Cerrone: “What was hanging out with Andy Warhol like? What happens in Studio 54, stays in Studio 54!
Which Birmingham band covered your 1977 hit ‘Supernature’ on their Halloween-themed album ‘Danse Macabre’ last year?
“Duran Duran.”
CORRECT.
“What do I win?! [Laughs].”
Did you hear it?
“The band sent it to me. Without sounding pretentious, there aren’t many covers that satisfy me as much as the originals. To tie in with the Olympics celebration, we were going to record a big star – who I cannot name – singing ‘Supernature’, but nobody can sing it better than the original vocal, so we stuck with that. The best cover I’ve heard of it is by Beth Ditto.
“When I composed ‘Supernature’, I wanted to create something bizarre. I was told, ‘It’s never going to work’. I asked the punk Lene Lovich to write some lyrics inspired by [1896 HG Wells novel] The Island of Doctor Moreau. I first met her in Piccadilly Circus during a break from recording at a nearby studio. I spotted her with a group of Hare Krishnas. She came over to me and asked: ‘Why did you smile at me?’. I replied: ‘Sorry, you look beautiful’. She had red hair and a bird on her head, and her clothes were outlandish. She came back to the studio, and it was the start of her writing lyrics for me. With every LP, I wanted to try something crazier – every sound had to be completely different to what we had right now. That’s why ‘Supernature’ sounds timeless.”
Which UK synthpop duo named their 2005 disco-themed album ‘Supernature‘?
“I’m not sure.”
WRONG. Goldfrapp.
“That album was interesting.”
Who’s been the most unexpected fan of yours?
“For me, I’m just surprised that I’m still here after 50 years. When I arrived in the music industry with ‘Love in C Minor’, a 16-minute song where I pioneered the modern kick-drum sound, the record company protested: ‘How can you release this?! You’ll never get one radio play!’. But I wasn’t making music for the radio – it was for the discotheques. The attitude and spirit of my music was encapsulated by New York club Studio 54.
“What was it like hanging out with Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Jean Paul Gaultier there? Sex, drugs, alcohol…I can’t tell you much of what was going on there! [Laughs] What happened there stays there. But everything started from Studio 54 regarding what we think of today as disco. Me, Giorgio Moroder, and Nile Rodgers were figuring out how to keep people on dancefloors.”
Complete the following lyrics: ‘Catch and go/Can’t say no/I have lost all control…’?
“Er…they’re from ‘Oops, Oh No’, my collaboration with La Toya Jackson, but I can’t remember the rest of the lyrics!”
WRONG. It is indeed from your 1986 track with La Toya. The rest of the lyrics are: ‘Inside me/You will see/Can’t deny it/This time I’m falling’.
“When I made my debut with ‘Love in C Minor’, I was on the same label as The Jackson 5 and met Michael in 1976. Years later, he asked me if I would be interested in producing his sister La Toya, so I invited her and her mother to my house in Los Angeles and we listened to the songs. She loved one of them and asked, ‘Can I get the cassette? I want to play it to Michael tonight’. The day after, she said, ‘Michael wants you to come to his home’. For eight months, we exchanged a lot of ideas. He was protective of La Toya.
“He asked me to do a track unlike what people would expect from her. He said: ‘You came out with ‘Love in C Minor’ and surprised everyone and then surprised everyone again with ‘Supernature’. Can you do the same with La Toya?’ When we were working together, he played me some early versions of tracks from [his 1987 album] ‘Bad’. It wasn’t the final production, but it already sounded incredible.”
Did you and Michael ever talk about working on material together for him?
“No, never.”
An easy one: your big break came in 1976 thanks to a box of 300 ‘Love in C Minor’ white labels being mailed to the US by mistake. But which artist’s vinyl should have been sent out instead?
“Barry White’s.”
CORRECT.
“As I couldn’t get a record deal when I composed ‘Love in C Minor’, I thought I had nothing to lose by asking Island Music to manufacture a few vinyl for me, but they told me the minimum run would be 5,000. DJs started playing it in clubs and would say: ‘OK, give me three copies’. Within a few weeks, the success arrived from the streets. I wanted to announce my arrival in lights and make sure the record sleeve was interesting. That’s why I put a nude girl with me on the cover. When I signed with Atlantic, the only condition was they wouldn’t release that original cover in the States because it was too provocative, but I saw my job to be a provocateur.
“Anyway, one of the big record shops in Paris said: ‘Give me 300 copies of ‘Love in C Minor’’. Two days after, they’d sold out – but it turned out that some stupid guy in the back of the shop was supposed to send Barry White records to the reseller in New York and accidentally sent my record instead. When my vinyl arrived in New York, the reseller opened the box and thought: ‘What’s that?!’. The nude girl on the front caught his attention and made him want to listen. And then he wanted to play it in the clubs. One month later, it had blown up on New York dancefloors. My career has been a series of freak accidents!”
How many Cerrones are pictured on the cover of your 1979 album ‘Cerrone V – Angelina’?
“I don’t know!”
WRONG. 22.
“[Laughs] There you go!”
Which 1996 UK Number 1 single samples your 1976 track ‘Rocket in the Pocket’?
“‘Return of the Mack’?”
CORRECT. ‘Rocket in the Pocket’ was sampled endlessly by hip-hop artists, including Beastie Boys, De La Soul, Ice Cube, Nas, Public Enemy, and Grandmaster Flash.
“The first time I heard it sampled was Run-DMC [with ‘Hit It Run’]. To be sampled from the beginning of hip-hop…what else could you want? During the ‘90s, I got sampled a lot and it was flattering. My label recouped a lot of money from artists like Lionel Richie and Daft Punk, and that period gave me a new heat that helped me maintain a five-decade career.”
Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page played guitar on ‘Rocket in the Pocket’. Any memories of working with him?
“Yes, I remember a session with Jimmy at Trident Studios. Even though Jimmy already did a great solo on the very first recordings, he wanted to do some more. But at the time, he was also doing large amounts of drugs. During the recording session, the manager of Trident Studios showed up in the mixing room and waved a piece of paper he found on the mixing desk – there was little light and he didn’t notice there was cocaine on it, all spread over the mixing console. Jimmy suddenly went on a rampage, ran out of the cabin, and punched the manager in the face. Imagine the picture: cocaine spread all over the console – they had to completely take it apart – and the director was knocked out and lying on the floor. Quite rock and roll!”
Talking of sampling: For a bonus half-point, which two NME favourites sampled you on their recent single ‘Life’?
“I haven’t heard this yet!”
WRONG. Jamie xx and Robyn samples your 1977 work with Revelacion, ‘The House Of The Rising Sun + Revelacion Suite’.
It was once reported you’d been collaborating on a track with Jamie xx that sampled Lauryn Hill…
“It wasn’t quite a collaboration, as Jamie contacted me for a sample clearance – from Revelacion – ‘The House Of The Rising Sun + Revelacion Suite’, to begin with. But as the whole clearance progress took some time – and I believe he couldn’t get the clearance from Lauryn Hill on the track – in the meanwhile, it gave me the opportunity to rework, on my side, my track from Revelacion, and it later became my [2023] single ‘A Part of You’.”
‘Supernature’ soundtracks the opening dance number of which 2018 Gaspar Noé-directed film?
“Climax.”
CORRECT.
“Before a single word is uttered in the film, it was ‘Supernature’. When I saw the dancers and choreography, it was absolutely incredible and I was surprised.”
Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter was responsible for the music on that film; a band that cite you as an influence…
“Decades ago, I was in Paris and met Daft Punk’s Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo because he wanted to clear a sample of mine. He came to my place with a poster from one of my past concerts. He’s a nice guy and Daft Punk are incredibly talented and have a huge influence on the disco music we hear today.”
Despite being regarded as one of the artists who paved the way for ‘French touch’, weirdly at the start of your career you were warned against saying you were French…
“My name’s Cerrone and my family are Italian, so when I was in the States, [my label] Atlantic chose to push me more as an Italian guy. When the music industry started talking about ‘The French sound’ or ‘French touch’ – the beginning of which can be traced to ‘Love in C Minor’ – that reconnected me with where I come from.”
Your first-ever TV appearance was on American Bandstand performing ‘Love in C Minor’ in 1977. Can you remember which other band appeared on the same episode?
“Oh no! I was in my twenties, so I don’t remember encountering any other musicians backstage!”
WRONG. You were on with LA R&B family group The Sylvers.
“Atlantic Records didn’t tell me I was going to be onstage. They just told me I might have a chance to show my record. It was a surprise that I got to perform. I looked like a child on Christmas morning seeing his gifts from Santa!”
You once performed a stage show in Paris featuring a Plexiglas pyramid that upset the French media because it opened to reveal myriad naked men and women inside. How tall was the pyramid?
“16 metres tall and wide.”
CORRECT.
“I always pushed myself to do something fantastic.”
Your music was recently included during the Olympics opening ceremony in Paris. What is the name of the mascot this year?
“The Phryges.”
CORRECT.
“The weather was so bad that I didn’t think it was going to happen. I thought my bit was going to be axed. But seeing the light show on the Eiffel Tower, as the fresh mix of ‘Supernature’ struck up, was incredible. After the Olympic games, who knows what other surprise I’m going to receive?!”
The verdict: 6/10
“Great! I don’t concentrate on the past. I’m happy to celebrate it, but the present is more interesting to me!”
In celebration of the Olympics, Cerrone has released a three-track ‘Supernature’ EP via Because Music.
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Gary Ryan
NME
