Apr 3rd, 2002
Zero-7
“We’re in our little studio in London, our little bunker,” explains electro newcomer, Henry Binns. “We’re in Swiss Cottage, about thirty minutes away from Camden.”
Then, after thinking for several moments, he corrects himself, revealing his rather excessive propensity for correctness and detail.
“We’re actually about ten minutes away from Camden.”
It was this sort of attention to minutiae that made Zero 7’s Simple Things an enigmatic — and international — curio du jour. As the mad professors behind Zero 7’s downtempo soul-tronica, Binns and partner Sam Hardaker are pleasantly down-to-earth when off work. Binns’ new love is cooking, and his favorite accoutrement may explain why Simple Things has been called “whoopee album of the year,” by at least one beat-drunk critic.
“A bottle of red wine,” is usually in the recipe, he says. “Well, not a whole bottle.”
Binns is a sensualist — a trait not usually associated with lap-topping beat freaks. Simple Things is even more unusual than most of the blips and bpms to circulate this year: The album was nominated for Britain’s highly-coveted Mercury Music Prize and won the “Best Newcomer” award from Muzik magazine, propelled by the U.K. hit, “Destiny.”
“The best thing is being acknowledged and knowing people are listening to our music,” Binns says. “The worst thing is that we don’t feel, as two old mates, that we fit into this celebrity role. We weren’t hungry for the spotlight. I suppose in a vain, fuzzy way, we let the music speak for itself.”
Like so many suddenly popular purists before them, Binns and Hardaker have eschewed the shortcuts to, if not the spoils of, success itself. Childhood chums in Northern London, they bonded, not just alchemically, but out of necessity.
Although a young Binns preferred soul and R&B, while Hardaker was drawn towards hip hop, they found musical fruition in fertile London, which Binns describes as a “funk revival with a lot of new hip-hop and house.”
The two friends knew they wanted to contribute, but neither of them was particularly keen on playing musical instruments.
“Neither of us wanted to be in a band, [but] we wanted to be in music,” says Binns. “So we decided to get into the studio side of things…
“Sam had the bright idea to do that.”
Shortly after college, Binns and Hardaker began working at Mickie Most’s RAK studios with another aspiring producer named Nigel Godrich — who would eventually produce both Radiohead and Travis.
“I can’t quite think of him like that,” Binns admits, regarding the now Big Name Talent of Godrich. “He’s kind of an old-school friend.”
Funny, since Zero 7’s break came when Godrich asked them to remix Radiohead’s “Climbing Up the Walls.” A remix of Terry Callier’s “Love Theme from Spartacus” was soon followed by remixes for Lenny Kravitz and the Sneaker Pimps. Binns describes the arc of their sizable accomplishments as “a whole process that has constantly never ceased to amaze me.”
When asked about Zero-7’s decision to not sign with a major record label, the conversation turns towards this year’s Grammy
Awards, in which a relatively obscure Ralph Stanley won album of the year for Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?.
“It’s always been manufactured, but now it’s ridiculous,” says Binn. “The music is so secondary to everything that has been driving it. O Brother comes out and it is honest music and everyone listens up.”
Is honest music what drove Zero-7 to avoid signing with a major label? Binns jokes, “That and I don’t think a major would have had us… A producer-artist group without a lead singer? They just run a mile from us.”
Well, sort of. Zero 7 released Simple Things on the ostensibly indie Palm Pictures, which is owned by Island Records founder, Chris Blackwell.
“It’s important to have someone who can say ‘I don’t think that is right,’” Binns explains. “It took us a while to get over getting offended with one another. . . That took a good five years.”
