We needed something to kick us up a division.” “We were slogging around clubs playing gigs and frankly, we weren’t setting the world alight. “It was that winning-the-lottery phone call,” says Fatboy Slim, AKA Norman Cook, who, in 1995, was playing keyboards in acid-jazz troupe Freak Power. “The music industry went from: ‘I don’t want to touch advertising’, to completely swinging round to: ‘Please can we have some of our music in your ad’,” recalls Hegarty.
Having your track selected by Levi’s was enough to at least guarantee a chart hit, albeit not longevity – but even fleeting success was a temptation. On one hand MTV were pissed off, but that little clip of Peter kicking me and the microphone flying out of my hand – they used that for 12 months on their trailers.” “We did MTV’s Most Wanted and we were told there was something in the region of 20 million viewers,” he continues.
We ended up hating each other.” That anger bled into the band’s performances. We came together within weeks, so we didn’t have a relationship. You can’t go up from there – it’s not the best way to start a band’s career. The band never had another hit, something Wilson chalks up to “too much success too quickly. Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan, convinced Inside ripped off their sound, greeted a Munich crowd later that year with a wry, “Hi, we’re Stiltskin!” Weeks after, we were No 1.” Released 20 days after Kurt Cobain’s suicide, the song landed in a musical landscape overrun with grunge bands emulating the 90s Seattle sound. “I signed on the dole and drove down to London in this old Volkswagen van that was falling apart. “My house was being repossessed because I couldn’t pay the mortgage,” says Stiltskin singer (and later Genesis vocalist) Ray Wilson, recalling his audition for the band in January 1994. Photograph: Niels Van Iperen/Getty Images So we used the communication as a way of saying: we’re discovering music, we’re ahead of fashion.”Īddictive riff … Stiltskin in 1994. “When you’re selling the same basic product in the world of fashion, you have to change something,” explains Sir John Hegarty, the creative director at London-based creative agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH), who ran the 80s and 90s Levi’s campaigns. Inside, though, was the first time the company had used a new artist as their soundtrack. The brand used classic blues, rock and soul to embody the brand’s sense of vintage authenticity. Over the next few years, the likes of Babylon Zoo, Smoke City, Mr Oizo and Norman Cook’s pre- Fatboy Slim project Freak Power would also score major success off the back of a placement in Levi’s witty, often sexually provocative adverts.īefore Stiltskin, previous Levi’s ads had made renewed hits out of Muddy Waters’ Mannish Boy, the Clash’s Should I Stay or Should I Go and Marvin Gaye’s I Heard It Through the Grapevine (the latter in 1985’s classic, Nick Kamen-in-his-boxers “Laundrette” ad). Inside was built around an addictive riff that still sounds fresh, and the advert, entitled Creek, shot it to the top of the UK charts. Thus began one of the strangest cultural wrinkles of the 1990s: when Levi’s became a jeans company that could also score UK chart hits. Suddenly, a peaceful choral soundtrack gives way to bone-shaking guitar: Inside, the debut single by Scottish grunge band Stiltskin. Sutter, astrophysicist at The Ohio State University, Chief Scientist at COSI Science Center, and the one and only Agent to the Stars ( ).A mid black and white Ansel Adams-style cinematography, two Amish sisters spy on a topless man bathing in a Yosemite river. Thanks to WCBE Radio for hosting the recording session, Greg Mobius for producing, and Cathy Rinella for editing. Keep those questions about space, science, astronomy, astrophysics, physics, and cosmology coming to #AskASpaceman for COMPLETE KNOWLEDGE OF TIME AND SPACE!īig thanks to my top Patreon supporters this month: Justin G., Matthew K., Kevin O., Justin R., Chris C., Helge B., Tim R., SkyDiving Storm Trooper, Lars H., Khaled T., Raymond S., John F., Anilavadhanula, Mark R., and David B.! What strange creatures inhabit the so-called “particle zoo”? Why is it a zoo instead of something simpler? Is there anything that connects the forces and particles of our universe? I discuss these questions and more in today’s Ask a Spaceman!