Goldie on his celebrity status: "It troubled me incessantly"

Goldie has admitted that his new-found celebrity status in the '90s "troubled me incessantly".

In an interview with the Guardian, Goldie speaks of his second album ‘Saturnz Return’ in celebration of its 21st anniversary and reissue. The interview sees Goldie speak of the uncertainty of label executives and music critics of the hour-long track 'Mother', his relationship with his mother, his rise into the mainstream, drug use and deciding not to produce Madonna's album.

Unlike most of the drum 'n' bass scene at the time, Goldie forged a celebrity status in the mid '90s, revealing it "troubled me incessantly."

He added: “The amount of flak I got [after 'Saturnz Return'] from people, going: ‘Yeah, man, you’ve sold out.’”

The 1998 album famously opens with ‘Mother’, a feature-length orchestral d'n'b tune that had people wondering what was going on.

He describes the ever-divisive album opener by saying: “It starts with this beautiful piece of music that’s the voice of a child who’s not arrived yet. It’s like looking at your mum’s vagina and knowing: ‘I know this is going to be a very difficult life, but it’s the one life you need to make count.’”

He also openly speaks of his previous drug use, namely a cocaine habit that would often lead to him “looking for dealers to get more gear at six in the morning” and using his “fists like clubs” before swiftly regretting it.

Ever the comedian as well as seminal producer, he speaks of Madonna asking him to produce her album. “It might have been great, but I’d have ended up banging her, probably, or some shit like that.

“And I would have ended up doing copious amounts of probably harder drugs, trying to search for something that wasn’t there.”

[Photo: Chelone Wolf]

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