Hull 1, Brighton 1

18 Oct 1998
Written by Sam Taylor

Courtesy of Emm449

Fatboy Slim is hip, The Beautiful South are more hip-replacement. But they share a murky past, as they confess to Sam Taylor.

The Housemartins were never fashionable. During their brief and incongruous spell at the top of the charts, between 1985 and 1988, they broke every rule of rock'n'roll cool: they wore cardigans on stage, they lived in Hull, they wanted to nationalise the music industry. After an acrimonious split, the four of them went their separate ways. Where are they now?

Well, Stan Cullimore (guitar) writes children's books and scripts for wildlife documentaries. Hugh Whitaker (drums) is now out of jail, having done five years for attacking a man with an axe, and has started a music course at college in Leeds. That leaves singer Paul Heaton and bassist Norman Cook, both of whom are doing very nicely, thank you.

Heaton sings for The Beautiful South, whose seventh album, Quench, will soar straight to number one today. Cook is now known as Fatboy Slim, and is currently one of the hippest DJ's, remixers and music-makers in the world. Fatboy Slim's second album could well displace the Beautiful South at the top when it is released next week. It is called, aptly, You've come a long way, Baby.

Heaton and Cook live at opposite ends of the country- Hull and Brighton- and make completely different kinds of music; yet they remain friends, and Cook helped out as 'rhythm consultant' on the new Beautiful South album. They are both millionaires and, in their way, generational icons. The difference is that Cook's fans are, in many cases, the children of Heaton's.

I went to see them in their home towns on consecutive Mondays. It was cold and freezing in Hull; bright and balmy in Brighton. This was just luck, of course. Still, it seems unignorably symbolic. Heaton, after all, writes songs for middle-aged British people sitting in pubs and wine bars, wondering where their lives are going; Cook creates 'stoopid' dance tracks which make young people bounce euphorically in nightclubs all over the globe.

Slurping lager in a wine bar in Hull, Heaton and his co-songwriter Dave Rotheray are happy to acknowledge this age split. "There might even be people who are into us, whose grandchildren are into Norman," muses Rotheray. "Our problem is gonna be in about ten years time when all our audience start dying off." They are like a glumly laconic double act, self deprecating as only very successful people can be.

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