Music was playing before I was even born. I was born into the sound. My dad [radio presenter John Peel] used to make these mixtapes. We had three TDK 90s and we would drive around France in our battered, crappy Peugeot 505 estate, travelling the world musically through these cassettes.
As teenagers we used to get called crusties – we had long hair. It was that grunge era, early 90s. And then rave culture started and me and my friends got really into hardcore and jungle, and we got called ravers, but as an insult. I look back at that with great pride.
I always wanted a shell suit, but my mum wouldn’t let me have one, because they were highly flammable.
It’s a physical instinct, finding new music. It’s not conscious. I hear a noise – a bit like smelling something in the air you like – and I follow it on its journey to see what it does next.
My dad would take all four of us to festivals, then he would just disappear, and we’d be left to our own devices. We grew up running wild. This was before festivals were nice. There was no food, everyone was crapping outside, there were fires everywhere.
I remember being taken to a Nirvana gig in London’s King’s Cross when I was very young and it being a terrifying experience. The whole family lived in my dad’s world, everything we did fitted around his work, we were his entourage. I was born into the radio community, and I’ve been in it ever since. People would stare at us, wanting to know: why is there a child here?
Music was Dad’s thing – we felt we couldn’t be involved. But after he died I suddenly realised it’s what I wanted to do. I don’t know if I was filling a hole that was now in our lives. But I grabbed it and thought, I’m not going to let you go.
I’m a domestic god. I do all the cooking, all the cleaning, all the laundry. My wife admitted the other day she’s never used the vacuum cleaner. I usually get back about one in the morning and before I go to bed, I put the first wash on.
Life is pretty nuts, but when you throw four kids into it, too, it’s absolutely insane. I love the chaos of having four kids. I mean, frankly, I’d have more.
I have the most astonishingly bad memory. I don’t know any of my children’s or my wife’s birthdays. I don’t know any phone numbers. The advantage is that I can’t remember enough to regret anything.
My dad drilled into his children not to have any ambition, which at the time seemed fun, then later in life, we’re like, “Oh that’s not very useful!” There was almost no competition at all. There still isn’t.
Dad was a very kind man and incredibly generous. Kindness was, for him, the most important thing. My brothers and sisters are all the same. We’re all sort of soft, slightly pathetic creatures.
I’ll still be going to festivals in my 80s. I mean, you go to some festivals and you’re like, this is nicer than my house. I miss the filth, to be honest.
Tom Ravenscroft presents New Music Fix Daily and The Ravers Hour on BBC Radio 6 Music
Source: theguardian.com
