GoldieHEAD OF THE CLASS
Knowledge
Metalheadz turns ten years old this year - and you just know Goldie ain’t going let that one go quietly. In fact, he’s gonna make the big bang look small fry…
Knowledge has come to the leafy Hertfordshire town of Hemel Hempstead to interview it’s most famous resident, Clifford Price, aka jungle’s own midas geezer Goldie. It’s a quiet commuter zone idle and he isn’t doing a very good job of blending in as his big black mobile comes to an abrupt halt outside of the small train station, his metal and diamond-encrusted grin glinting in the sun from the front seat. Retiring to a local pub – the kind of place that doesn’t even have a jukebox, let alone a DJ – he stands out even more but we manage to find a quiet corner, order chicken and cokes and get down the serious business of Metalheadz’s decade in dance. “It’s an exciting time for me. I’m going out there to celebrate ten years with a big bang. I always knew we were going to get to this point. My career’s always been mapped out whether I like it or not. When I was first involved, no-one was into taking it to another audience or going mainstream without compromising the music, and looking back, that feels good. There’s a certain satisfaction in knowing that I’ve opened that door and the music is safe now. It’s been a long road but it’s grown up and it’s beginning to mature. There’s a whole new generation of new people on the scene – new faces, new voices – and I’m celebrating that too.”
Although Goldie hasn’t released an album since 1998’s ‘Saturnz Return’ (or 1999’s remix package/mini-LP ‘Rings Of Saturn’ if you’re feeling generous), he’s never drifted far from our radar. Whether pacing menacingly across Albert Square as the debt collector Angel in ‘Eastenders’, playing Bull the bodyguard in ‘The World Is Not Enough’ or going up for eviction from Celebrity Big Brother against Les Dennis, of all people, he’s got more fingers in pies than most junglists have trainers - and he’s designed a few of those in his time too. If you thought he’d forsaken drum&bass for the silver screen though, you’d be mistaken. In fact he’s been working on a project that brings the two art forms together – writing a film and accompanying soundtrack album. “It’s taken four-and-a-half years to write an original screenplay and it’s been the most easy, hard, depressing, wonderful, emotional experience. It’s been living inside of me for a long time but it’s finally come to fruition and putting closure to it is brilliant. I want to cause an upstart in the film industry just like I did in the music industry.”
Due to start filming next summer, this time he’ll be behind the camera in the director’s chair to tell a story of lives and communities lost, of drugs and crime and of love and hope. “It’s a reflective story based on my experiences. It’s going to be a fictional film but I know someone like every character in it. Guy Ritchie sucked out everyone’s brains with the gangster thing. The difference with me is a, I’m a Virgo and b, I’ve lived through all that first-hand. The only brain I’ve had to suck is mine. I’ve taken all the information I’ve sponged up over the years, squeeze it all into one pot and added my own flavour.”
The three-hour plot is a complicated one that rings more than a few bells from Goldie’s own childhood growing up in Walsall in the 1970s. “There’s a G character, an artist who escaped the ghetto, went to America. There’s a kid called True; G is his uncle but his real father in jail because the bad guy in the film, Blue, shopped his gambling house to the police, got it raided and then turned it into a crack house and got his woman dependent,” he enthuses. “I remember in the summertime you’d go to a gambling house, play pool, buy food over the counter, eat some nice patties. It was a community vibe. Then brown and crack came in a big way and fucked it all up completely, demoralised everyone and annihilation stepped in. The film’s not about drugs but that just so happens to be the backdrop of society. There’s a whole generation of people now who don’t know who they are, they can’t see the possibilities out there for them and how beautiful the ghetto can be. This film is going to wake them up, it’s fucking with things no one’s dared fuck with before and addressing what we’re really here for.”
As the film takes shape, so does the album - with a little help from Tech Itch on engineer duty, nine tracks out of 12 are already down. “I’ve done everything I’ve ever wanted to do with music. I’d gone from one extreme of my inner-self to the other with the first two albums and been completely adventurous, but that’s just me. If I think I’ve mastered something I’ll jog on,” he says between mouthfuls of deep fried foul. “So this time round I had to achieve a new vision. No one can see what I hear. I’m trying to build a whole picture and find out what’s inside. I treat music like art because I’m an artist. I’m really happy with the tracks so far. They’re big, euphoric, fresh-sounding.”
And happier than before, perhaps? “Yes. ‘Saturnz Return’ was an immense time for me. I’d gone through a lot of shit and I had to deal with it. I still think that the track of all time is ‘Letter Of Fate’ without a fucking doubt because how can someone like me, coming from a scene which was roughage, turn out a ballad I can now put my daughter to bed with? It’s beautiful. That album’s not going to register for another ten years. It goes over some people’s heads, which is great. No-one will ever make an album like that, including me, and I’ve challenged them for years. Bring it on. I wish I could watch the kid who walks through the door and does that but I’m still waiting.”
Fast-forward to 2004 and the songs are as far-reaching as ever. ‘Say You Love Me’, which will be Metalheadz 60 th release, joins other album tracks including ‘Something About You’, ‘Inside Your Soul’, ‘I Know Who I Am’ and ‘Letting Go’, which centres on the theme of the whole film. “It’s a beautiful piece of work man, my ‘Sea Of Tears’ part two. It’s the sound of uprising. The film is a revenge tragedy but there’s still hope. Like David Bowie said: if he never made another album tomorrow he’d be happy, but there’s always reinvention. It’s the story of my life -mixed race boy does good. Mixed race boy experiences plenty things. Mixed race boy becomes big artist. Mixed race boy does drugs, goes crazy, goes on tour, blows up world, falls to floor, gets back up again. I’ve been there and I’m doing it again. I was Goldie the B-Boy back in the 80s. Then I bounced back as Goldie the artist. Now I’m bouncing back as Goldie the director. Oh my god, how many suits have I put on today?”
Sitting across from Goldie, his utter belief and enthusiasm for his work is palpable. Aged 37, he’s full of life and exudes more energy now than he ever did before. “I’ve never felt so driven about anything. Not even ‘Timeless’. This project is more powerful than ‘Timeless’. It’s has been my driving force for ten years and I can honestly say that if I had to give up everything I’ve ever done so far for it, I would. It means that much.”
Luckily for Metalheadz he won’t have to, as the empire continues to grow in its anniversary year with the obligatory ‘Ten Years Of Metalheadz’ double CD and a new monthly night at north London’s Islington Academy from this month. “I’ve never had a Friday-night, it’s always been Sundays, so this is something new for us. I can’t wait. There seems to be resurgence of people into Metalheadz right now. We were like the ‘Star Wars’ alliance, we went underground when the music got commercialised. I’ve got nothing against commercialism - I’m the guy who wants to be on the TV in the living room where your mum’s watching – it’s how you go about doing it. The magic had gone from the music but it never went from me.” Further bringing the label stable to the forefront is its new radio show on Pyrotechnic.com. “It’s going to be a bit mad, like Desert Island Discs. I want to have a real laugh with it. There needs to be less self-indulgence and more putting a smile on people’s faces.”
What Goldie finds less funny, however, is the current state of drum&bass. As one of its elder statesmen, he has more than a few outspoken words on the subject. “It’s about time the scene shook itself up. Don’t just sit there like a whore and fuck yourself. Get up and have a little respect. It deserves more than that. I didn’t come ten years down the road for it to not be respected. However people want to take me I don’t give a fuck, and you can quote me on that because no-one can tell me anything about this music. I eat, sleep and shit this music. I’m passionate about it to the point that I don’t give a fuck. I could sit here and make bouncy bollocks all day long but I don’t want to bounce around a bouncy castle like a knob-head. I don’t make music for kids. I make it for adults. There’s a difference. Name me one other person who’s been lucky enough to have found the fame I’ve had and still make time to go out and play? Roni’s probably the only other one and there should be 20 more. We’ll have to start cloning ourselves.”
Suddenly he stops mid flow - and that’s really saying something because this man can talk. And talk. And talk. The reason for his brief lapse in flow? His wife of two years has just walked into the pub. “Oh, my stunning wife. Hello China. Hi baby.” The couple kiss before she takes her beautiful self to the bar. “I’m in a great place at the moment,” he says gazing in her direction. “It’s nice living out here because I’ve filtered out everything else and we’re appreciating sharing the space. We’re shagging like rabbits too. It’s brilliant!”
Yes, this is Goldie talking. Not one of his clones. The man who’s toured with Jane’s Addiction. The man who dated Björk. The man renowned for his fiery Temper Temper. And now the man who’d rather ramble than rumble. “I’ve got an indoor swimming pool, I go for walks, keep fit. If I have a blow-out I have a controlled blow-out and reel it back in again. We’ve got two dogs, a snake and two mad cats. My daughter can go to private school up here and I can drop her off in the mornings. It’s great at her sports days because when it comes to the father’s race I beat them all!” Even tucked away in the countryside though, he still can’t escape his notoriety. “Everyone knows me in the village but they leave me alone. I was getting a lot of hassle in London going out all the time. Don’t get me wrong, I love the attention, but it gets too much. I still get spotted in my local Costcutter’s all the time, but I never know what for. Is it Goldie the artist, producer or actor? I have to look at their age and think ‘OK, what Goldie are you saying hello to today?’”
Of course, there’s more than enough going on in Goldie’s world to stop cabin fever from setting in – apart from all the rabbit-like humping, of course. He’s off to Bournemouth tonight, the States next week and back to London after that for the new residency. “I probably spend about three month a year touring, but I’m a homely person. It’s a nice feeling. I’ve had enough madness in my life and I need some peace now.” And where does he see himself in another ten years time? “I’ll be a sculptor, mate. I’ll be in a barn with a chisel and a mallet.”
Words Helen Jennings