FATBOY SLIM says he has fallen out of love with making new music and reckons he’ll finish his career playing live gigs.
The DJ, real name Norman Cook, released his last studio album, Palookaville, 20 years ago.
He told me during a Q&A for fans at his All Back To Minehead Butlin’s weekender in Somerset: “My last two singles just came out of a live show.
“They were both things that I made just to play on the side.
“I had tunes that nobody else had in my set. And that kind of caught on with people when we worked out that we could clear the samples and release them.”
Norman added: “The thing is, you can’t make music unless you’re absolutely passionate about it and it drives you from the moment you wake up in the morning.
“I just don’t seem to feel like that any more. I feel like that about DJing and about putting on things like this, but I’ve kind of lost my passion for making music.
“For five years, I tried to beat myself up about it and go, ‘You should be doing this’.
“But then I thought, ‘Well, everybody likes my DJing and I enjoy that more, so I’ll do that’.
“I’m hoping that one day the passion will come back.”
As a massive fan of Norm’s — and his hits such as Right Here, Right Now, Gangster Trippin and Slash Dot Dash — I hope so, too.
He played a killer set over the weekend, with his son Woody also taking to the decks.
Like his famous dad, he is carving out a career as a DJ and we’ve watched him play Glastonbury twice over the past two years.
But according to Norm, his lad kept his passion for the decks a secret over fears he’d be labelled a nepo baby.
Of Woody, his son with Zoe Ball, Norm said: “All the while that Woody lived with me, he was always into music — and then he got into clubbing quite seriously.
“I used to say to him, ‘Do you want to be a DJ?’. He’s like, ‘Well, I thought about it. The thing is, I’d always be living in your shadow. I’d always be your son’.
“He went to university in Bristol, phoned me up two weeks later and went, ‘Dad, I’ve started DJing’.
“All those years I could have mentioned him. But he couldn’t do it when he was living with me. He wanted to do it on his own.
“I think both of us are very scared of the nepotism.”
During the session, Norman also talked about about going to school with Keir Starmer and said he never imagined he would end up Prime Minister.
“He was actually in my class for five years,” Norm said.
“The bizarre thing was, there was another person in our class who was really gifted and they were like the school swot.
“And when they were asked what they wanted to do when they grew up, they said, ‘I want to be Prime Minister of England’.
“Keir kept very quiet.
“It’s very bizarre seeing his rise. I remember he used to play guitar. He was in a band at school.
“But he gave off no whiff of, ‘I’m going to be Prime Minister one day’.”
CYNTHIA ERIVO wrote a song for the upcoming second Wicked movie, to bolster the hit soundtrack.
The British actress, right, plays green witch Elphaba in the film which will be out next November, following the first part last month.
She told the Awards Circuit podcast: “I don’t know if you’re ready for it.
“ I love the song and I remember when we filmed it, the cast and crew were crying.
“I feel like the song is very, very special.
“I have a feeling that even the title will move you.”
Hankies at the ready.
I’M not the only one with cabin fever after spending the past week stuck inside eating junk.
Judging by the pictures and videos Kate Beckinsale has been posting on Instagram, she’s just about lost it, too.
She posed on the floor of her home before getting on all fours to communicate with her cat – next to a gigantic feline picture.
Kate also posted a video of herself jumping on a trampoline, wearing the biggest platform shoes I’ve ever seen.
It made my ankles hurt from just watching it.
I hope for her sake there wasn’t a call to A&E shortly afterwards.
PANTO dame veteran Christopher Biggins is planning to hang up his heels next year.
He has become a familiar face at theatres up and down the country, having appeared in pantomime over a 50-year period.
But asked if he would ever take time off, Biggins told The Sun: “I think it could be next year,” and added: “I’m getting older now.”
He said, however, that panto bosses had made things a lot easier for him. “The producers are very kind to me. I fly in and fly out on this pantomime, which is nice,” he added.
The actor, 76, is appearing alongside Steps singer Faye Tozer and children’s puppet Sooty in Sleeping Beauty.
He stars as The Spirit of Dreams in the production, which runs in Woking, Surrey, until January 5.
Biggins, who won I’m A Celebrity in 2007, said in 2016 that he was planning to retire from panto after the following year, admitting that his previous show had “almost killed me”.
He said at the time: “We will have to wait and see. But as you get older there are more priorities in your life – like enjoying it. Going to the theatre at midday and not coming out again until 10pm, then going straight to bed is not much of a life for six weeks.”
None of us are getting any younger, so I couldn’t blame him for stepping away from the stage.
JESS GLYNNE and Alex Scott swerved a family Christmas in foggy Blighty for the trip of a lifetime to Costa Rica.
I’ve learned they are staying in a five-star resort for their romantic getaway after a flight of almost 11 hours last week.
As well as going jet-skiing and walking through waterfalls in a national park, the couple spent Saturday meeting sloths in the wild.
Meanwhile, amid reports her marriage to Stranger Things’ David Harbour is on the rocks and signing up to dating app Raya, Lily Allen has also jetted off.
She spent the past week in Kenya with her two daughters and a handful of friends, enjoying a safari to take her mind off it all.
SIMON COWELL says he has no plans to turn his incredible career into a film just yet – because he’s upset too many people.
The former X Factor boss has rubbed a raft of stars up the wrong way over the years, including Mel B, Sharon Osbourne and Jennifer Hudson.
“I always say the best movie you can make is the week before you die,” Simon told me during an exclusive chat in the States.
“Then you could do everything; just tell all the stories about all the people you hate and everything else, and who cares?
“The only way I am going to make a movie is if I’m terminally ill.”
A new TV show, which is expected to air next year, sees Simon hunting for the nation’s next big boyband.
And given that he is no stranger to talent franchises such as Pop Idol, The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent, he is confident it will be a success.
Simon said: “Fundamentally it is about casting. Every great season really depends on who turns up.
“If you have kind of average people with boring personalities, it doesn’t matter what gimmicks I throw at the show, it won’t work.
“If someone is naturally good, has got charisma, and people root for them, then you’ve got half a chance.
“So I say to everyone, look, just focus on the casting.
“You get the casting right, we got a shot.”
WHILE most celebs are positively angelic over the festive season, some drop very human clangers just like the rest of us.
Blur’s Alex James has revealed that after getting a little too squiffy at a church Christmas party last year, he got kicked out of the building for using an “antique figurine of the naked baby Jesus” as an ashtray.
To make it worse, Alex’s memory had gone blank and it was only when he met friends the following day that he was reminded of his antics.
In his new book, Over The Rainbow: Tales from an Unexpected Year, he recalled: “I had been smoking in the room with the art and the objects, as usual.
“Someone I didn’t know had said, ‘I’m not sure if you’re allowed to smoke in here’.
“I’d dutifully picked up a little ashtray on the sideboard where I was leaning and extinguished my cigarette.
“Sadly, unlike some staterooms, not everything in this one was actually an ashtray.
“I’d happened upon an antique figurine of the naked baby Jesus and stubbed my fag-end out by rubbing it around in his crotch, quite obliviously.
“When I was alerted to what I’d done by the person who’d asked me to stop smoking, I tried to put a positive spin on it.
“I picked baby Jesus back up to demonstrate his robustness by tugging one of his little arms.
“The arm came off along with a plume of impossibly fine, glittering, powdery dust.
“I managed to wedge it back on.”
I am sure Alex would have made a hearty contribution to the collection plate.
