Atlantica - 01.06.2001, Qupperneq 16

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To say that things were going well for the
Propellerheads three or so years ago
would be an understatement. Their first
(and so far only) album, DECKSAND-
DRUMSANDROCKANDROLL, kicked The
Verve off of their number one chart
pedestal midweek at one point, and with
their success, the band were branded part
of the big beat movement. They were
working with names like Dave Arnold, The
Jungle Brothers and Shirley Bassey, and
then... they disappeared, more or less,
until they popped up in Reykjavík recently
to play live at the Mini-Festival.
This impromptu gig saw the band’s Alex
Gifford follow up Iceland’s Sigur Rós, all
alone, tinkling the ivories and singing a
selection of the songs that they’ve been
working on lately. After a while, Will White,
the other half of Propellerheads, joined
him on the drums. They gave a brave, raw,
and unexpected performance - a creative
way of putting two fingers up, not so much
to big beat, as to being labelled.
So what happened in the intervening
years? Well, just as the band were about to launch themselves into a US promotional tour,
Will’s health suffered. The exact nature of this illness, let’s face it, is none of our bloody
business. However, he explained, no clear diagnosis was ever made, and believes that it
was merely the culmination of a crazily busy time in his life. “There were so many really
exciting things going on and it seemed like every time we tried to take some time out,
another really exciting project turned up. We were doing so many shows...in places like
Belgium,” says Will. Belgium? “Will has a thing about Belgium,” explains Alex laughing,
“he starts twitching when it’s mentioned. But it was good for us in a way. We had done
about 20 dates in the US - which is nothing really - and we just skipped the tour, so we
don’t have such a high profile there, and we managed to keep ourselves cloaked in mys-
tery, I suppose you could say, and I think that helped us get some of the film scores and
stuff.”
While Will was convalescing, Alex moved to New York and submerged himself in the
singer-songwriter scene, wherein the roots of the new direction lie. Will stayed in the UK,
where he lives in the countryside. The nearest city is Bristol, and the lads joke that his
home is so out-of-the-way, that they communicate via smoke signals. While Alex has
been working on his projects and using performance slots at singer-songwriter evenings
as a testing ground, Will has been putting together a studio at his home, “a proper little
set-up,” as he refers to it fondly, and dj’ing most weekends, with a residency at East
London superclub, Fabric, and one-off gigs all over Europe and as far afield as Down
Under.
Keepin’ It Quirky
Jennifer McCormack finds out what the Propellerheads have been up to of late.✛
Alex Gifford
GO TO PAGE 16
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