Before taking to the stage for what many immediately proclaimed one of Ultra’s best sets thus far (including our own Code staff), Fatboy Slim told Billboard that despite his career’s worth of hits from the ’90s and 2000s (“Praise You,” “Rockafeller Skank,” etcetera), he was not currently working on new music but instead focusing on touring.
Ultra Music Festival Weekend 2, Day 1 | Day 2
“Not soon,” Fatboy Slim, aka Norman Cook, said, when asked if new music is underway. “To be honest, that’s one of the things about this explosion of EDM. It means I’ve got work all year ’round, all throughout the world. I’m really enjoying it, and while I’m young enough to be doing it, that’s kind of where my heart is. There aren’t the hours in the year to get in the studio. I might just ride the EDM thing out. For me to try and compete with people making records like that, I’ll just wait until this wave crashes.”
Over the last few years, the DJ/producer has used his increasingly rare DJ skills to rock festivals and clubs. He’s used some of his own canon of crossover hits plus select moments from the now. On Saturday (March 23), he teased the crowd with a sample of “Harlem Shake,” but of course didn’t drop the whole thing.
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“A few people are asking me just how far the gulf has gone between commercial and underground and which foot I’ve got in which,” he said. “I’ve kind of always bridged the gap. It’s like having your feet on two boats kind of both sailing off in different directions. I think I’ve kind of got my foot back on the underground. Being at Ultra compared to last year, the gap is widening almost so that it could be two festivals.”
MORE ULTRA: Weekend 1 Highlights
Cook says that what he now calls “PDM” — pop dance music — has actually aided the development of the underground.
“The best thing about Ultra is people come here and maybe have been [here] all afternoon listening to the same stuff on the Main Stage. [When] they’re a bit hot, they wander off to one of the shady bits on the edge and find some shady music,” he says. “It draws more people into the scene. It’s brought all this money and attention and expanded our industry. We might moan about it, but we’ve all benefited. Some of us are doing well at riding out the storm, so when the bubble bursts on all of this we’ll still be here with our credibility and our careers intact.”