For the Canadian politician, see Norman E. In 1996, Cook adopted the name Fatboy Slim and released Better Living Through Chemistry to critical acclaim. Despite not releasing a new studio album dj cook 2004, Cook has been musically active with touring and made a concept album Here Lies Love with Byrne in 2010. Cook holds the Guinness World Record for most top-40 hits under different names.
Cook was born in Bromley, Kent. He grew up with a love of music. Greyhound pub in Croydon and playing in punk bands. At 18, Cook went to Brighton Polytechnic to read a B.
English, politics, and sociology, where he achieved a 2:1 in British Studies. In 1985, Heaton formed a guitar band called the Housemartins. Their bassist left on the eve of their first national tour, so Cook agreed to move to Hull to join them. Cook achieved his first solo hit in 1989, “Blame It on the Bassline”, featuring future Beats International member MC Wildski. MC Wildski”, the song followed the basic template of what would become Beats International’s style. It was a modest hit on the UK Singles Chart, reaching number 29. Cook formed Beats International, a loose confederation of studio musicians including vocalists Lindy Layton and Lester Noel, rappers D.
Baptiste and MC Wildski, and keyboardist Andy Boucher. Cook then formed Freak Power with horn player Ashley Slater and singer Jesse Graham. They released their debut album Drive-Thru Booty in 1994, which contained the single “Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out”. Cook enlisted help from producer friends Tim Jeffery and JC Reid to create a house music album as Pizzaman. Together they started the Boutique Nightclub in Brighton, formerly known as the Big Beat Boutique.
Their biggest song together was “Magic Carpet Ride”. Cook adopted a quasi-blues-style pseudonym Fatboy Slim in 1996. Cook said of the name: “It doesn’t mean anything. I’ve told so many different lies over the years about it I can’t actually remember the truth. It’s just an oxymoron—a word that can’t exist. It kind of suits me—it’s kind of goofy and ironic.
Top 40 UK hit “Everybody Needs a 303”. In 2003, he produced “Crazy Beat” and “Gene by Gene” from the Blur album Think Tank and in 2004, Palookaville was Cook’s first studio album for four years. Fatboy Slim’s greatest hits album Why Try Harder was released on 19 June 2006. It consists of 18 tracks, including ten Top 40 singles, a couple of Number Ones, and two new tracks, “Champion Sound” and “That Old Pair of Jeans”. In 2006, Cook travelled to Cuba and wrote and produced two original Cuban crossover tracks for the album The Revolution Presents: Revolution, which was released by Studio !
K7 and Rapster Records in 2009. The video for this track features a near life-size puppet of Iggy Pop. The band’s debut album, I Think We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat, is the first to be co-produced by Cook’s longtime engineer Simon Thornton, who also sings on one track. The album was released 6 January 2009 exclusively at Amazon. In 2010 Cook released a mix album titled The Legend Returns as a covermount album in the June 2010 issue of Mixmag. He returned as Fatboy Slim when performing at Ultra Music Festival in Miami in March 2012.
2012 Summer Olympics Closing Ceremony, and on 1 September 2012 Cook performed at Brighton Pride. Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat” with Riva Starr and Beardyman. In 2015, Cook released a 15th anniversary edition of Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars. This was supported with the release of miscellaneous remixes.
In May 2015, Cook compiled The Fatboy Slim Collection, an album of songs used throughout his sets over the years. In 2017, Fatboy Slim returned with his single “Where U Iz”, released on 3 March. In 2018, a remix album from Australian artists of Cook’s previous works was released, titled Fatboy Slim vs. Cook produced the single “Mama Do the Hump” by fellow Brighton band Rizzle Kicks released in December 2011 which peaked at number 2 in the charts. Cook has been responsible for successful remixes for Cornershop, Beastie Boys, A Tribe Called Quest, and Wildchild.
On 13 July 2002, Fatboy Slim performed the second of his free open-air concerts on Brighton Beach. Although organisers expected a crowd of around 60,000 people, the event instead attracted an estimated 250,000 who crammed the promenade and beach between Brighton’s piers. Local police forced the event to end early amid safety concerns, overcrowding, and one death. In June 2005, Fatboy Slim filled the Friday night headline slot on the “Other Stage” at the Glastonbury Festival. In 2008, Fatboy Slim played at the Glastonbury Festival again and headlined the O2 Wireless Festival and Rockness Festival.
In 2009, he toured Australia in the Good Vibrations Festival. At Glastonbury 2009, he played an unadvertised concert in the “pinball-machine” stage at trash city. In 2010, Fatboy Slim headlined the east dance at Glastonbury Festival. In March 2012, Cook hosted a one-hour radio programme, titled On The Road To Big Beach Bootique 5, on XFM.