Season 4 Episode 8 with Richard Norris

It’s hard to overstate the influence that Richard Norris has had on the music industry over the past 40 years.

In his youth in St Albans, Richard got involved in the experimental and creative punk rock scene, forming the Innocent Vicars, creating a DIY fanzine called 99%, working as a label manager for Bam Caruso and writing for Strange Things and the NME. Following a, let's say, "educational" collaboration with Genesis P. Orridge, Richard formed The Grid with Dave Ball (from Soft Cell) in 1988 and released their debut single, the Balearic-inspired Floatation in 1990. It was their 1994 single, Swamp Thing with the inspired banjo reel that catapulted the band to commercial success.

Richard has been at the front of the ever-evolving electronic scene, from the early days of Shoom and The Clink, to covering the emergence of Amnesia in Ibiza, to releasing his own house, acid house, ambient, meditative, drone and psychedelic tracks. He's worked with Joe Strummer, has run record labels, DJ'd, wrote Paul Oakenfold’s official biography and remixed and produced artists like Armand van Helden, Soft Cell, Saint Etienne, Cornershop, Billie Ray Martin, Shakespeare's Sister and has collaborated on the experimental project Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve with Erol Alkan. The list is almost endless!

Recently, he has been doing his own thing - releasing a series of totally hypnotic, ambient, healing experiences, raising money for MIND. And latterly he released Hypnotic Response, a more psychedelic, experimental set of tracks.

There's more exciting stuff in the works….take a listen to the wonderful mindset of one of music's legends.



I Wanna Jump Like Dee Dee is a music podcast that does music interviews differently.

I'm Giles Sibbald and I'm talking to extraordinary musicians, DJ’s and producers about how they use an experimental mindset in their lives to amplify their own creativity, pursue new challenges, overcome fears and bounce back from mistakes.


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