Audio UNKLE
"Burn My Shadow"

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For nearly two decades, no one has been a stronger influence on the London underground music scene than James Lavelle.

Whether it was his early block parties or his creation of the seminal Mo' Wax record label, Lavelle was central to the UK's electronic music explosion in the 1990s. Since then, he's released two albums through his eclectic UNKLE project, scored several films, remixed countless bangers, and deejayed all over the world.

Following some turbulent times that caused him to close Mo' Wax and create a new company called Surrender All, Lavelle and UNKLE are back with a new album, War Stories, which hits stores July 24. The video for the first single, "Burn My Shadow," has been generating loads of buzz and controversy since it appeared on the Internet earlier this month.

Lavelle spoke with MP3.com about the video, the album, his need to surrender in life during difficult times and, perhaps most interestingly, his thoughts on what his generation will be listening to in their twilight years.

MP3.com: Hey James, how are you? James Lavelle: I'm doing well thank you. I was just watching this video for "Burn My Shadow," the first single off the new album. That's some pretty intense stuff. The visual of a suicide bomb planted on someone without their consent is a pretty incredible theme. Where did the concept originate? With the director, Miguel Sapochnik, who had worked on films like Trainspotting and A Life Less Ordinary. It was a great concept and it fit the song really well so we just went with it.

It's basically a short film. And it fits really well with the song, which leads us to the obvious. Let's chat about the album. When did you first sit down and start working on it? Well, "Burn My Shadow" is the first track we did, which was around October 2004. And then there was a good I think year before we went to LA and spent three months doing the bulk of the writing. And then came back to England and spent a year sort of refining the record, rerecording certain things. You brought in a few folks that you worked with before and a few new faces, at least for UNKLE records. I'm sure it differs from artist to artist, but I'm curious, do you make mental lists of people you'd like to make a track with, or do you write a song and then try and find the right voice for it? Most of it comes from sort of relationships and hanging out and thinking it would be good to work together. That's sort of where it started with with Ian [Astbury], really. I'd had a relationship with him for a long time, actually. I was hanging out with him when we were doing [2003 album] Never, Never, Land. But we never recorded on that record, and that sort of sewed the seed--same with [Queens of the Stone Age frontman] Josh [Homme] and [Massive Attack producer] 3D.

And then other people came in during the course of making the record. We knew we were going to work with Autolux, actually, but that came through my manager because he released their records and that's how I'd originally heard of them. Oh, I see. I wasn't really into what they were doing. But it was a kind of organic connection rather than just sort of throwing it out there. And over time you meld the album down to a cohesive piece of art that doesn't seem like a bunch of different relationships. Yeah. I saw that you have some live dates coming up. How will that take shape this time? I don't want to say that War Stories is your rock album, but it is certainly more rock-oriented than the others. Yeah, I think it's more up than any of the other records. I think for a live show if it could be pulled off, it could be pretty exciting. Something like [the album's second song] "Chemistry" could really sound great. It's not going to be a particularly downbeat show, which I think for us will be more exciting and more relevant to what's going on now. It's going to be quite fast and upbeat and very cut and paste--very visually led. What will be the makeup of the band? It's going to be drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, and then me and [Psycho Pab] working a bank of tape loops, effects, and synths. There will be a more intense visual show. And then some of the collaborators will be coming in and out over different times, depending on where we are. Where you are and who's in town and that kind of thing. To me it's sort of like Pink Floyd meets the Chemical Brothers, a bit Nine Inch Nails. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, sure. That's a very compelling combination, for sure. Now, I'd be remiss if I didn't try to get you to talk about what else you have going on. You are always a guy that has a lot of things going on at once, even while you're in the midst of UNKLE projects. Where did you come up with the name and concept of your new company, Surrender All? Surrender All came about through a pretty dark period in my life, and I had to learn to surrender a lot of things in my life to be able to move forward. And that's where the name for the label came, really. Just about having to let go, to move on. From a personal perspective or a business one? Everything. All of that. All of the above. Yeah. The help that I was getting at the time, the person I was working with, he gave me a piece of paper that had this whole thing about surrendering to life at various points. And it just really stuck with me, and that's where the name for the label came from. Interesting. Now, is Mo' Wax, as an entity that releases new music, dead at this point? Yeah, it's dead. Yeah. OK. So everything that will be coming from you or related entities will be on Surrender All? Yeah. Alright. Is it possible at this point, I know it's right in the rearview mirror, but can you reflect on those Mo' Wax years? It's not really something--I mean, yeah, kind of. There's a lot of stuff there, so I'm not really--it's not really something I feel comfortable with going into too much at the moment, really. Fair enough. I think I need to be able to move on a little bit in my life first. I have a lot of sadness about it, so I just feel like I have to just kind of keep moving forward, really. That's fine. That's the way people need to deal with those sorts of things is, you know, once it's two, three, five more years in the rearview mirror, then it's a little bit easier to digest, perspective and that kind of thing. I read somewhere that you were working on something with [filmmaker] Darren Aronofsky. Is that still something that's still happening? We were meant to be doing a remix project with the whole Fountain score, but I don't think it's happening now. Due to time and also it seems to have got a bit cold on the radar on that front. I don't think the movie did as well as they had hoped. I really would love to do it, and I'd love to be involved. I'd love to work with him. Yeah, for one reason or another that movie didn't get many eyeballs, whether it was too complicated for people or whatever. Yeah, it was a really beautiful film and it was one of those things where you go to the cinema and it's about escaping, and letting your mind wander a bit. Visually it was stunning. But yeah, I think people just expect such instantaneous gratification and it just seemed to miss the boat on that level. But maybe it's one of those films that will do really well on DVD. Yeah, plenty of films that get slept on in the theater go on to become cult hits. There are so many films like that, when you think about Blade Runner and films that everybody at the time stayed away from and now have become huge cult films. What other film-related stuff is in your pipeline these days? We finished a soundtrack for a documentary on Abel Ferrara. OK. Interesting. So we've just done that, and we worked with BMW. We did a new advertisement for them. And I've done a new thing for Johnny Walker which is a billboard. I've done those not because of the advertising, but because friends of mine, Warren Dupreez and Nick Thornton Jones, both really amazing photographers, were working on them. They've worked with people like Bjork and Massive Attack in the past. The Johnny Walker thing is a virtual billboard in New York which actually when you walk past it, music comes out of it. It's pretty cool. So you created the music for that? Yeah. Interesting. The last thing I wanted to ask you about was DJing. I mean, obviously that's where it started for you. Do you still enjoy it more than the rest? I love it. The problem is it's f***ing just killing me at the moment. I just don't have a life, really. You know, I just work every day, and I'm not complaining. I sort of got myself in a situation financially where I've had to, you know, work twice as much as one would like, really. But I just recently just feel like I've burnt myself out a bit with it all. And I love DJing but the problem is the bigger I get with it and the further I push it, the further into the madness you seem to go. Do you know what I mean? Go on. You start doing all these European gigs. You end up in Eastern Europe. You're not starting till 4:00 in the morning. You finish at 8:00 in the morning. You end up at an after-party if you're like me and don't have much self control. And those are the things I like about it. I like the madness of clubs. I like the madness of going to an after-party. You know, when you're in it, I don't really want it to stop. And it's just having such physical toll to take now. Because then, you know, you're back in the studio on Monday trying to juggle, you know, a 10-year-old daughter, doing press, doing promo, new label.

So I'm just trying to slow it all down, really, man. Because in the long run creatively and artistically, what's really more important is making records and something that has longevity. But even with a tour I'm going to make probably one-tenth of what I do DJing. But you can be touring when you're 70. I don't know you want to be DJing when you're 70. Do you know what I mean? So I need to try and apply myself more into that side of things, you know. It's just that DJing's like a drug. It's great fun. It's instant gratification. It's easy. Great money. Yeah, it's funny, we had Gilles Peterson in the studio a few months back. He was in town just for a day on his way to Japan, and said the same thing about the DJ gigs being so fun and lucrative that they're hard to turn down. But once you're not 21 years old anymore and can burn the candle at all ends and still be fine the next morning, it all becomes a bit more taking a toll on your life and that kind of thing. Yeah. I was on the phone the other day with 3D and he was saying, 'The problem is with you, James, is that everybody gets younger and you get older.' But when you're in a band, generally people sort of grow along with you. Do you know what I mean? Because your fans are your fans from the first album. Most of my friends don't want to come to the clubs I DJ at. Not anymore, you know. They'd rather go down to the pub. Right. OK, one last thing: You mentioned about being 70 and still being able to create music. I'm always curious of people's perspective on the ability of hip-hop and electronic music and club culture to grow old gracefully. Not to say that folks like the Rolling Stones are doing anything gracefully, but them and plenty of other rock bands are making music well into their 40s, 50s, 60s, and onward. The funny thing is with electronic music is that the golden generation of that period of time are between the mid 30s and late 40s. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, sure, absolutely. And nothing's changing. You know I'm at my friend's house in Somerset this week with my daughter. He's 40, and wanting to f***ing listen to house music at home. You know, his 10-year-old boy thinks it's rubbish. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, sure. In that way I think it's just going to go. I don't know if it will ever change. Because we always think it will. I just don't think it does. If you and I, if we're in our 60s, is it going to be unusual to say, "Oh, you know, do you want to go and see that LCD Soundsystem show?" In the same way that people want to go and see the Shadows or whatever. Do you know what I mean? No, that's a really good way of putting it. That time period is fused into the collective conscience, and therefore you're not going to at some point flip a switch and start playing James Taylor records. With culture it's funny when I first started a record company and the things people would say that wouldn't work. The fact is if you just sat there you could literally in retrospect go back, and it would be so easy to work out what financially would work in youth culture, because whatever the kids are into is going to stick and stay. It just does now. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. When I first started out and magazines like The Source were saying, "Well, hip hop's going to die." It's mad to even think that anybody thought it would. It's so ingrained in our society and our upbringing. And I think you always have this idea that what, you're going to turn 40 and you're going to start wearing a suit. Exactly. I lived on the street and you see moms with their kids with CBGB T-shirts on. It all passes down? And so when I'm 70 a James Holden record if it was influential or a Derek May record or a Beastie Boys record is still going to be as influential as when my dad talks about going to see f***ing Art Blakey or whatever for him. Sure. Of course. Well, that's extremely well put and it's been my pleasure to have a chance to talk to you. Cool. We really appreciate you taking the time to chat with us, and hopefully you guys will get over to the West Coast at some point for a performance. No, hopefully, yeah. OK, cool. Thanks, James. Bye.