Rolling Stones finally approve Fatboy Slim sample after 25 years

One of the world's most bootlegged recordings - Fatboy Slim's Satisfaction Skank - is finally being released, after the Rolling Stones gave belated approval for the song's pivotal sample.

Fatboy Slim, real name Norman Cook, created the track 25 years ago by grafting the riff from the Stones' Satisfaction onto his platinum-selling single The Rockafeller Skank, after he grew "bored" of playing the original.

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

In the 2000s, the song spread like wildfire on file-sharing sites like Napster and Kazaa but, until now, The Stones had refused to clear it for commercial release.

Even Cook bought bootleg copies of the song, some of which had been taped off his live sets on BBC Radio 1 and pressed to vinyl.

Over the years, there have been several attempts to get the sample approved.

"I got a call from Mick Jagger and he said he'd heard it and he liked the mix," recalled Cook.

"But his management was just like, 'No, not even negotiable'."

Later, the Stones asked Cook to remix their 1968 single Sympathy For The Devil. Satisfaction Skank was due to be the b-side - but the deal ultimately fell apart.

"We've had a pretty flat 'no' for 20 years," said Cook. "I think we asked four times, and I wouldn't have dared to ask them again."

Instead, the initiative came from the Stones' side. They even gave Cook their master tapes, so he could create a higher-quality version of the original mix.

They were delivered, he says, in an armoured van.

It's a sign of how the band have become more relaxed about the re-use and re-contextualisation of their songs in recent years.

In 2019, they even signed over their publishing stake in The Verve's Bittersweet Symphony.

Previously, writer Richard Ashcroft had been forced to surrender all his royalties from the song, due to its sample of an orchestral cover of the Rolling Stones' The Last Time. He called the reversal "life-affirming".

Satisfaction Skank has been a staple of Fatboy Slim's live set for over a quarter of a century, but Cook says he can't remember the first time he played it.

"That's more of a testament to my state of mind and partying in those days, than to the historical importance of it," he said.

However, he could recall debuting The Rockafeller Skank itself, at Brighton's Big Beat Boutique in early 1998.

"I was so excited, because I'd just finished it," he said. "I remember playing it and everyone just going nuts.

"I got really, really excited and started shouting, 'That's me, that's me! That's my new single!'

"And everyone just went, 'Yeah, we guessed'."

It went on to become a Top 10 hit, with promotional copies of the single describing it as "dance music's Bohemian Rhapsody".

"That was me, but I wasn't being self-aggrandising," he confessed to BBC News.

"As a music production fan, it's famous that Bohemian Rhapsody was made up of three different segments that they had to edit together.

"And with Rockafeller, we had to do the same. It was the early days of the internet, so I had to go round to my engineer's house to do the 'slowy down bit', because he had the software to make it work.

"Then I had to take that file back to my studio and edit all the bits together.

"So it wasn't my Bohemian Rhapsody in terms of being a Stone Cold classic. It's just that it was more complicated to make than everything I'd ever done."

The release of Satisfaction Skank comes at the end of the busiest year of Cook's career.

He's played 115 gigs ("a personal best") in dozens of countries, and published his first book - It Ain't Over... 'Til the Fatboy Sings.

Filled with photos and memorabilia, the coffee table book reflects on the "40 years since I quit my day job and ran off to join the circus".

He first found fame in the indie band The Housemartins, and was also the founder member of the dance music collective Beats International and funk-soul outfit Freak Power.

Cook has also DJ'd and remixed under a variety of monikers, including Pizzaman, Mighty Dub Katz and latterly Fatboy Slim.

Now aged 62, he shows no signs of slowing down. In October, he announced the continuation and expansion of a DJ workshop series for people dealing with serious mental health problems in Sussex - a programme which he helps to fund.

"Music has played a vital role in my own mental health journey, and it's a privilege to share that healing power with others," he told BBC Sussex.

He'll start 2026 with gigs in Indonesia and Bali, followed by an extensive UK tour, and the resurrection of his Big Beach Boutique festival on Brighton's seafront.

"I think I've kind of realised now that my career will never be over," Cook said.

"I got a glimpse of what retirement looked like during lockdown - this abyss of lunches and golf - and I have no interest in that.

"So now I think I'll keep working 'til I drop."

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