The Chemical Brothers reflect on the creation of iconic album ‘Surrender’

Amidst a rise in Nu-Metal and Hip-Hop, The Chemical Brothers found a home for their incredible, genre-defying productions during the 1990s. Now the legendary duo looks back at the creation of their third album, Surrender.

In a recent interview with DJ Mag, one-half of The Chemical Brothers, Tom Rowlands discussed the process and mindset of their third album, Surrender. Serving as the follow-up to their breakthrough release, Dig Your Own Hole, the duo had a fresh mindset and vision for what would come next.

“I sometimes think that the record you make is the reaction to the last one. We’d really chased after something with ‘Dig Your Own Hole’, and we’d kind of got that. ‘Surrender’ was going to open things up to be a more collaborative work. When we started, we were driven by the excitement of coming off the last album and feeling we could do anything, really.”

-Tom Rowlands

Rowlands further elaborated on The Chemical Brothers’ passion for crafting the perfect record during the interview. This dedication helped deliver enduring singles Music:Response and Hey Boy Hey Girl, tracks that helped the album sell over 2.3 million copies in the last 25 years.

“A lot of time was spent trying to make it perfect. Whereas other music we’ve made, we spent a lot of time making it imperfect. This was us trying to make something that just felt right, as soon as you heard it. It was a time when we were trying to squeeze in everything we liked about music, everything we wanted to say with our music, trying to get all these elements of our band in one record that didn’t feel disjointed or bolted together.”

-Tom Rowlands

The enduring passion for Surrender and the continued success of The Chemical Brothers is certainly rooted in the continued devotion to the album. As the duo continues to be a must-see live act, modern electronic acts continue to pay homage as ARTBAT recently released their own remix of Hey Boy Hey Girl.

“All our records are influenced by our first connection with acid house, and everything within that – the sort of intoxicating feeling that we had when we first found dance music. Obviously we were going out a lot and we were playing live a lot, and I suppose we were playing bigger stages. It’s almost like a sort of feedback loop for us: when we’re DJing or when we’re playing live, some of the music gets really influenced by where we imagine playing it.”

-Tom Rowlands

You can read the complete interview on DJ Mag here.