Norman Quentin Cook (born Quentin Leo Cook, 31 July 1963), known professionally as Fatboy Slim, is an English musician and DJ who helped popularise the big beat genre in the 1990s. His music makes extensive use of samples from eclectic genres, combined with pop structures, processed rhythms and "sloganistic" vocals.
In 1985, Cook joined as the bassist for the indie rock band the Housemartins, who achieved a number-one single with their 1986 cover of "Caravan of Love". However, Cook was uncomfortable playing pop music. After the Housemartins disbanded, Cook moved to Brighton to pursue dance music. He formed the electronic group Beats International and produced their 1990 number-one single "Dub Be Good to Me", and played in the band Freak Power. He also released house records under names including Pizzaman and the Mighty Dub Katz.
In 1996, Cook released his first album as Fatboy Slim, Better Living Through Chemistry, followed by successful remixes for Wildchild and Cornershop. His second album, You've Come a Long Way, Baby (1998), was certified platinum and produced the successful singles "The Rockafeller Skank", "Praise You" and "Right Here, Right Now". Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars (2000) produced the single "Weapon of Choice", which won six awards at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards. Palookaville (2004) was less successful, attributed to the declining popularity of dance music and a more obscure style. In 2009, Cook released an album as the Brighton Port Authority, a collaboration with artists including David Byrne. He collaborated with Byrne again on the album Here Lies Love (2010), a concept album that was adapted into a stage musical in 2013. Cook has since focused on DJ performances over creating music.
Cook has a Grammy Award, nine MTV Video Music Awards, two Brit Awards and an Ivor Novello Award, and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Original Score for Here Lies Love in 2024. He holds the Guinness world records for the most MTV Video Awards won by a DJ, the most MTV Video Awards won for a single video, and the most UK number-one singles by one musician as a member of different acts. He is an ambassador for Martlets Hospice in Brighton and has contributed to numerous community projects and charities. Cook's marriage to the BBC presenter Zoe Ball was highly publicised.
Quentin Leo Cook was born on 31 July 1963 in Bromley in Kent, England (now part of Greater London), the youngest of three. His mother was a teacher in a hospital school, and his father was an environmentalist consultant who was appointed an Order of the British Empire for introducing bottle banks into the UK. His family belonged to the Kosmon faith, an obscure religious order.
Cook was raised in Reigate, Surrey, which he later described as a "suburban hell". He attended Reigate Grammar School, where he took violin lessons alongside the future prime minister Keir Starmer. At school, he became a fan of punk music and edited a punk fanzine. He adopted the name Norman when he was bullied for the name Quentin, which his classmates associated with the gay actor Quentin Crisp. He collected records and began DJing at 15.
At sixth form college, Cook met the songwriter Paul Heaton, with whom he formed a punk band, the Stomping Pond Frogs. He failed his A-level exams as he was focusing on playing music, and had to retake them. Cook moved to Brighton to attend Brighton Polytechnic from 1982 to 1985 and gained a 2:1 in British studies. In Brighton, he worked as a DJ and was taught how to mix by the DJ Carl Cox. He appeared as a reporter in the music video for the 1982 song "Goody Two Shoes" by Adam Ant.
While Cook was in Brighton, Heaton formed a band, the Housemartins. When their original bassist quit in 1985, Cook moved to Hull to join them. Cook said he learned to play the bass guitar in about a week. In 1986, the Housemartins reached number one on the UK singles chart with a cover of the 1985 Isley-Jasper-Isley song "Caravan of Love".
Cook was frustrated playing "white English pop" in the Housemartins. He was interested in hip-hop and dance music, but felt it was inappropriate for a white English man to work in this genre, and that no one would take him seriously. He was uncomfortable with acts such as Level 42 or Simply Red, who he felt "kind of pretend to be black". While with the Housemartins, Cook began working on dance music using a TEAC 144 Portastudio and Roland S-10 synthesiser, with no intention of releasing it. He also created a megamix, "The Finest Ingredients", that was played by the BBC DJ John Peel.
Cook described "Adventures on the Wheels of Steel" by Grandmaster Flash as " a pivotal record in my development from wanting to be in a pop band to wanting to be a creative DJ… He was doing stuff with the records that I'd never heard done before: making a collage, playing one tune on top of another, cutting between two really quickly. It just blew my mind."
1988–1995: Beats International, Freak Power and remixes
The Housemartins broke up in 1988. Heaton and the drummer, Dave Hemingway, went on to form the Beautiful South, and Cook returned to Brighton to pursue dance music. He invested in equipment including a mixing console, an eight-track reel-to-reel, an Atari ST computer, an Akai S950 sampler and, later, a Roland TB-303 synthesiser. He released successful remixes such as "Blame It on the Bassline" with MC Wildski, which reached number 29 on the UK singles chart. He also formed a sound system collective, Beats International, with a collection of MCs and singers. Their single "Dub Be Good to Me" (1990) reached number one, but their second album, Excursion on the Version (1991), was a failure.
After Beats International disbanded in 1992, Cook's marriage ended and he suffered a mental breakdown. According to Cook, he became a self-destructive workaholic, drank heavily and alienated his friends. When therapy was ineffective, he began self-medicating with ecstasy. Facing bankruptcy, he took work composing for a Smurfs video game. Cook formed an acid jazz band, Freak Power, with musicians including the trombonist Ashley Slater, which released the successful 1993 single "Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out" on Island Records. Cook felt uncomfortable in the band, and recalled thinking on stage: "I'm a really crap guitarist. What am I doing here? I've spent the last 10 years getting pissed in nightclubs, learning how to DJ."
In 1993, Cook and John Reid formed the house duo Pizzaman. Their only album, Pizzamania, produced three top-40 singles. Cook also released music as the Mighty Dub Katz, recording two or three tracks a week in his home studio. As Cook's contract with Island forbade him from releasing or promoting music on other labels under his own name, he released them under aliases including Cheeky Boy, Sunny Side Up, Yum Yum Head Food and the Feelgood Factor, often on his own label, Southern Fried Records. Cook said his names reflected the fact that he did not take his work seriously.
1995–1997: Fatboy Slim and Better Living Through Chemistry
Cook adopted the stage name Fatboy Slim in 1995. He said it was a meaningless oxymoron that suited him as it was "goofy" and ironic, and could not remember its origin. Around this period, the house music label Loaded Records created a new imprint in Brighton, Skint Records. Its first record was the Fatboy Slim track "Santa Cruz" in 1995. It sold only 800 copies, but attracted attention in the underground dance scene in the UK. Cook was surprised to hear "Santa Cruz" played at an event in London by the Chemical Brothers, then known as the Dust Brothers, and said it was "like meeting the rest of my long-lost family".
Cook co-founded a popular club night at the Concorde in Brighton, the Big Beat Boutique, where he played music from genres including northern soul, acid house, hip-hop and reggae, combined with breakbeats. The scene became the foundation of big beat music. Cook later wrote of the "enormous collective pride" in the big beat genre being named after the club night, just as house and garage music were named after venues in Chicago and New York City. Cook described it as a "very productive time", when acts such as the Chemical Brothers, Death in Vegas, Monkey Mafia, Bentley Rhythm Ace and FC Kahuna were "breaking rules and feeding off each other".