Hot Cocoa After the Igloo Set
Playing a DJ set inside a purpose-built igloo at 1,500 metres while drunk English holidaymakers lose their minds in front of you—that’s either peak absurdism or the ideal Fatboy Slim gig. Probably both. I caught Norman Cook at the Snowbombing Festival in Austria, on a sunny mountain terrace that had no business being as warm as it was, and he was relaxed in the way that only people who’ve done something a thousand times can be relaxed.
The igloo show the night before had been a particular thing. A sealed space, a curated crowd, heat rising from bodies doing exactly what they’d come to the Alps to do—not ski, obviously, but drink and dance to someone who once made a video where a hands-on-turntables routine became a pop art moment. The mood in the room decides which track I’ll play next,
he told me. Yesterday was a special gig. Heated Englishmen with a lot of alcohol—they wanted to make party. So I gave them what they wanted.
He laughed when he said it, not dismissively, but with the genuine satisfaction of someone who still finds pleasure in the transaction.
The thing about Cook is that the gap between his reputation and his actual habits is enormous, and he doesn’t seem to mind at all. After the igloo set—after all those bodies and the sub-zero spectacle—he went back to his hotel room and drank hot cocoa. What looks like a party for other people is hard work for me,
he said. After every gig the next one follows the next day. I have to be fit.
There’s something both deflating and oddly admirable about that. The man who made Right Here, Right Now tucks in early.
He’d been everywhere before Austria. Lollapalooza in Chile, a pop festival in Brazil, then Slovenia, the States, Indonesia. The perpetual touring circuit of a DJ who doesn’t need to sell albums to stay booked. When I asked about Germany—specifically about the Berlin Festival—the lightness shifted slightly. I love Germany,
he said, and I was there just a year ago. Unfortunately my appearance at the Berlin Festival was cancelled because the police came and stopped the whole show.
He said he hoped to get back soon. Knowing the Berlin festival scene and its complicated relationship with city authorities, I believed him.
On new music he was noncommittal in the honest way rather than the PR way. He was producing less. He’d just had another baby. Being home during the week mattered more than being in the studio, and he wasn’t apologetic about it. Maybe the next record isn’t that far away,
he said, but the shrug in his voice suggested it wasn’t close either, and that was fine. The igloo was enough. The hot cocoa was enough. Some careers reach a point where the work is simply the touring, and the touring is simply the life, and there’s no crisis in that.