you know, I mean, he'll probably end up in therapy, despite my best efforts. Well, I think there's a lot you can give your kids from involving them in your work like that, and a lot of fun and a lot of adventures. And when you, all those seeds you sow now that he's, you know, a young adult, it's

all grown into his relationship with seeing you as a whole person, which is what happens as they get older, isn't it? They see their parents as in a more 360 way. So your work has an actual shape and a meaning to him beyond just you telling him about it, because he knows what it means. Absolutely. Yeah, he's experienced it now and he is interested and he definitely has an opinion, which is quite interesting. Like when just sort of even about tracks, even about the music that we're making, I love that one. Actually I like that. I like to have a sounding board of the youth because we don't, you know, it's amazing having fans that we've had for 30 odd years who are

so committed and passionate. But you know, for this to live and breathe, we want it to keep appealing to the next generation. And I love that he expresses an opinion. I'm literally trying to put the new album that we're doing in some kind of order and work with different, you know what it's like when you choose different songs and suddenly you get this flow and the songs live and breathe in a different way and he's got really strong opinions. You can't start the album with that one. Sounds like my health is falling.

Yeah, we've just been having a big to and fro with Rollo, my studio partner, because I absolutely believe it has to be this, it has to be this, it has to be this. I was like, no, you're kidding me, this is not a statement of intent, it's not this, it's not that, it's not setting the agenda. Because making albums for me and for us is one of my favourite things, because it is your little chance to sort of tell a bigger story than a two-minute single and weave things together and yeah I don't know make it emotionally affecting I guess. But isn't it crazy as well because obviously some of the tracks that you're most associated with are things you the ambition of what you did has sort of set the scene for where you're at now but it's quite crazy isn't

it how when you play music as the years start to roll by you're kind of like holding hands with yourself back then as well it's quite a strange partnership you have with like younger you but there's obviously this thread of all that groundwork that still suits where you're at now because it still feels like part of your world. Do you feel like that? Mmm, that's a great image. I like that holding hands with your younger self. And I'm yanked back to that. I'm also yanked, obviously, every time we do a show, yanked back to a time when Max was alive because he's immortalized in music.

Absolutely. He's not with us anymore. There is obviously, yeah, there's a thread, I guess, partly because it's electronic music. We haven't stopped making electronic music. We're still exploring that whole genre in various different ways, still excited by it, still love technology and what it can do. So always kind of trying to update our skills as well as sort of marrying it with classic songwriting. So, yeah, you're right, there is a very sort of strong thread with the past.

Obviously there's an expectation that comes with that and the fact that obviously some of our music was so successful, you know, will everything else be a poor cousin to that? Will anything ever sort of stand up to those moments that were created, I would say, in naivety? There's something to be said for being an artist and at the beginning, there are no expectations and you are just doing really quite random music and you make possibly braver choices than you do if you've got an audience.

Because then you think, well, we must satisfy the audience. God, we've got fans now, what do they want? Do you think about that when you're writing now, do you think? Yeah, absolutely. Well, now we talk about algorithms, which is horrible because that's the sort of... That's in the absence of the, you know, the sort of direct fan relationship that's now going through this intermediary of social media and Spotify and all the algorithms that kind of get in the way of us directly communing. I'm so glad we're touring. Another reason why I'm glad we're touring is because

we get to see these people who've invested in us in the flesh. And then everything takes on this kind of meaningfulness. Definitely. Whereas sometimes sitting in a studio and arguing about whether Spotify is going to play it over the 240,000 other tracks they've been submitted that week. It's horrible. I don't want to think about music like that. But that's part of, I suppose, the lineage of releasing music in the analog age when

we gave it to DJs and it stuck around in the clubs and it had this organic growth to, you know, fast forward to today where we never even thought we'd still be making music. You know, most people break up after a couple of years, don't they? And they have their little moment. And here we are 30 years later still wanting to make faithless music and then worrying about, well, is it actually going to get heard? When we put out a post that we got a new single coming out, you know, if you don't pay for the post your fans don't even know it's coming. It's so cruel. It's pretty unsexy as well, isn't it? It's like not very comfortable bedfellow to creativity.

But one also wants to be heard and you want your work to be heard. Not from an egotistical point of view, but because you believe there is some point to your existence as a musician and as a creative. And for better or worse, that's been the sort of common thread for, you know, from when we started Faithless. You know, it started off as a kind of, you know, a reaction against real like handbag house that was really predominant at the time, 1993, 1994. Yeah.

It was really happy, clappy, endless piano riffs. Don't get me wrong, I love piano riff and I've written quite a few of them. But we wanted to express something more, something deeper and less disposable. Oh no, definitely. And when we met Maxi, he was like, God, well, we've never met a Buddhist rapper. Could you put your lyrics to this track and how would that sound? And can you talk about what your faith means? Yeah.

And that was the first record we made. And it was really inaccessible and really undanceable, but it didn't sound like anything else. And it kind of, for me, connected the dots with one of the bands that I've always loved, which is Left Field. And they did this amazing collaboration with John Lydon called Open Up, and in the middle of it he sort of screams, burn, Hollywood, burn, you know, and you're thinking, that's not the thing I'm used to hearing on a dance floor. But that was really exciting, and again, that

was a record that we really connected with and wanted, and it showed that dance music could go deeper. Yeah well I think everything you've said makes total sense and is exactly the key to the longevity because firstly there's such a sound of what you've done and it's got such a widescreen feel that yes like it works brilliantly when you're I mean I've been there myself in the field, hands in the air watching you DJ. But there's also, you can listen to it in other environments and be lifted and it's got that expanse and the other lyrics. I mean you've mentioned him a few times, I'm really sorry that Maxie's not around anymore and how do you involve him in the tour? What does that look like for Faithless Now?

Well, at the moment, the show, it's got the flavour of the music of the past, but also looking to the future. So Maxi's represented on screens and we have the audio of his voice. I have to say, I've seen a lot of artists using screens now, so I think that visual language is not unusual. I never really liked the hologram thing, I think it's really spooky. But there seems to be a real honesty, and I think the way the screens are integrated into the show, the idea was that Maxie is part of the band, and people have said that to us, they've come up after and said, God, I can't believe how well well it feels like Maxie's there. Because often when you're at a show or a festival, there are side screens and then they zoom in on various band members' faces and the guitar playing a riff or the

bass player or drums or whoever it is or the singer or rapper who's doing, you know, having their moment. So it's not a kind of cognitive dissonance in a way. No, I don't think it's not a kind of cognitive dissonance in a way. No, I don't think it's done. So people have expressed how, yeah, it's really connected with their memory of him, it's very respectful. But also there's an energy to it, just, I mean, music's energetic anyway, but it takes you on. Cliche of all cliches, you know, beautiful musical journey. And we're working with new singers and new artists as well. So as ever Faithless is a platform that, for me, it has to look forward. I can't bear sort of moribund kind of attitude, even in music, that you just do what you do

and you're stuck doing that for me. And that's why I've always loved dance music, because it sounds like it comes from another planet. It's the music of the future. Even if you bring in flavors from the past, you know, kind of rockiness, trip-hop, hip-hop, various different beats, there is always something that looks to the future in it. And for me, synthesizer is a really big part of that. I just love being synthesizer. In fact, one of the songs from the last album we did all blessed is called Synthesizer, and it's a kind of ode to everything we love in electronic music and that album came out in lockdown so we never got to play the song live and now we do do it now and it's sort of funky and bombastic and like you said that kind

of widescreen faithlessy sound. I'm so excited that now Lives and Breathes in a live set because it never got to Live and Breathe really in DJ sets because all the clubs shut down and all the festivals stopped. And I was really excited about that as a piece of music. So like I say, this is a bit of a reprieve, this tour, I think. And it involves Maxi in part, which is actually what our old show used to be like. Maxie, absolutely, his presence is missed. I do have this little lurch in my heart every time we go on stage and think,

he should be coming out now. This is his moment, you know? But I do feel as a band, we've worked quite hard to create space without it feeling like, my God, you're really missing Maxie at the front of the stage. Yeah, he's not rousing up the crowd. But we do have other artists with microphones who are not trying to replace Maxie.

They're bringing their own energy to it. And I think anyone who's, yeah, I think if you've just seen Faithless for the first time, it's still a really exciting show. And if you're with us from the beginning, people are excited about the new vocalists because they've got lovely voices. You know, if you shut your eyes and you're not even interested in the show, I hope musically it's bringing something unusual. What you need from your own show is making groovy music.

It's very exciting when you start elongating passages and creating segues between songs and just taking people on this mad ride. That's the thing. I mean, I suppose when you were talking about the album that came out in lockdown and how it's now, you know, you're playing the the algorithm and working out because I think every creative expression is like a conversation start and music particularly. You don't put out dance music into the world just hoping it kind of goes, you know, you need the other half of the conversation. And that's what, you know, before we started recording, you were saying about your son and TikTok. And I think for me as a musician seeing TikTok is really brilliant because everybody that dances to something is part of that conversation of that song and and it's joyous as well and it's energy yeah and joy yeah so dance music particularly if you don't get the bit where people are dancing

and there's the hands in the air moment it's like you haven't had the response you know the other is like speaking into the silence it doesn't quite work. Screaming into the void. But I wondered also if you're someone that needs that because we've spoken a little bit about you know the pools of sort of reality and domestic life and all the other things but when you're on stage in that moment, can you sort of lose yourself for a bit? Do you get very into that one, like, this is now kind of moment? I don't know if I'm articulating that very well. Yeah, absolutely. There is for me in DJing and playing live what you'd call flow state, where there is nothing outside of it. I think it's really

powerful to experience that. I am just in the moment and the rest of my life is being pulled out of the moment. And sometimes it's unbearable. I like to have complete, I mean maybe we're all neurodivergent these days, but I like to be completely intensely focused and I've found that music is that space where I can do that. And also if I'm not fully focused I'm going to play the wrong notes because I'm not really a very good keyboard player, sort of thrashing away up there. I have to be completely and utterly laser focused but then I am really feeling it. There's no question that it's, how can it not be gratifying with everybody, you know,

lost in the music. I also feel Faithless is one of those shows where it's not just the forest of iPhones. People, we want it to be groovy. I think the lost art of dancing kind of breaks my heart. Like you say, if you're up there and people are just sort of holding up a phone, I know they're receiving it, but they're not experiencing the moment in the way that I would say we've been used to coming from an analog kind of beginning of the band where there were no phones. And people look on TikTok and YouTube like, oh my God, wasn't it amazing back in the day? It's like, yeah, because people were absolutely experiencing each other, the music, the high

of it all, whether they're assisted in a narcotic way or not. You know they are absolutely in the moment in that totally beautiful communal moment you know. And how did you find it when you when you do things on your own versus with being with everybody was that something that took a bit of a different gear shift or does it feel just as comfy? I've always DJ'd and done the band really. I was only DJing, god, about three or four years before we started Faithless and I was in a band before that at school which was really crap. What was your band called at school?

We were called the Queen B's. That's good. I have to tell you something quite banal, I've been clearing out my mum's house because we had to sell it, because she had to move and she kept every bit of paper, like every concert, every swimming competition I've ever done, I used to do piano competitions many years ago. Every school report, she's a non-conformist said one. Really? Interesting. Yes. Proud. Doesn't adhere to school uniform. But she found the first sort of fanzine of that band and a picture of me and what we decided that we stood for. We were like a feminist alternative

to Banana Rama. And we played some mad cover versions and we wrote a couple of songs as well. Amazing. We played at the Rock Soul and Funk Night at school. That was my first gig in a band, band band. So how old were you then? I was playing bass then. I was 17, about 17 then. So until Faithless, I hadn't actually played in a band ever.

This is why it was like this crazy baptism of fire when we started to become successful. And I wasn't playing bass in Faithless, I was playing keyboards. But yeah, I've always played music, you know, as a DJ and then have periods of not being able to gig so much because the band were on the road. But they're very complimentary, I very test the music, you know, big songs that we've made. I've been out in the clubs playing and playing and playing, you know, to see if we've got it right. The arrangement, the sounds, the hi-hats too loud, you know, all this kind of like real anal fiddly stuff comes from, we used to cut what you call dub plates and you could play

them a few times, acetates and they'd wear out. You know, now I can just download a WAV and play it out onto my little USB stick and they'd wear out. You know, now I can just download a WAV and play it out onto my little USB stick and I'd get an instant reaction and see if the song is working, if it's mixed right. So there's been something very immediate about that connection, like lots of people, especially in the pop world, in the record companies and they invest in the artists and it's a huge gamble. With dance music, you can play out your demos and refine them on the go and I think that's something that keeps things very sort of fresh and possibly less risky. So I've used the DJing but I love being with all the other people. Obviously it feels like

I'm creating something bigger but I do feel the DJing's really important because I just hear a lot of new music. Otherwise we would be just stuck making music in the same way we have for 30 odd years and not being aware of sort of production tropes. There's certain things that really date music. Often it's the drums. Like you know you're listening to Phil Collins

and it's the middle of the 80s because of the do, do, do, do, do, 80s because of the drum sound kind of really locates music in a particular ear. That's very true actually. You hear certain tropes and then you've heard them so many times that I can't stand it anymore. BPM as well shifts doesn't it? Exactly, at the moment it's gone quite fast in dance music, 130 BPM plus, it's all quite speedy but then everything

coexists at once and you've got kind of Amman piano which is a new kind of Afro house genre and that's all around 120 to 124 BPM so you get lots of DJs who tend to specialize in different genres and the associated BPMs that go with it so I mean for me I like kind of house and tech house dribble and techno I don't really go much faster than 130 BPM but maybe that's because I'm getting old now. Same to me. And how many instruments do you play? Because I know you play a few. Oh god, hardly any anymore. Well weirdly during lockdown I got my viola out of, well it was in the back of a cupboard and it had sort of collapsed and I had it

resuscitated, it's probably the best word. And then I put live strings all over some music we were doing at the time which I quite enjoyed. I sort of triple tracked myself. I was basically being cheap and not paying a quartet to do it. Oh god, I was really out of tune as well. It was really difficult. You kind of lose it, if you don't use it, you lose it. But I used to play the bass, the saxophone, flute, I was playing the violin, but I'd moved to viola because you could go further up in the orchestra. And I was right at the back, the violins didn't like being at the back. And I also liked the depth, I've always loved being the glue in the middle. I love hearing harmonies all the time and maybe that's a bit to do with kind of orchestral playing. And how common is it? I loved it.

I absolutely loved it. How common is it in the world of dance to meet people who've got a similar musicality? I'd be surprised. I think there's a lot of really musical people like MJ Cole. He went to Royal College of Music on a Saturday, which is what I did for four years. Although by the last year I was out raving and just never practiced. I knew I wasn't going to be a professional musician. I was surrounded by people playing concertos and being extremely talented and scraping away at the back. So, you know, he's Mr. Garage legend and he went to the same college that I did. So yeah, I went to Royal College Music, but just for Saturday mornings, I won an award off Haringey Council, so it paid for my lessons. But as soon as I went

there, I just knew I wasn't in any way dedicated. These people are like full on nerds living and breathing it. Was this motivated by you? And I just like pop music. Yes. But was it motivated by you or the music and instruments, or did it come from your parents? My dad's very musical. He still plays lots of jazz and he used to have a jazz band in the 60s. He played saxophone, so I was very lucky that there were instruments in the house.

There was a piano there. So yeah, there was a lot of love of music. My mum couldn't really play anything but she loved records. Actually when I was packing up mum's house as well, found all their jazz record collection, it was so emotional. Like it was just on constantly, sort of Charlie Parker, Grover Washington, they used to love this amazing Brazilian artist called Tanya Maria, who Maxi had heard of. So in Faithless we were like a bit of a Venn diagram with these overlapping musical tastes. So Max and I just loved jazz. Rollo cannot stand it, doesn't get it. We love Joni Mitchell and Rollo can't stand Joni Mitchell, there's like too many chord changes and you know whatever sort of turns his stomach. And then Rollo and Max just love old school

reggae. And then Rollo and I love house and I like a bit of reggae too. But you know, it was like this meeting of different minds, different music tastes and this kind of musical hot pot. And it was kind of amazing looking through mum's records. I've hauled as many as I can back to my house. I want Nate to discover them actually. Well I was thinking about him when we were talking. I want him to play. Well he got a record player for Christmas a year ago.

That's cool. And he's got all my old vinyl. He's been listening to Pink Floyd albums. It's always Pink Floyd. It's brilliant. He's discovering it all. And does he do musical instrument lessons as well? Not anymore but he was playing drums until GCSEs and then the workload was just so kind

of heavy he couldn't keep it up, which is a shame. That is a shame but how have you found as a parent navigating what he, like his dedication to those things because I'm actually quite, Richard would like me to be a bit more strict about doing stuff. Tiger Mom. I know I was dreadful because when I was, um, you know, a child, I'd just come home and I would play and play and play. I'd sit at the piano.

When I was quite young, my parents had some friends who used to have some quite racy parties and people would get up and do a turn. And they had a friend who was a prison officer, I remember it vividly, and an actor, and he would play the piano and she would sort of make up poetry, it was all very beatnik and cool. And I remember coming home and trying to write my own poetry to music when I got home. So for me there was no gadgets, there were no computers, there was no gaming, so I'd just sit at the piano and play, so it was just sort of natural for me. But for him it's just not. And I wanted him to come to music organically, I suppose, in the way

that I had. I mean, I'm sure my parents told me often I didn't practice all the crap bits like scales and arpeggios and consequently I'm technically not a very good musician. I've got a great ear but not, I can't whiz around really fast. But I didn't sort of say, right, you've got to practice, you've got to do this. He'd end up just practicing in his lesson which must have been really annoying for the teacher. The teachers are actual drummers so he came a bit of slack, yeah he's got the best drummer in the world as his teacher he was really getting somewhere so it was a bit sad but then yeah we can't even fit the drum kit where we're living at the moment in storage so that's a bit frustrating as well you have to live somewhere where

you can make noise yeah and I my brother is a drummer so when he was living at home it was like no drumming after 6pm. Oh did people bang on the wall? My neighbours already banging on the wall and that's just with Nate gaming because it's so badly converted you can hear everything from everyone so that would absolutely be the end of my relationship with my neighbours if I had the drum kit where we're living at the moment. I was thinking... It's sad because music's given me so much, it's given me such an amazing life and even when I was at school we went all over like Europe with an orchestra and I played lots of, actually I found out that our bass player and me were at the same youth

music proms in 1986 and we're both in the programme and I love that happenstance that we shared the same stage, you know, 40 odd years ago. That's lovely. Every age is me, doesn't it? I was like, oh my god, this is again when I'm clearing out my mum's house. I find this program. It sounds like you've been going through lots of old memories recently. Oh my gosh, yeah, absolutely.

Yes, I have. There must be a funny serendipity when you're, you know, doing these tours and these dates for the first time in a few years this year to kind of have all these old memories. It's an amazing resource as well it's not it's not just the memories it's just working out a way to the share them like mum kept this bag anytime we've been on the cover of a magazine they were like old mix mags which is a really you know one of the UK's biggest dance magazine with

cassettes on the front, free cassettes, you know, unopened, untouched. That's great. In a big plastic bag. She calls it the Museum of Bliss. I like that. She was a completist. Let's just say that clearing out the house was just hellish, but in a way it was kind of amazing because all the stuff she kept, bags bags and bags of it you know and of her own stuff from the 1950s oh my god

you know I just didn't have anywhere to keep all these things but I've kind of kept the the unopened mix mag with the cassette on the front. Well done you had to curate it basically. Exactly. The curator of the Museum of Bliss. I am now the curator of the Museum of Bliss and maybe one day we will be worthy of an exhibition somewhere, someone somewhere will be interested. It always amazes me learning a bit more about our fans, the kind of, you know, the passion with which they collect things, things I don't even have, copies of remixes, you know, Japanese CDs, special editions. I never got them. They never got given to me. How have they come by these things? I didn't even remember doing them. Just incredible. And sometimes they put posts up on, you know,

Facebook or Instagram of their whole collection. And it blows my mind. It's like, that's my life, you know, or a significant comportion of it yeah I mean wow but it's their life too that's what happens with music and I guess you're seeing your those early fans you know you've all grown up together which is also significant isn't it when you look out and see everyone that's a thing to think about too yes we're growing old disgracefully together I like it I really like it I think it's a celebration. And this is a very big question, but I would imagine the world, I mean, look, there's lots of conversations to have

around women in music generally. But within the dance music world, I would imagine it's been quite significant to be a woman in that world. I've heard you talk about how the achievements and the success you've had has not necessarily been seen as visibly as like the way that a lot of male DJs can be celebrated. What's that been like? Have you felt like you've had to assert yourself in a different way or do you think sometimes people have assumed you don't have the role that you have within Faithless? Oh I'm sure there's plenty of people who are like they have no idea what I do in the band. It's so difficult because I've only lived my life it's very hard to know if it could have been

different in another way but there were advantages to being one of only a handful of female DJs and female producers. There was more visibility in some ways. There just wasn't parity. And I only found out by accident. So that's where the kind of equality side of it comes in and the frustration that, you know, discussion around wages in music is so opaque. And it isn't a one-size-fits-all anyway. Each musician and each artist or each DJ is paid in a different way. Fee structures

are not a kind of given. There's a market value, there's the kind of whether you have a cut on the door or you get a fixed fee or a landed fee. They're all these different things but you know when I started it was a bit of cash in a brown envelope if you were lucky. You wasn't this aspirational career that it is now, especially in the world of dance music. It was such a nascent DIY affair when it started off and people were ripped off all the time. I was so passionate about the scene. You'd pay to play almost. I was so grateful to have some money because I spent a lot of money on records. But the wages were just laughable. But it wasn't until later when I did have

huge global hits and the equivalent of that now would be getting paid half a million dollars per gig in Vegas, one big record. But it wasn't like that 20, 30 years ago at all. And I knew only by accident because another DJ told me that what I was getting was a fraction of what they were getting and they didn't even have a big hit record out. So you know, God I can't complain, I've done well. But there was definitely no kind of guiding light as to what I should have been renumerated for back in the day. I think there's also some kind of inherent sexism in attitudes that you just put women behind the decks to look pretty, that you're somehow ornamental, you know, just sort of standard misogynistic nonsense. You know, and I did feel within myself, but that's also because I am a perfectionist,

I did feel, and maybe I'm a bit less ambitious now, but I really did want to conquer the world and I have wanted to be the best of the best. And no one would say, you know, people just go, God, you can really mix. Like it was a surprise that I sat there and practiced putting two records together and how I would shape a set and thinking about it and obsessing about it. You know, I think there's a really train-spottery element DJing, or maybe anything to do with music. I think to live in that way you have to have some sort of obsessional quality. Like I can't not make music, I think I'd go mad. It's like a huge outlet for me and all my anxiety or whatever else. As I said,

it's the place where I experience flow state. It's the place where I experience feeling something bigger than myself, you know? And the fact that I felt I had to be better than a man. They definitely, you know, that's a conversation and I know people have it around race and gender. You know, I'm reading, I've just finished actually Darkest Bees' autobiography, it's the head of Island Records. It's really, really interesting. I'm one of the first black CEOs, you know, but just feeling you have to work twice as hard to get half the recognition. I think that counts for a lot, especially for female artists, let alone female artists of colour. I mean the conversation can extend but there is a conversation now which is definitely a shift from when I started.

Yeah, I agree with all you're saying and I think it's, you're right that the conversations are happening and I think there's more awareness generally. Yeah and there's definitely electronic music, there are so many more female DJs and the more visibility there is of people, women artists who are singing, producing, you know creating albums or creating live shows or DJ shows, the more people are inspired by that. I mean you know everywhere you look someone says oh I'm a DJ, like oh are you? Yes there's thousands of you. Whereas I could literally count 10 female DJs on my hands that had any sort of standing and recognition in the world. And the press did a lot to help, it was all very analogue, it was about press. When I used

to gig, I would get offered another gig if I was good. So actually being good at my craft, there was a payoff. Because that's the way you spread your reputation was word of mouth. There was no internet, there was no other marketing. I used to give mixtapes out to promoters like, please book me. Me, who me? And that's how it happened. And then that's how you develop a circuit. So that place to say, well, we can have you back in two months because you can't have you back next week because we have to rotate different artists. And that way

I started playing around the UK and then I'd get invited back. And then suddenly I am in the mix. And there was a period when I wasn't getting many bookings at all. And I thought, oh, one of the artists I really like, whose music is very influential is Todd Terry. And I thought, oh yeah, so he makes records and he does gigs and then he'll play some of his own records. Yeah, I think I need to do that. And that was one of the things that drew me into creating my own studio and learning how to program dance music.

And I had a really cheap Atari that I bought off a very random bloke from Camden Market. And I just sat there teaching myself how to use it and I started making little demos and that's how I got my first record deal. But it was partly to furnish the DJ gig so that there was a story there. I saw very early on that there was a connection between the DJs that I loved in the world of Acid and the music that they made. Yeah. They weren't just DJs, my favorite ones, they were also producers and artists. Exactly, so it expands how you know them. If you don't see women doing that then how can you know that that's even a possibility when you see yourself up there. That is a great leading light. I mean we made a song

about it about Muhammad Ali. For Maxi it was the first time that he could ever hold his head high. He used to walk down the street, and you can't imagine this because Maxie has such charisma, he's so proud and so, you know, knew himself as a man. But one of the starting points of that journey was watching Muhammad Ali on TV. And he grew up in Croydon in the 50s, and it was a pretty racist and horrible place. And he said the first time it was a pretty racist and horrible place and said the first time he was able to walk down the street and meet another person's eyes was after he'd watched Muhammad Ali fight on the TV And he was like but that guy's black and he's beautiful and he's clever and he's funny and I Look like him and suddenly these kind of like light bulbs went off

I remember Max telling me this in the hotel room when we were on tour. I went, you've got to put that in a song. Yeah, that's got to go in a song. That is such a poignant, powerful story. If we don't see ourselves up there, how do we think that we're relevant or involved or, you know, and I say that as a pretty educated, articulate person, you know, what happens when you don't have such a good start in life or parents that that are in the arts, like mine were, I know yours were. They're in the mix, they've got cultural capital. My dad used to have Dudley Moore in his band playing the keyboards. And he had poets like Laurie Lee doing poetry alongside the jazz.

And a weird sort of way, my dad was doing a template of what I've ended up doing. How funny is that? But like in the end, in the latter part of the fifties and the early sixties. That's a lovely image, that idea of that, having a sort of kernel of what ended up happening with you, but just, you know. Yeah, but it was around for me, but I know lots of people who were like, there was no music in my house, you know, I was not even allowed to listen to music and, you know,

God, I had the luxury of the arts being something that was loved, respected, you know and not something special but the creating was part of everyday life. No I completely understand what you're saying. And there was a piano in the house, an actual bloody piano. How many people have got room for a piano in this day and age? No I totally get you and as you say that representation you know I grew up watching pop stars that looked you know same you say that representation you know I grew up watching pop stars that looked you know same color skin women you know I could see them and I'd be like oh yeah maybe that's the thing I could do I can't imagine what it must be like to grow up and not

see another person that you you know represents you doing something like that that must be I mean That does keep me fired up yeah and that's an age comes into that now. It's important to keep a bit fired up. I've seen something quite funny. Literally, I've just come back from Asia and I did two gigs and I got trolled for the first time. Someone said, how dare this old woman say she is faithless, this teenage girl play faithless songs. Obviously, it was someone whose English wasn't great. And I'd never actually been dissed publicly, which is pretty good going. I was going to say, yeah. If I have, I've missed it. It's gone straight over my head. But I love that. I said, I actually replied to him. I said, it's slightly confusing

you for me as an old woman DJ and a teenage girl, perhaps, you know, doesn't sound like and the energy was off the hook. It doesn't really sound like you were at the same gig. And I said, I'm very sad that you couldn't share in the beautiful spirit of the night that we all had together. But he was obviously apoplectic with rage, either that Maxie wasn't there or that I was a woman, that perhaps I'm not a spring chicken anymore. I don't know what. But then he referred to me as a teenage girl.

So I thought, you're a bit confused mate yeah that's another thing I think I don't want to go quietly I'm not going quietly no don't and you've spoken a bit about ambition and you deserted world domination so how did motherhood carry with that when you scuppered it completely obviously yeah that Yeah, that was the end of that. Oh no, then there was just the world domination of just trying to change nappies and sort of be on top of someone else's needs constantly. I mean, that's what I think nobody, oh yeah, motherhood's hard and it's got these beautiful, glorious moments, you know, and I really, obviously I really love him, but he's his own person

but once timetable goes out the window and any sort of freedom everything needs planning especially if you're on your own you know you can't just nip out and then not come back till three in the morning or you know or you think you want to get out the door quickly and then suddenly they've had a poonami as it's called and then you have to kind of like cut their baby grow off because they're just covered in feces. I mean that kind of thing happened constantly so what I would say is you know you make plans, God laughs. And that's what having a child is like. It's true. Were you worried about that shift in your ambition? I don't know. I think I was too busy trying to do everything.

The crazy thing was we made an album called To All New Arrivals and we made it while I was quite heavily pregnant because I thought, God, if I have a baby it's going to be really busy. I did anticipate it would be quite intense and I don't think I'm going to be able to make a record so let's just kind of do it. It was a really difficult time actually Max he really wasn't up for it he was just knackered off to the last turn it felt like a real drag to have to get him down to the studio. And also we just refurbed the studio and it didn't sound right so mixing everything was just hellish but we did get a few classic songs off it.

Music Matters is one of them, one of the kind of enduring, beautiful songs from that record. But it wasn't a joyous experience making the album. I mean, I really enjoyed it, but it was just hard finishing it. And I was as big as a house as well, so woggling down to the studio

with massively swollen on ankles. But then we did tour the album, which is kind nuts. So in one way the ambition was still being fulfilled but with the added burden of for the first time having to fully care for another human being. So this is the tour when he was six months old? That's when he was a little baby and I remember panicking because I was breastfeeding and of course nobody ever talks about this in, it's not very sexy pop stuff is it? I was breastfeeding and I thought oh my god, it's so painful when your boobs fill up with

milk and you have to get rid of it somehow and I was going to be separated from him during rehearsals and it was like a miracle how it just dries up within a couple of days it had just stopped but otherwise I had to carry a pump. I did a promo thing when we were promoing the record he was only four weeks old and I was beside myself I was delirious and I had to do a round of interviews because the record company said so. Oh my goodness. And a hotel away from him. And in between each interview I was pumping off milk and putting it in the fridge in the

hotel room. He was four weeks. Yeah, he was really little. It was horrible. It was not enjoyable. They're like, you have to go now because of the lead time on the album to put this record out. In retrospect, I should have just, you know, I don't know why.

I mean, we didn't have Zoom then, I think. Maybe that's why. Couldn't do it remotely. Couldn't get his passport sorted in time. It was horrible. I was separated from him for 48 hours and it was really traumatic. It's like pulling Velcro off, isn't it?

It's like you feel just- But what they say, never explain, never complain. I have to do a Kate Mossel mat until I've just told you now. But that was really absolutely insane time. So you know, ambition was just to make sure he was clean and well fed at the time and that the show sounded good. And it was mad, again, I suppose that's where this splitting off comes. I've got my kind of band music brain and then the mothering brain and I have to flip between

them in quite an agile way. I feel very similar and I think it helps keep me on some kind of weird sanity to have those bits and if I don't get, if I don't have both I don't feel like me so I need that too. That's interesting. I mean you're right, there's nothing more grounding than someone ringing you up saying where are my pants? I've run out of pants. I mean, you know. Mom, I don't have any socks.

My 15 year old yesterday while I was at work and he was like, I don't know how to get home from football. I said, whereabouts are you? He went by the river. And I was like, can you send me a pin? He went, I'm in a football pitch by the river. And I was like, be more specific. And then he said a photograph of a path by a river. Which river? I get it. You're by the Thames. And then he just said, I figured it out.

And I was like, oh, that was interesting. But he just, yeah, I was very... I guess that was what was interesting to me was first call straight to mum. It doesn't matter whether you're on stage playing to thousands of people or you're doing an interview, you know, or whatever it is, you are just their mum. Yes. It is the great leveller, isn't it? You're right.

Isn't it just? But the other thing is I'm so impressed with you because I think you've created such an incredible thing with the music you've done. And I love watching you DJ. And I think you have definitely inspired so many other people. There'll be a whole load of women that say that they saw you do what you do and it made them want to do it. So make no mistake.

That's very kind. Well, who knows? Who knows? I just did what I had to do, I think as well. So mistake. That's very kind. Well, who knows? Who knows? I just did what I had to do, I think, as well. So there is a very selfish part to that is I've always wanted to share music. I've always wanted to play it loud. Yeah. I'm like, you've got to hear this!

And DJing was just kind of a vehicle for imposing my musical taste on other people, really. But you must have seen as well a sort of attitude shift towards dance music and its significance as well. It's a big business isn't it? Whenever the money turns up then of course the whole world focuses on it. But also in terms of its legacy and actually appreciating and acknowledging that it's a completely valid form of musical expression in a way that, I mean, you would have been probably more tuned to it because you were going to your

classical Saturday morning school and then could see that world, you know, the athletes of that world and where you ended up. But I think from my point of view, sometimes when I'd say to people, I'm a musician and then I say, oh, I sing disco pop and people are a bit like oh I thought you meant a real musician you know like there's an oh how dismissive and rude oh I've definitely had that oh I think you need to block those people it's so ridiculous I mean I think you know without music there's no joy and joyous music is as valid a form as anything else you know and I would also say within Faithless we have great joyous corners it's not all dark and moody it was just when we started the band and we met Maxie and his lyrics were so unusual and so poetic, we felt there was a, you know, a different

context to put them to. But I think that's quite incredible if people say you're not a real musician. My God. They have no idea. You've been in loads of bands, you know, you're not a real musician. My god. They have no idea. You've been in loads of bands, you know, you're in the audience, you had a totally different trajectory and then you've got music that people sing along to 25 years later, you know, where so many people just forget things instantly or they move on to the next thing. That's what I think dance music, you're right, it does have this huge lineage and legacy and it's taken a place in people's hearts, you know, it's soundtracked people's lives. People at their most joyous when they're together and dancing and how what a privilege to be part of the soundtracks. It is a real privilege and thank you for talking so much. I am my most free I think on a dance

floor. It's probably murder on the dance floor, when I'm there, throwing middle-aged mum shapes. I'll be right there with you. And thank you for talking so much about Max as well. I never got to meet him, but he sounds like he was an incredible man and obviously echoes of his presence are still here, but it's lovely. I can sort of see him in my mind's eye. He was funny and rude as well. Max,, Max, he wasn't a great dark lord of deep poetic lyrics. He was, he had the hugest capacity for fun and silliness. And I think being in the band was a way of him not growing up either, in some ways. So I kind of, I do feel really blessed that we're able to immortalize him in this way. And for whatever reason, people

are still playing the music, you know music outside of the band playing it. People are still DJing and they're still dropping insomnia all over the world or God is a DJ or we come in. It's not something we set out to do but it is a really incredible thing to have music that spans the decades and hopefully feels quite timeless as well. 100%. You know. It's special. Thank you and all the best for the tour. I think everybody's in for a treat. Oh, thank you so much. Yeah.

I can't wait. So yeah, please come and join us and if anybody wants to know where we're at, we just have a look at faithless.co.uk. Love it. All the dates are up there and all over social media. I think it's very nearly sold out now, which is exciting. Lovely Ayala and what a wise woman and also did you notice she never says um or uh? Very articulate and eloquent. I wish I could say the same. I hate the fact I say um and uh so often

but it is lovely to speak to someone who is so good at speaking like that. But yeah, I was very, very aware of it when I was talking to her. I was like, ah, eloquence. Proper, proper eloquence. I may not have that talent, but I do have the faithless dates in front of me. So if you want to catch them on the road, they start their tour in Edinburgh on the 1st of November and then they're all over the UK through to the middle of November so Edinburgh, Belfast, Newcastle, Birmingham, Bristol, Brighton, London, Manchester before heading off to Europe, heading all around Europe and finishing up on the 14th December in Denmark. It'll be an epic tour for sure and it's funny because a friend of mine has loved Faithless for a very long time and was a bit nervous because it's the first time she'll have seen Faithless without Maxi Jazz. And she's saying, oh, how do you think it'll work?

But it's like, the thing is, I think if you're Faithless and you've built out the legacy and you've got the layers in there and it's, you know, it's such an authentic thing, isn't it, Faithless? I just don't think there's any way they would, you know, do want to do anything to do anything other than celebrate and represent what Maxi brought to the band as well. So I think it'll be brilliant. Very, very special. And thank you so much to her. And yeah, as I said, watch out for my series interviewing the offspring of everybody. That'll be the next bit. What would it be like? Do you've got spinning plates talking to the mothers? Maybe you have maybe just call it plates that makes no sense but I still found it funny anyway excuse me for coughing I've actually had a really lovely day today I've interviewed

someone else for you coming up later in the series it's a beautiful beautiful autumn day the house has been nice and quiet and it looks all tidy. Actually, I just looked at the time. I've got about five minutes before it's after school o'clock. And then, yeah, nice weekend. I'm not working this weekend and it is my first weekend off. Actually, out of curiosity, I'm going to find out. It's my first weekend off since...

No, I had a gig then. Okay, no, not at a gig then. Sorry, and no scenes with Dahl. 10th of August! That was my last... I was away, I was in Italy on holiday, but it's my last weekend without any work in it. That's quite a long time isn't it? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, nine. It's my first weekend off in nine weeks. Jesus. Do you know what I'm doing tonight? I'm gonna have fish and chips. I want fish and chips in the gherkin with ketchup and mayonnaise. Oh my gosh, that is absolute heaven. Maybe I've inspired you. Have something tasty tonight guys. All right, thank you so much for lending me your ears.

Please continue to keep the suggestions coming in. I know I'm always badgering you, but I've got my list of guests that I, you know, either in the process of booking, or I've just broken to, or I'd like to book, but my word, some of the people that have been suggested to me have blown my mind. Some incredibly clever, interesting ideas and it's such a lovely thing to welcome

into my life so thank you. Please, please, please, yeah, share it with me. Right, I'm going to go and have another look at the kittens before the kids come home and thank you so much. Have a lovely rest of your day and thank you so much to Iola, thank you to Claire for producing, thank you to Richard for editing, thank you to Ella May for the beautiful artwork, thank you to you for lending me your ears. See you soon. All right, take care, that's lovely. I'm gonna be the one to make you feel better I'm gonna be the one to make you feel better I'm gonna be the one to make you feel better