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Rolling Stone (US)
April 24, 2014

Armand van Helden

Tori Amos - "Professional Widow"

I didn't know Tori, but before I did the remix Tori contacted me -- which was rare -- and said she wanted it to be different. My idea when I did that remix was to copy MK's style of chopping the vocal bits and have the melody match the chopped up vocal bits. The melody on that song obviously is just the bassline, so then I took the bassline and just kind of did what MK would do and chopped up Tori Amos's vocals to go over it.

I don't mean to be the bearer of bad news, but remixing isn't usually a glamorous process. Usually it's just going back and forth with people from A&R. Usually the artist doesn't even know who you are. Justin Timblerlake, he might have reached out to me for the "Sexyback" remix. Katy Perry maybe. Oh! You know who did contact me? I had completely forgotten about this: Mick Jagger! His camp -- the Rolling Stones camp, I guess -- reached out to my camp and said, "Hey can we have Armand remix?" And I said absolutely, then I come to find out that no, Mick Jagger wants to speak to you personally. And then I get the phone call and we talk and Mick just kind of says, "Hey, what's your idea?" I told him that I wanted to make it as funky as possible but also as dancefloor-ready as possible. When the mix came out it did medium, nothing great -- I wish it did better, considering that Mick was very involved with it.

Anyways, when the Tori Amos song went to Number One on the pop charts in the UK and various other country, she called me up again just to thank me -- she was very sweet -- and the she sent a huge basket of cheeses and munchies.

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