Richie Hawtin: stern-faced techno pioneer, right? Wrong. You, the readers, unearth another side of the Plastikman. Meet the party animal who likes eating barnacles…

From leaving his Canada home and sneaking into Detroit’s legendary Music Institute at the age of 16 to taping The Wizard’s (Jeff Mills) incendiary mix shows on his local radio station, the young Richie Hawtin never looked back, winning a competition to DJ at The Shelter in St. Andrew’s Hall. First as Cybersonik (with Dan Bell and John Acquaviva) and then as FUSE and Plastikman, his 303-warped records, jaw-dropping decks and DJ sets set the world alight as Detroit’s ‘second’ and ‘third’ waves took hold. Now with his new label M-nus having spawned a club smash with the Yello-sampling ‘Orange’ and him and partner John Acquaviva raising Plus 8 from the ashes with a ‘Classics’ compilation this month, the bespectacled bald one is tripping the light fantastic once more. Plastikman, superman or acid maaan? It’s time for you to ask.

What do you remember from your childhood days in Britain? What music did you like? Can you remember what fashions and fads you were rocking?

John Woodcock, Surrey

“I left Britain when I was nine and lived in a small village just outside Banbury called Middleton Cheney. I remember the smallness of everything, being able to walk around everywhere, knowing nearly everyone and running around with my school friends. There were lots of fields around. Now it’s more built-up.

“On my last birthday in England, in 1979, I was given a record from an aunt for my going away ‘disco’. It was a compilation called ‘Disco Direction’ and on that was my favourite track of the time, ‘The Crunch’ by The Rah Band. It was completely synthesised and sounded like a big group, but it was only one person. There was nothing organic about it, it was just futuristic music, and it stuck.

“I remember everyone at school having those old 70s Adidas bags. That was the cool thing to have. I was really into skateboarding at the time, so I had some T-shirts and stuff. I don’t remember everyone being in flares.”

Why Plastikman?

Jason King, (no, not that one) via e-mail

“We did a party one day in Detroit and it got busted before it even started. We all ended up back at a friend’s house, lying on the ground and becoming at one with the floor and sinking through the bottom of it. The only way that I could describe how I felt was like being made of plastic. From that experience, the music we were listening to and the music I was making it was the perfect name for the times. Also, the music sounds very fluid and gooey.”

What was it like being banned from the States in 1995?

Steve Widcombe, Liverpool

“Definitely one of the most defining experiences of my life so far. It was at a time when things were getting really crazy with the parties in Detroit, my career was taking off over in Europe and I was more and more confused about what I was supposed to be both to myself and everybody else. I become isolated from my friends and the scene that I was involved in. It was kind of a slap in the face, but usually when things like that happen to me I try to make the best of the situation. So, after a few days of being really down in the dumps I had to refocus myself. That started with going beyond Plastikman and the ‘Concept’ series of 1996 and re-focusing my energy on Plus 8 and the company in general.”

Windsor is all gambling and strip bars. How would your music have differed if you’d grown up in Detroit?

Kenny via e-mail

“Detroit’s becoming all gambling and strip bars. My music has always been different from the typical Detroit sound because of my perspective from living in Windsor and spending so much time in Detroit. If I’d grown up in Detroit or recorded in Detroit, I would have had a more traditional sound. It’s a double-edged sword. Part of the problem with Detroit techno in general is that it’s been so insular that at some points it had trouble developing because it never looked outside. I think my sound is a hybrid – a Detroit sound with an international perspective.”

Was there ever any real acid on copies of ‘Sheet One’? When did you last drop? What did you see, maaan?

Amy Rogers, Brighton

“I can’t answer that question for self-incrimination. Drop? What, drop my pants? (laughs). The last person I saw drop their pants was Sven Väth at the after party of the Love Parade at The Esplanade Hotel in Berlin. That’s about all the dropping we’ll talk about this evening (more laughter).”

Do you never feel like making something more melodic and crossover, like, say, ‘Knights of the Jaguar”?

Matthew Elliott via e-mail

“Why ‘Knights of the Jaguar’ is such a brilliant song is that it wasn’t created to be a crossover track. It was just a record that you can tell was made from the heart. If in time I make something like that then so be it, but I’m not going to start making melodic records to cross over. I make records the way I feel at the moment in time. You have to capture that, then release it and hope it does well. It’s just how the cookie crumbles.”

I’ve heard reports that you had it large in Ibiza recently. What happened?

Katy Stephan, Birmingham

“All I can say is that the last couple of years have been really intense with a lot of work, travelling, touring, not as much recording as I’d want, and I’ve had a couple of ‘releases’ this year – some of them in Ibiza. The best way to close that part is that on Tuesday morning around 2am there was a knock at my hotel door, and it was Danny Tenaglia. We’d been dancing and partying at Space earlier that day and he gave me a bottle of champagne and he said: ‘Rich, it was really nice partying and dancing with you today and it was nice to see a producer who still likes to enjoy themselves.’ At the end of the day, I take my music very seriously, but you’ve always gotta be able to see the humour in everything and you’ve always gotta to be able to enjoy yourself or it’s not worth doing.”

What else could F.U.S.E. be an acronym for?

Debbie Hayes, Kent

“Farting, Underpants, Soiling, Excretion! – I have no idea. That’s why I haven’t recorded FUSE again. I couldn’t come up with a decent acronym. Maybe the readers should write in.”

Isn’t your album artwork a tad pretentious? What was ‘Consumed’ and ‘Concept 1’
all about?

Mark Baldry, Glasgow

“Pretentious? I’m trying to see a bigger perspective to what we are doing as an artform. Even with ‘Orange’ it was very important to me that it was about the whole package. When someone walks into a store they see this completely orange jacket and think, what is that? The exterior portrays what is contained therein. I don’t know if that’s pretentious. I’m just trying to take control of the whole thing. We don’t just filter everything by what we hear. It’s all the senses – sight, touch, smell – and I’d like to use as many different senses as possible to get a point across. Isn’t music about conveying thoughts, emotions and ideas at the end of the day? Even if it’s just the idea of dancing.”

Why the bald look? Isn’t it unfair on real bald blokes when you can grow a real head of hair when
you want?

Andy Madlin, via e-mail

“I look really stupid with hair! It’s easy, clean and more than anything it’s efficient. This is how I look and if you have a problem with that then get past it, I don’t have a problem with getting balder, in fact I wish I was ‘cause then it would be even more efficient and I wouldn’t even have to shave. I don’t think that hair is a way of stating your masculinity, although there are men who think that way.”

Right, there’s you and Dave Clarke, Derrick May and Juan Atkins and Mad Mike and DJ Rolando in a three-legged race. Who wins? Why?

Damian, via e-mail

“That’s easy – Derrick would win because it doesn’t matter who he’s running with, he’ll pick them up and run by himself and kick the ass out of us because he’s got the biggest calves I’ve ever seen in
my life.”

What was your first fight about?

Simon Moore, Boston, Lincs

“I’ve always been a great diplomat, so I haven’t had many fights. I had a one-sided fight in high school though. This guy walked up to me and punched me in the head and that was the end of it. That was because I’d laughed at the shirt he was wearing, which he really didn’t find very funny. After that I learned not to laugh at people’s shirts.”

Have you ever travelled incognito?

Mark Collings, Great Yarmouth

“No, luckily, the balance between the music I’ve done and the notoriety and exposure I’ve had is at the level where I can just get on without too much hassle. When you look at Hollywood stars there’s so much extra shit that comes with being more public and it’s something I wouldn’t like to have to deal with.”

As a man who likes good food, what’s the maddest thing you’ve ever eaten?

Lisa Forester, Bucks

“I don’t think I’ve had anything really strange yet, although I do have plans to go out and eat bugs. I guess one of the weirdest things I’ve had is barnacles. You have to crack ‘em in half and suck out the inside. They’re really good. I’ll try anything once. I know Acquaviva likes eyeballs and I’ve never tried them.”

Do you have a favourite Plastikman track?

Mike Manners, London

“It always changes, but probably my favourite track is ‘Are Friends Elektrik?’ because it was the first track that I recorded in the ‘building’ and that was shortly after getting thrown out of America. It was the only Plastikman title that was emotionally self-explanatory. It reminds me of a very significant time in my life.”

Where’s the strangest place you’ve heard one of your own records being played?

Tania Boyten, Essex

“That’s easy – at the Madonna Strip Bar in Miami. We were at the Winter Conference a couple of years ago, annihilated, and by 4 or 5am we ended up at this strip bar. As soon as we went in the DJ recognised me and went into a Plastikman medley – ‘Krakpot’, ‘Elektrostatik’, ‘Spastik’, ‘Substance Abuse’. We sat there completely pissed out of our minds watching these girls gyrate around to some of my most popular, strangest tracks.”

Why have you and Acquaviva re-started Plus 8?

Martin Flowers, Birmingham

“I re-started Plus 8 in two separate areas. Re-releasing the back catalogue and re-compiling things for the compilations. It’s the tenth year of us doing this and I really felt that it was time to bookend that history. John and I have always referred to that as ‘phase one’ of Plus 8. It’s a document of those times and it’s a pointer as to how America is really starting to embrace electronic music. It’s moving so fast that there’s always a new generation of people coming through, both as producers and consumers.”

Celebrity Questions

Jonathan More, Coldcut

If the world was your oyster, would you have it with Tabasco sauce or au naturel?

“Au naturel so I could taste the true flavour of it.”

Ashley Beedle, X-Press 2

Given that techno originally started in Detroit did you feel alienated coming from Windsor, Ontario?

“No. When I went to Detroit when I was 15/16 there were two types of kids in Windsor. Those that went to Detroit and those that didn’t. At that time, it was just a suburb to me. I only felt alienated when we started to have some success. Before that I was welcomed as one of the token white guys in the Detroit techno scene. I don’t think I ever noticed if I was always accepted. I was just there and having a good time and people were really cool. I’ve had some negativity, but some of the most special times were when Matthew (Hawtin) and I were at the Music Institute at 5am listening to Derrick May.”

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