Rollo Armstrong goes to studio. How to break a bad habit and start writing good music

I came across a brilliant story in an interview with Faithless’s grey eminence Rollo Armstrong. Despite the fact that he prefers to stay out of album covers and gigs, it was he who came up with the sound for each track; he was responsible for the concept behind the albums; he gave instructions on what to write lyrics about; and, together with Sister Bliss, he not only handled all the studio work, but they also co-wrote everything released under the Faithless name (don’t miss their 2.5-hour greatest hits compilation). And besides the famous band, the man has plenty of other projects, including Dido. How could he not help his own sister with her album? :-D

“I had met a guy called Rob Dougan, who later became known as Rob D and who’d eventually release a seminal track called Clubbed to death. We met in Australia at a party and started making music in his bedroom—and we got a deal. That’s a story in itself, how we got the deal. But, anyway, we got a deal and were invited by a producer into a real studio to turn our demos into gold.”

“Well, we’re in the studio and the mixing desk is just huge. This would be sort of 1990 I would say, and there’s all the glass and the paneling, the soundproofing and, best of all, there was someone to make us cups of tea and go and get us takeaways and the like. It was amazing. And on this huge, incredibly modern looking desk, there were some cut-up straws. I was laughing with the producer. I said, What are those cut-up straws for? Why would you need straws in this place that looks like a spaceship? And the producer got out a large wrap of cocaine and told us all to take a line. That’s what the straws were for. And we stayed up all night, making music and I just thought we were geniuses: the world would not be able to get enough of the stuff we were doing, you know, chariots were coming out of the speakers, God on our shoulders as the music was playing. So it was a fantastic night.”

“But the next day when I woke up and I listened to what we’d done, it was just terrible. Two things happened from that. One, we got rid of the producer. And secondly, I’ve never taken cocaine again.”