Interview: Skiddle Speaks to Tim Sheridan

Hi there Tim. You’ll be relieved to know that I am not planning on asking you any questions about NastyDirtySexMusic as I’m sure you are sick of them by now! We are here to talk about your gig at Socialise at Hidden in London on February 10th. This is Socialise’s first ever event. Do you enjoy going to play at events which
you have little preconceptions of?

You always have some preconceptions, it's human nature. Perhaps the less you know the more you fill in the gaps. You tend to get nice surprises when you go to a new gig and it works out well, against the odds as it were. To be brutally frank you tend be be more pessimistic about unknown gigs as well-known gigs are usually more reliable ( for the very reason of being longlived), but it's perfectly capable of ending up a surprising one off too. It's a bit odd being interviewed before it happens innit. Maybe you should ask me after I do it? It's always compltely down to the punters to make it special or not really.

I heard you played an impromptu set at Hidden in recent months…care to divulge?

Let's keep it a secret eh? Less is more.

What did you make of the venue? It’s been around in its present incarnation for several months now and it seems like it’s really making an impression amongst London’s more discerning clubbers…

I wouldn't know about that I live in Ibiza innit. When I was there before I was pretty wrecked but it seemed like a nice space, sound system could be improved but I say that about everywhere. It's priority Number One in any business that basically plays loud music, it really needs to be the best I reckon. I think the importance of the system is a bit underrated. When I visited I was impressed with the friendliness of the promoter and the resident DJ was a real gentleman.

Speaking of Socialise, where do you tend to do most of your socialising these days? Are most of your good friends involved in music or do you know them from elsewhere?

I don't really socialise to be honest. I'm more of a drowning-kittens-out-the-back type of recluse - everyone with beards is a nutter didn't you know? I think it's quite funny in a bonkers Victorian kind of way to be asked about socialising! My good friends are not really involved no, and I like it that way, we're all a bit old I'm afraid. Basically I socialise for a living kind of, so on my downtime I can't get far enough away from noise and people.

Do you feel there is anything in particular missing from London clubbing?

Yes, about 5 grand that Home owe me. It nearly did for me career a few years ago. I had a really lean time a while ago, it was touch and go.

Back when you were in the Dope Smugglaz, it definitely seemed you guys were providing something a little different to the dance music scene. Who do you feel is pushing boundaries or just doing something really interesting in dance music right now?

...well that’s nice to say of you, we tried! But sometimes one thinks you are going around being all KLF and everyone else thinks you are a twat. I think the Dope Smugglaz experiment was a bit much, it was more about taking the piss out of the industry than totally about music. I'm back on the music tractor now and ploughing some mighty earthen ruts. About time an' all. Who is pushing the boundaries? I dunno mate, in today’s fucking society every quadra-spangled small-hatted Hoxton nitwit thinks he is redefining culture with his outrageous take on wearing hair so shit it's supposed to be good. In a world where everyone thinks they are a star who is left to push anything? In a few years we'll be in chaos because our bus drivers won't work without a personal agent and the binmen will be saying they can't deal with the mountains of pointless shit that have piled up because they are auditioning for a TV pilot and why bother with one mountain of pointless shit when it's hard to tell where it starts or ends compared with the bit we live in.

Tangent! Have you been in the studio at all recently? Do you find it easy to get inspiration to make music or has it got harder over time?

I've been a musician all my life so I'm not short of ideas. It's different when you always do it. It's a job and I do it quite quickly and efficiently as cheaply as I reasonably can because it costs money to make a tune. The internet has changed it forever and made records into basically adverts for bands as brands or to a lesser extent for DJs. I'm all for it. I think the 'industry' has held music for ransom for decades and it needed setting free. I still get very energised about music, I find not much else is inspiring these days although I really enjoy a right good film or book still. I think the good thing about being a faceless producer is you don't have the image pressure quite so much as a band. You can make tunes for longer I reckon and like ANY discipline you get much better and smarter as you get older.

Pop and rock are more image obsessed. Although there is still image pressure here, it's not so much about looks and age but 'being cool' is a dragon I've battled all my life and it's stinky old fucker with very sharp claws and I hate it like Ahab hated the White Whale innit. Short answer - I'm still full of it sonny!

What have been some of the wildest gigs you’ve played recently? Please dish the dirt!

Gigs are pretty tame in the UK compared to say, South America or Eastern Europe, or Mediterranean Europe, or Asia. In fact anywhere! Sorry but it's true. We're all a bit jaded in the UK, had it too good too long. Wild gigs are for Ibiza time really. I went away in January as crew on a boat and played country and western and mad digital soca off my computer to a load of Carribean rudeboys and had a proper jump up on a tiny island. It's the unexpected real things that are wild, it never really happens in 'night clubs' anymore. Afterhours piss on night gigs innit. Had some good laughs in the East End on Sundays but I wouldn't use the word wild.

So I’ve read that you live in Ibiza. How do you divide up your time between here and there? Do you have a home here or do you stay with mates?

A home in the UK?! Many assume Djs are loaded. I live out of a bag and stay at my mates in London. I own nothing  but records, I don't have a single stick of furniture or solitary electrical good. AND I like it that way. It's a weird life but it doesn't resemble any other life at all. I'm serious not even musicians travel every single weekend. The sleep deprivation alone can make you mental. I love it!

Finally, when was the last time you cried with laughter?

I never cry with laughter - I tend to have the job of class clown. If I REALLY laugh I have an asthma attack and it's only happened twice (this sounds like a gag but it isn't) and both times for the same reason. I was watching Laurel and Hardy at about age 10 and laughed so hard I was sick and had to go to A&E. About 15 years after that exactly the same thing happened and they had it all on record.... so the doctor goes..."so Mr Sheridan what is it this time, it's funny because here it says last time it was from watching Laurel and Hardy, so what's it this time" so obviously I'm like wheezing...."This time....wheeze...it's...wheeze....them again.." So
the doctors like ..."I think I can cure you son".

So I'm more of a puker and wheezer than a blubber. My girlfriend saved up and got me the box set of every Laurel and Hardy ever made, She's either ace or trying to kill me.

And when was the last time you went red with rage?

Every single time I re-enter so-called "society". I can't watch television, read a magazine or paper without becoming apoplexic within minutes. America drives me mental. I have no beef with any individual as they are just people like us but as a society and state they are utter scum. They've been at war continuously somewhere in the world EVERY SINGLE DAY since they became a country a couple of hundred years ago. This isn't my opinion it's in any good history book. What a bunch of nutters. They treat the rest of the world like a big fat plain filled with plump buffalo and they go whooping around like deranged cowboys shooting and looting like it's a game. They aren't very nice to their own either. When I saw what happened in New Orleans I was like "this is it, open race war in the US. They've  deliberately got the rich white out and left the black people to die.
Surely they won't take it?" but guess what? exactly like the Presidential 'election' being openly rigged or Kennedy or Martin Luther King... no one did nothing. Not a jot. Because they all have TVs and cars and drugs and booze and all the revolutionary get up and go of a fat lab rabbit testing rabbit food. "Hey bunny! do you want to make a break for it, we're big and fat enough to bust out of these cages and maybe even give the lab technicians a good nibbling...let do it brothers and sisters! Who's with me...?

"shut up will you I'm being force fed 90 carrot puree and I'm loving it".

That's not even a taste of how red with rage I am. You can't see the steam.

I’m scared…

Interview by Benz

Tim Sheridan plays at Socialise this Friday 10th February
Socialise @ Hidden, London
Feb 10th 2006
10pm = 6am
More info on skiddle.com