Let's Call the Whole Thing Off

Verbal sparring with Rick Smith of Underworld at Coachella 1999

By Sean Flinn | November 15, 1999 Underworld's Karl Hyde (left) and Rick Smith backstage at Coachella 1999. Buy Underworld's music Visit Underworld's Web site Visit Underworld's V2 Records The middle of an interview with Rick Smith of Underworld is probably no time start wondering about the pronunciation differences between Brits and Americans. Yet, here I was, baking in the Indio, Calif. heat at the Coachella Valley Festival of Music and Arts, puzzling over the pronunciation of the word “Tomato.” Underworld, you see, run a design firm called “Tomato,” which they, being British, pronounce “tuh-mah-toe.” And like every good American boy, I say it “Toe-may-toe.” In the course of this interview, Smith mentioned the design firm, and I found myself careening through a response on autopilot toward using the “T” word without determining first how to pronounce it. Gershwin was probably cackling in his grave. When you see that exchange below, know that I erred on the side of courtesy and said “tuh-mah-toe” right back to him. I haven’t felt quite right about that, but it feels good to get it off my chest. It felt even better to interact with Underworld in some fashion beyond just taking in their stunning live show,which was the high point of the Coachella Festival. Comprised of vocalist Karl Hyde, producer Rick Smith and DJ Darren Emerson, Underworld are one of a very few techno ensembles to achieve crossover success without bending to the dictates of rock music. Unlike, say, Prodigy or Fatboy Slim, who incorporate rock riffs and rock song structure to go over big outside the dance music audience, Underworld adhere to the aesthetics of deep house and trance techno that piqued their creative curiosity back in the mid-’80s . This is not to say they stifle themselves to stay true to genre sub-genre limits. As their latest, masterful album Beaucoup Fish demonstrates, the boys have as much a penchant for musical growth as they do for making an audience shake its collective ass. And despite my little semantic wrangling, Smith spoke amiably with me about his band’s epic touring schedule, the reason behind Underworld’s irregular release dates, and the digital chasm between Britain and America. Sean Flinn: I’ll start off by asking you how your three-day U.S. tour has been. Rick Smith: Extensive. [Laughter.] It’s going fine actually. Boston was energetic, and last night – San Francisco with the Chemical Brothers – was great. Big audience response? Yeah, yeah. What venue did you play at? We played the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium to about 7,000 or something like that. Yeah, it was nice. Pretty mad. We enjoyed last night, actually, and in Boston. But last night particularly we were really fucking with the tracks and it was enjoyable. It was like, “Yeah!” And the audience was enjoying it too. Deconstructing, you know? And it felt nice. So we’ll see. Tonight’s a curious one, because this is very likely this century, so to speak. Are you guys doing anything big for the millennium at all? No. Lying low? Lying real low, yeah. Horizontal. No Y2K fears or anything? Well, I had a little phase where I was like, “What the Hell is going on?” We’ll see … I’ve got me bunker dug. Stockpiled all the brown rice that I can manage… Pulled all the money out of the bank? Yeah. [Much laughter all around.] Back on track … Have you guys ever played with the Chemical Brothers before? Yeah, absolutely, yeah. This is probably the third or fourth time. I mean, more than that on festival dates. We go back quite a way, actually. It’s kind of nice, we played the Fuji Festival in Tokyo a couple of months ago, maybe three months ago now, and we did an interview with Tom and Ed for about two, three hours. It was the first time we’d had a real chance to chat and spend some time together for a long time. What happens most of the time is that you end up in places like this, and it’s “All right man, how’re you doin’?” “OK yeah, I’m just about to get some food and go sound check.” You know? So everything is like ships passing. I don’t socialize a great deal as well. I spend all my time in the studio so if I don’t meet people while I’m working I hardly meet people at all. Speaking of that [the studio], I’ve heard you guys are quite gadget-friendly, quite tech-friendly. Has any of that fondness for technology spilled over into the area of online media at all? I mean, I know you guys offered up a download of a track … Yeah, to some degree. My feelings with online stuff…You know I was just talking with this guy Jean-Paul just now and he was asking about the “Stay to Play” remixes, and you know in ’96 we stopped doing remixes. I find it really hard to spread my time between so many different things. And Tomato [the design firm that Underworld run] and Underworld both devour work that I make at an unbelievable rate. And my feelings about online stuff were that I never really had time to engage at all with it as a form because it couldn’t weigh up against this other stuff that I’m doing. But it becomes more present, doesn’t it? And these past six months have seen a huge change, as far as I’m concerned, from the point of view of…well, like modem speed in the past year in the U.K., things have improved greatly, and it becomes almost a pleasure going online. Waiting for hours I found immensely frustrating. | Next Note: This article originally appeared on RadioSpy.