In the middle of a Stateside underground dance explosion, the techno guru behind Underworld, one of Britain's greatest electronica exports, Darren Emerson bowed out. DJ Emerson was only a teenager when Karl Hyde and Rick Smith recruited him into Underworld during the group's rocky synth pop days in the late Eighties, and he remained with them as they evolved into one of the world's most passionate electronic ensembles. Underworld will carry on without Emerson, but his departure last Christmas leaves a momentous hole.
Since parting ways with his former bandmates, Emerson has focused on making himself happy. As he returns to his original career as DJ and steps up his worldwide turntablist profile, releasing the pounding Global Underground Uruguay house mix, the new father of eight-month old daughter took some time out to talk to RollingStone.com about superstar DJs, introducing Fatboy Slim to house music, and leaving one of the most intelligent and rousing outfits around today.
So why leave Underworld?
There's quite a few reasons. Ten years is a long time. I just had enough really. I wasn't getting excited about it as much now, you know, and of course the baby was another big issue as well. But I'm very, very happy that I've done the move now. This is just something that I wanted. I haven't been happy for quite a while. I was walking about with a hump all the time, and I was like, this is not right. You've gotta be happy in life. So I just said it. "I'd like to go." I was like, "See you later." I'm very happy now, though. I've been offered so many remixes as soon as word [I left Underworld] come out -- like people offering record deals already. It's just gone mad. But I'm not rushing into them. Just 'cos I've left Underworld now I don't want to be going, "Oh shit, I've got to get in the studio, write a new album quick!" There's no pressure at all. This year I'm having a nice time. I'm doing loads of DJing. I'm going to Ibiza, going to Mexico, going to Australia, going to Singapore, going to Japan. One of the main things I wanna do is hit America quite big with my DJing and do some shows, so we're organizing that now actually. That's my love. That's how I started. I was a DJ before I was in Underworld.
Are you looking forward to discovering the American dance and rave scene as a DJ?
I'm really getting very excited about coming over to America. I haven't come over for a long time and I think the time is right. What I'm hearing at the moment is that it's really going well at the moment, that the scene is getting quite big now, for the DJs, and the club scene. I'm really looking forward to doing a good old sort of DJ tour and it's gonna be great and actually getting some visuals and stuff like that sorted out as well.
Are you working on anything right now?
Me and [British producer/DJ] Sasha have been doing a track together at the moment, so that's quite interesting. We started doing that just for a laugh. We've been friends for a long time, and we just started doing something very relaxed. We're gonna try and finish it next week. We've just been throwing things about, and doing things on our own and getting together. It's starting to sound pretty good.
What were you thinking about when you embarked upon the Global Underground mix? It seemed different from your DJ sets.
I was sort of getting fed up with people saying I was just a techno DJ and it was sort of like, well, you know, I'm gonna do a mixture then, play some housey stuff as well. So [hopefully] people will realize now that I'm into a lot of different styles of music and not just techno and nosebleed music.
For the generations that don't know, how would you explain what the difference is between what you do behind the decks versus what you did behind the technological gadgets in Underworld?
Performing with Underworld and DJing was sort of the same thing. It's about creating an energy and a sound that got people dancing and that's the whole idea of what this thing is. It's about getting people up there, getting off their arses, having a good time and dancing, whether it's DJing, spinning records or creating records with sequences and samplers. There's different ways to do it, but it's still performing and you're doing it in your own style. A DJ has got his own style the way he mixes, if he scratches what he plays. I [found] it very easy to go on stage with Underworld, especially in the early days; I was behind something and I was getting people dancing so to me it was very similar.
Do you think it's a bad thing when people go to see the Underworld or the Chemical Brothers expecting a rock show, instead of a club experience?
Well, the idea when we first started doing Underworld was not to make it like a band, it was to be hidden in the corner. We wanted people to just go and do what they'd done in clubs without looking around. It's got such a big sort of thing now, especially in the U.K. People have tried to make money out of it and make it into band things and try the superstar DJ thing . . . I don't think it's a bad thing 'cos when I go out I still really enjoy it. If I look at Norman Cook [a.k.a. Fatboy Slim], the way he performs as a DJ, that is a performance. The way he's dancing getting the crowd going. It's the same thing as Karl Hyde or whoever, jumping up and down on the stage. I think it's the same thing really, different styles. It doesn't bother me at all. I think it's very fresh.
Norman's such a funny guy.
Yeah, he's great, he makes me laugh. He's basically like a daft old git, isn't he? He tries to come over as daft. He's not though really. He's quite a silly bloke. The thing is with Norman, he's always been very good. But he was a musician before a DJ and I come as a DJ and sort of turned myself into a musician. He's sort of doing the same thing but doing it in a different way. I was the first person that got him into house music. He come down to a Boys Own [Underworld's British record label] party years ago, it was about '90, something like that. And I always remember that, he was like, "Darren you was the first bloke that got me into house music. You was playing this and that and that was one of the best nights...," and that always stuck into me head 'cos he's done so well, now he's the biggest sort of DJ, Fatboy Slim, and it's sort of funny because I was doing it before him.
JOLIE LASH
(June 21, 2000)