Army Of Mixes

It’s been an interesting tango in a way, it started with me putting up the website way back, and then all the fans started sending in mixes they’ve done, or cover versions - which is really flatterng because it’s not like you’re asking for anything, and they’re obviously doing it for free in their bedrooms or whatever...

Then for some reason, a lot of them would cover "Army Of Me" - do like some pretty heavy metal versions of the song, and I just thought it was so funny, because it’s probably the sort of last music genre that I’m probably... I’m attached to quite a few but not that one, you know.

So I thought, well that sort of deserves to be put out somehow, you know. Then the idea sort of got shelved and it wasn’t ’til the Tsunami thing happened that I though ’well, if there ever was a time, this is the time’. And then we sort of put it on the website, you know, "please could you send in the mixes again" , because obviously now it’s easier on the internet to send in really high quality sound ones and stuff...

And then 600 people sent in mixes ! In a space of like 3 days, because they couldn’t make new ones, they just had to send their old stuff — so it’s sort of like a tang thing ! In a way, they made me get the idea, because they were the ones who sent it in, and if they would just have been copies of my songs, I never would have thought of it, you know ? But because they took it somewhere else, it becomes its own thing.

I guess I was obviously as well quite chuffed that people bothered to work with my music, which is all a bit of a, quite flattering, you know. And then just to get the accordion version and you put the next one on and it’s a german electro clash one. So it’s just like... it’s kind of fun, and after a while you forget what song it is actually, you know.

On Music ITN, 2005