Madonna, drugs and helicopter-trained dogs: the dark, starry life of William Orbit | Dance music

TThis was a point in the early 00s when William Orbit was on the verge of becoming interstellar. He was one of the great pop architects of the Y2K era, the Mark Ronson or Jack Antonoff of his time. In 1998 he produced Madonna's Grammy-Sweeping Ray of Light with his magnetic Techno-Lite; Blur is 13 a year later; and made hits for some of the greatest films of the new millennium: Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, The Next Best Thing and The Beach.

The latter's lead track, Pure Shores, recorded by British pop group All Saints, was the second highest-grossing UK single of 2000. Echoes of its breathy acoustics and bleepy-bloopy electronica can still be heard in the charts; it was recently championed by Lorde, who said the song was an inspiration for this year's highly anticipated Solar Power album.

Occasionally, Orbit, 65, will be at its local Whole Foods branch in Kensington, west London, and Pure Shores will be blowing through the speakers. These days he'll be like, "Oh yeah, this track is fine, now I get it." Back then, it had taken so long to make that he thought it was "pure shit". If you can really be a slave, it will take years before you can really enjoy listening to it. That or a couple of bottles of wine, ”he hoots.

'She's a Fabulous Producer' ... watch the video for Ray of Light by Madonna from the Orbit-produced album of the same name.

In the '80s, Orbit was in the synth-pop band Torch Song, founded Guerilla Studios, and worked with some of the most eccentric acts of the decade - including Gary Numan, Cabaret Voltaire, and Laibach. For the following decade he made house music as a bassomatic. But in 2000, as chillout became increasingly popular, you couldn't move for Orbits ambient pop winking. Orbit's classic-electronic fusion album Pieces in a Modern Style reveled in his other great love, orchestral music, at number 2 in 2000 after a successful remix of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings by Dutch trance DJ Ferry Corsten.

Orbit was so successful that he settled at the Leonard Hotel near Hyde Park between 2002 and 2005, where he recorded Bono's vocals for U2's song Electrical Storm. "I had a lot of money and I bought a big, fat house in Connaught Square and built it up - and I couldn't bear to move in," he says. “Well, the hotel that I particularly liked has just moved in there. It was like: this is life. It's like the Chelsea Hotel [in New York], but in London. "

He could have been a super producer who went to star, Brit Rick Rubin on Moby. But that didn't quite happen. "It should," he nods wisely, long gray hair falling into his face.

W.hen we speak, Orbit is in another hotel room, in an upscale health resort in Austria, where he has made himself “a little fitter”. He pushed his body to the limit in order to complete his new album, his first since 2014. It's a triumphant point after a tough time that he's surprisingly open-minded about. "I did my rock and roll excess thing about four years ago when I was 61," he says. "I have waited so long. I'm a little exaggerated, I've learned my lesson. I went a little crazy. Drugs will do that to you, you know, if you have a certain predisposition to being in the clouds, as I probably do ... "

Today Orbit looks more down-to-earth. He's terribly gossiped, in a high-pitched, conspiratorial way, telling stories of working with Pink ("one of the grumpiest singers, but one of the best"), hanging out with billionaires ("They'll be like: is your dog." ). Helicopter trained? ”) And why he's considering buying a Gandalf staff (“ my limbs don't work because they suck ”).

He talks in detail about Madonna, with whom he made three albums - her unique musicality, her hardness, that she is a better arranger than him - and about the anecdotes that tumble out of nowhere. “We were in the Hit Factory [studio in New York] once and I entered it in the toilet - it hadn't locked it, ”says Orbit. "She's doing a # 2 and I'm like, 'Oh God, I'm so sorry.' She said, 'William, look, I grew up in a family of six with a loo, so don't break a sweat.' "

You caught me at a turning point. You can have a turning point at any age and that's mine

The first time they worked together on Ray of Light "killed" me, Orbit says. “My family and I were in a crisis that I put on hold. I remember getting very sick that winter; at the age of 43 I was physically exhausted. ”It took months to finish. Madonna, who was then a new mother, cracked the whip. Hard as it was, it was an atmosphere in which he thrived. “I'm blooming with it,” he says. “She's a fabulous producer. When it says "Made by Madonna and William Orbit," it isn't always attributed to her. But she is just as responsible as I am. "

However, after its initial successes, Orbit became a chart pop shill for Ricky Martin, Mel C, and Chris Brown (and these are just the songs that were released). "I got into this songwriting scene in America and thought, 'I'm not made for this,'" he says. “The inner voice said, 'You made Ray of Light, why are you doing remixes now? You should be the Don. ' I did not listen. My inner voice was stifled by my own deception and I felt increasingly powerless to do something about it. "

He's made a couple of his own albums, “but they really fell off. I haven't received any feedback on my calls. It's been a long time since I've made a correct statement instead of trying to do a song for a pop artist who has 10 other people on the speed dial. "

"I did my rock and roll excess thing when I was 61." Photo: Rankin

In the end, he "became more and more frustrated because he believed I was useless and washed up". The last album he worked on with Madonna, the 2012 EDM-fueled MDNA, was a commercial and critical failure. "It was disappointing," says Orbit, adding that he believes age discrimination has "had a profound negative impact" on his reception.

Britney Spears' 2013 album Britney Jean was released shortly thereafter. Produced by will.i.am as executive producer, the album received lukewarm reviews, little to no advertising, and felt strangely impersonal, despite claims being made to be the opposite. Orbit was working on his opening track Alien, in which she compares herself to a lonely alien. Given what we now know about their conservatories, did the album feel similarly controlled?

"This end of the pop spectrum is more controlled, if you will," says Orbit, who says they made alien remotely. “Here's the hard part because I'm friends with Will and Britney. All I can say is that there was a mess there. When I work with an artist, you are the goddess, you are the boss. If I want to be the boss, I'll keep my own records. You're here to serve a real pop star - if you don't have that mindset, you shouldn't be in the game. "

E.Eventually, Orbit took a turn for the worse. He returned to England from Los Angeles four years ago and met some party people. He began to paint, mostly with cocaine. "Instead of worrying about my career, I could just be a hedonist," he says. “I had never had Coke before and in a short time I would be the guy who could do the most. And then I went to some festivals and I took LSD, mushrooms, MDMA, cola, some hormones that everyone was experimenting with. Codeine. I wasn't aware of what I was doing and ended up having a psychotic episode. "

That wasn't enough to stop him either. “I flinch when I think of it. I was in a bad position, but not for good. Then it got to the point where I started smoking tons of weed - eight joints a day. I never agreed to it and I got manic. "

As a result, I had "a second breakdown" last March, he says. He was lying on the street, convinced that he was a secret agent who was supposed to save the royal family. It was divided. "Fortunately, once the medication was gone from my system, I finally got back to normal - and I was outside," he says in an insane tone.

With former Girls Aloud singer Nadine Coyle in 2010. He co-produced her debut solo album. Photo: Dave Hogan / Getty Images

However, the first lockdown in the UK was announced almost immediately after he was released from the mental hospital. "I was deeply disappointed in myself and there was damn Covid at the same time," he says. His new manager put Orbit in touch with an aspiring alt-pop singer named Maeve, and Orbit taught herself how to use Pro Tools on his laptop via online tutorials to produce some tracks. He hadn't made music for a long time, "and gradually I started to enjoy it". Now a new Orbit album is almost finished: “The best thing I've done in 20 years!” He enthuses. “You caught me at a turning point. You can have a turning point at any age and that's mine. "

But first of all there will be an EP for the electronic label Anjunadeep next month. It feels like what he should have done after Pieces in a Modern Style: symphonic trance crescendos, some chillout manderings, a big ambient rave song. Canadian-Colombian artist Lido Pimienta appears on vocals, hinting at the direction his full album could take next year (guest vocalists galore).

He doesn't worry about being an old man in a young man's world; he is energized to see that his sound has a moment again. “Ambient music has become mainstream,” he says. “Radio 1 has gone cold - I'm doing a wind down mix for them. Somebody sent me a link to one of my tracks [in a video] on Instagram and it said: 'Music to calm dogs on Bonfire Night.' ”

He's really excited, bubbling over with enthusiasm. “I realized I had to grow up a bit,” he says. “I just got through my youth. It's great to be 65 - it's easier than 40 because you're the old guy and you don't have any plans anymore. It's a young game, the pop music game. But I think there's room for a Bill Nighy. It's not a crowded field. "

Maybe not an agenda, but at least he has hopes for his music. "I really want to - and it is very difficult to reinvent," says Orbit. “When you're young, you don't notice it at the time, but everything is given to you. I like a challenge. I really want this music to be heard. Nothing will stop me now. "

William Orbit's Starbeam EP will be released on December 1st on Anjunadeep

This article was changed on November 19, 2021. Electrical Storm is a song by U2, not an album as previously stated.

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