We Spoke To Underworld’s Karl Hyde About Hero Worshipping And Playing The Olympics

Karl Hyde needs little introduction. Performing as part of Underworld for 34 years, he’s sound tracked not just a million people coming up to their anthemic dance tunes, but also the incredible London Olympic ceremony last year. But it’s only now he’s decided to release his debut album ‘Edgelands’ under his own name which also soundtracks a film documenting the communities that live on the edge of east London as it merges into south Essex. He’s boundlessly enthusiastic about both projects (don’t worry, Underworld haven’t split up), Essex, collaborations and making music in general.

Hey, how are you?

Karl Hyde: I’m good man, thanks. How’s it going with you?

I’ve got a broken rib, so if I shout ARGH at any point, that’s why.

Noooo. How’d you do that?

I dived ribs first, playing football, onto that old astroturf that’s essentially green sand on concrete. But we won the league, so…

Jeeez – well you’re kind of like a hero now with battle scars and the cup.

You should really be interviewing me about winning the Whitechapel intermediate 5-a-side league…

I should, I should! Yeah, let’s just talk about football and the different types of astroturf. I was a hockey player back in the day and I’d look at that stuff and think “I’m not sure I want to fall on this”. It’s like sandpaper that stuff. God man, no. Keep it muddy.

Anyway, what came first, the album Edgelands or the film Outer Edges?

It was the album. Once you’ve done the album, then of course there’s kind of a back room conversation about making a video. I was like, “forget it. I’m not making a video.” They suggested a behind the scenes making of video and I didn’t want to do that. I’d met Kieran (Evans – director of Outer Edges) a few times and I really liked his film Finisterre [St Etienne film he directed] and we both shared an affinity for Iain Sinclair and it just seemed fitting that when we got in the room and talked about what we were interested in, he was interested in the same things as me and we wanted to make a film about it, and that’s what happened.

It came about from you and Kieran going on a walk, right?

Yeah, it did. We’d had this conversation and I said when I was making the record over in Homerton and on that train line was a lot of volunteers for the Olympics. What struck me was they seemed to me to be this tribe that had always been described to me at school. The tribe that came out during the Blitz. The tribe that came out during really tough times and just stuck the kettle on, rolled their sleeves up and got on with it and had an air of positivity about them in the face of everything. I love my country, I love living here but we ain’t half a bunch of cynics aren’t we? It’s our endearing quality I suppose. This lot were so positive it was infectious. It wasn’t just them, when they were on a train and when they were on the street everyone started acting like them. And I thought this must be the tribe I was told about at school. I noticed that between the Olympics and the Paralympics when they went away it got very dark, then they reappeared and it all got positive again. It reminded me of when I first moved to Essex. People in south Essex don’t really know about recession, they just get on with it. They’re just like “something else has been thrown at us, we’re gonna get on with it anyway and while we’re at it, get the kettle on.”

As long as there’s a kettle.

There’s always a kettle isn’t there? We always toured with a kettle. So me and Keiran talked about this, Iain Sinclair, walks and the kind of people that live on the edge of the city, the kind of outsider mentality. And we so we just decided to go in search of them and prove that it wasn’t just a one-off around the Olympics.

The film traces the route of the River Roding from Essex to London and all the almost forgotten places, people and lives there.

It starts on the M11 at Redbridge. It’s real JG Ballard stuff, you go past these cuttings that you’d never stop and look at and anything could be happening in, and it was. We were finding all these really cool people. The underpass that’s on the cover is the M11. I like that part of the world. It was good to be writing in those areas because most of my writing for the past 20 years has been in the middle of cities and so there’s a rhythm that I’ve become almost numb to. It was important to do a few things differently and to write differently to let people in on what I was thinking. I didn’t know how the hell to do that. I had a whole period when I was writing to writer mates – I felt like giving up as I didn’t know how to write differently but not that differently that I’d ditch everything that I love, but not come out and just write the same as I write for Underworld. I started going to places where I was visible – in a caff in Dagenham I was visible whereas in a caff in Soho I’m invisible and a fish and chip shop in Barking is very different to one in the West End. That was very important for me that I was in a different dynamic.

Are you trying to show another side to Essex than the TV program?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Not because I’ve got anything against TOWIE at all, I’ve been a fan since it started. I watch that stuff on YouTube when I’m a long way from home. It was inspired by those people I saw at the Olympics and these people exist everyday. I know that because they welcomed us into their community.

Will it be weird taking to stage on your own on tour? Do you look around for Rick?

It’s curious because when I was working with Brian Eno it was really interesting to not be working with Rick – I’ve been working with him for 34 years and together we’ve built a safety net. Together, I know what happens if things go wrong on stage, or in the studio. He’s been the go to man that I know I can absolutely trust. There comes a point when you need to not have that safety net in order to make new discoveries because otherwise everything gets comfortable and that’s the kiss of death for creativity. It was really conscious otherwise it’ll just stay the same and he’ll get lumped with all the responsibility and I’d carry on the same way. There are times when all the technology decides it wants the day off and you do think that normally Rick would deal with this, but you know, it’s character building. We just put the kettle on, haha!

Is this solo stuff the chill out room of your career before you head back into the main room with the next Underworld record?

I, for a long time, thought there were two Underworlds and there was potential for Underworld to tour as two quite different groups. One was the group that play the high energy, anthemic dance arenas and the other one was the one that played the other songs on our albums: “Skin”, “Tongue”, “River Of Bass”, “Good Morning Cockerel” and it’s always been there. Anthony Minghella asked us to score one of his films because of those tunes and not the dance stuff. When I was with Brian [Eno] I had a really clear image that that was where I wanted Underworld to be as well – I wanted us to be playing seated auditoriums like the Sydney Opera House and the Southbank or the Barbican. I wanted us to be in playing in very different environments where I could talk to the audience, I could communicate, we could tell stories and have an intimate exchange. I know Underworld has that potential but in the meantime, until such time when that happens I thought I’d make an album based on that kind of music that Underworld makes. I didn’t want to do something so radically different that people would wonder what the hell I was doing, this is music very clearly rooted in Underworld. I wanted to take a band out and just see how it feels to talk and communicate differently in different types of places than the dance arenas. And I’m loving it, really loving it.

Parts of it are almost mournful, contemplating. Do you think people will be surprised when no banging bass-lines kick in?

I think anybody that’s followed Underworld throughout our career will recognise those tunes. They’re tunes that our rooted in our film music and those tunes have been cherished by Underworld fans, like “Oich Oich” that we just don’t do anymore because they don’t fit the live show. There are a lot of people that we haven’t been able to provide what they’d like to hear for a really long time. When we played our warm up in Brighton, the response we got was fantastic; you could see the recognition on people’s faces because they got it. And also, we play Underworld tunes too. I want to make the connection really clear. Tracks like 8-ball have never been played live and fans have been asking us to play that ever since it came out on The Beach, but it never fitted the shows we were doing.

Did you feel pressure playing the Olympic Opening Ceremony?

Live has always been the calmest place in the world for me, ever since I was 11 when I started playing live, it’s always been the quietest place in the world, it’s never been terrifying. I remember walking out when we did the MTV Awards years ago when Darren Emerson was in the band. Just as we were walking on the stage he went, “don’t be scared mate.” And I looked at him and I was like “scared of what?” It doesn’t compute to me. This is my job and I’m meant to do a great job. It feels like home to me.

Do people shout “Lager, Lager, Lager” at you in the street?

No! They’re really cool. I get thumbs ups from people and stuff like that. We’ve got a fantastic fan base. They’re very cool and there’s a real positive energy in our fans and there always has been since day one and that makes us so lucky, wherever we’re appearing or whatever music we’re making, there’s a genuine warmth for what we do. Sometimes it’s loud and sweaty and arms in the air and sometimes it’s just smiling faces.

A friend of mine said he saw you after a V Festival appearance once and dropped to his knees and did the “We’re not worthy” thing and he said all you said was, “Oh sweetheart, get up.” Do you accept hero worship from the dance community well?

I remember that festival. I don’t like the word hero but we make this together, if people didn’t buy our records, if people didn’t come to see our concerts, there’d be nothing. I don’t mean that in any sappy, diplomatic way but that’s really true. If we were dropping those records in the early 90s and no one hit the dance floor, we’d be finished! My job as a front man with Underworld is to direct the energy. We drop the tune and if the audience doesn’t react in a positive way then there’s nothing more to say. Without their contributions, we’re making this up as we go along. That’s the beautiful thing about dance music, we got together as a tribe and we made this happen. Some of us made the music and some of us made the incredible energy. We’re in this together. We’re in this regardless of if we’re famous or not.

Agreed. Thanks Karl!

Don’t forget to catch Karl headlining at the Union Chapel tomorow night.