"Mick Jagger liked the mix but his management was just like, 'No, not even negotiable'." Superstar DJ Fatboy Slim finally releases fabled Rolling Stones mash-up

Fatboy Slim onstage
(Image credit: Jim Dyson/Redferns)

Superstar DJ Norman Cook a.k.a. Fatboy Slim has finally been approved to release his fabled Rolling Stones mashup, 25 years after it first emerged as a widely-bootleged 12" single.

Satisfaction Skank mixes Cook's own The Rockerfeller Skank - a UK Top 10 hit in 1998 – with Keith Richards' original riff from the Stones' 60-year-old smash (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction. The bootleg became part of Cook's DJ set after he became bored with his original, but he was never able to get sample clearance from the band to release it officially.

"It was my secret weapon," Cook tells BBC News. "I had this tune that nobody else had, and it was a really good encore."

Cook tried several times to get clearance to use the sample, but was always turned down.

"I got a call from Mick Jagger, and he said he'd heard it and he liked the mix," says Cook. "But his management was just like, 'No, not even negotiable'. We've had a pretty flat 'no' for 20 years. I think we asked four times, and I wouldn't have dared to ask them again."

A mooted single release featuring a Fatboy Slim remix of another Stones classic, 1968's Sympathy For The Devil, backed with Satisfaction Skank, fell through, but finally a deal was made, and Cook was able to recreate his mashup using the stems from the original Rolling Stones sessions.

"Big thanks to The Rolling Stones for just being The Rolling Stones," says Cook. "And also for making this happen!"

Cook's original version of The Rockerfeller Skank contains samples from 13 different songs, including snippets of I Fought the Law by The Bobby Fuller Four, Twistin' 'N' Twangin' by Duane Eddy, and David Bowie's Join The Gang.

Fatboy Slim & The Rolling Stones - Satisfaction Skank - Official Video - YouTube Fatboy Slim & The Rolling Stones - Satisfaction Skank - Official Video - YouTube
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Fraser Lewry
Online Editor, Classic Rock

Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazine since 2014. 39 years in music industry, online for 26. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.

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