Ben Watt
Photo: Marcelo Krasilcic

You can probably count on one hand the number of artists who, 20 years into their pop-music career, have managed to stay relevant, even edgy.

Ben Watt, half of '80s Brit-pop act Everything But the Girl and now a driving force behind the Lazy Dog DJ act, is one of the rare few.

"If you get to your late 30s and into your 40s, it's much more common to be someone who's in a middle-aged sort of band," Watt, 38, said. "Kind of a Phil Collins vibe, making a horrible amount of money, but really just selling the past to an audience that doesn't really want to be challenged anymore." Watt thanks his involvement in the internationally acclaimed Lazy Dog club for keeping him young — musically, anyway. Lazy Dog is his 3-year-old club event, a fortnightly London outing co-hosted by DJ Hannan.

"Clubbing by its very nature is more youthful," Watt said. "It's people who are looking to dance and are looking for a bit more edge in their music." The DJ duo released a two-CD set under their Lazy Dog moniker in October. The mix set — which is a close approximation of what an evening spent at their London club might sound like — features a vocal cameo by Everything But the Girl vocalist Tracey Thorn on "Tracey in My Room." It's been two years since their last original release, 1999's house-tinged Temperamental, but fans will get a taste of Everything But the Girl when their Back to Mine compilation, the sixth in Ultra Records' chill-out CD series, hits stores May 29.

"The original concept for it was a kind of after-hours thing to put on when you get back from the club or in the car ride on the way back home from the club. Or the few people you take home to have a few drinks with after hours. That's the kind of vibe," Watt explained.

Everything But the Girl's Back to Mine will feature 12 laid-back tracks, including "Stars All Seem to Weep," a track Watt produced for Beth Orton.

The duo, who've been married for as long as they've been making music, recently gave birth to a third child. As a result, they've had little free time in which to think about their next album.

"I think this [homebody] spirit will pass and we'll get together in a month and make another album," Watt said.

In the meantime, Watt has kept busy with Lazy Dog and by taking on the role of remix producer. His remix of Sade's "By Your Side" has been in heavy rotation in DJ sets on both sides of the pond.

"That has done really well in the club scene, particularly over here," Watt said of his Sade remix. "She's had a bad reputation for not approving house mixes. She's not a natural house fan, Sade, but we go back a long way. We were recording our first albums together in the same studio at the same time back in the early '80s." Epic Records issued the mix to DJs both in the U.K. and in the States. Unfortunately, that's where the story of Watt's "By Your Side" mix ends.

"It got a real buzz going, and then suddenly Sade got cold feet and said she didn't want it to come out commercially. The number of people who bug me about it now — it's really hard," Watt said.

Also on his production plate are remixes for Sunshine Anderson and Maxwell; he expects his remix of the former's current hit, "Heard It All Before," will be easier to come by than the Sade mix.

Watt's weathered the life-threatening Churg-Strauss syndrome, marriage, kids and more than a few musical-direction changes, and he shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon.

"I feel like with dance music, the DJ/production side of it isn't at all ageist. You don't have to be a pretty boy, you don't have to be in a boy band, you don't have to be on the cover of all the magazines to survive," Watt said. "You can age gracefully and still maintain an edge to what you're doing, and that appeals to me 'cause, well, I'm certainly not getting any younger."

• Everything But the Girl

Everything But The Girl's Ben Watt
Photo: MTV News

Veteran English electronic-pop duo Everything But the Girl are making it personal over the next few months.

With their contribution to the intimate Back to Mine series of post-party mix CDs due May 29 and a third batch of North American DJ dates for Lazy Dog, the side project of the duo's Ben Watt and fellow Londoner Jay Hannan, EBTG are back in the (deep) house.

The 12-song Back to Mine collection, mixed by Watt, is the sixth in a series that has also featured Groove Armada, Faithless and Danny Tenaglia. The disc rolls smoothly through cuts selected by Watt and EBTG singer Tracey Thorn to invoke relaxation through sensual grooves of many styles.

Easing from heady instrumental hip-hop by French producer DJ Cam ("Friends and Enemies") through a mellow Watt house remix of Beth Orton's "Stars All Seem to Weep" and a gorgeous Ananda Project (a.k.a. Chris Brann) cut, "Cascades of Colour," and on to Carl Craig's "A Wonderful Life" and the sublime Roots song "Silent Treatment," the mix is all about getting down — on the couch.

Back to Mine is Everything But the Girl's first release since 1999's Temperamental. In support of Lazy Dog's self-titled October double-disc peek at the vibe inside Watt and Hannan's popular London club night, which celebrates its third anniversary April 15 at London's the End, the duo have already ventured across the Atlantic twice to spin for packed North American club crowds. Eight more dates are scheduled for May, including gigs in Milwaukee, Ottawa and Vancouver, British Columbia.

A remix of EBTG's "Wrong," from 1996's Walking Wounded, has become a smash club hit since it emerged as an anthem last year at Lazy Dog nights. Demand for the track, titled "Tracey in My Room" because it blends Soul Vision's "Come Into My Room" with the original, brought about its commercial release as a single in January.

However, another Watt production, his remix of Sade's "By Your Side," will not see a proper release, despite its acclaim and club-chart success in the United States and Britain through DJ promo copies. The mix was officially commissioned by the singer, but no reason was given for the decision not to release it.

Lazy Dog DJ tour dates, according to their publicist:

• 5/2 - Seattle, WA @ Nation
• 5/3 - Vancouver, BC @ Sonar
• 5/4 - Los Angeles, CA @ Fais Do Do Ballroom
• 5/5 - Chicago, IL @ Smartbar
• 5/6 - Milwaukee, WI @ Hi Hat
• 5/8 - New York, NY @ Shine
• 5/9 - Ottawa, ON @ Mercury Lounge
• 5/10 - Toronto, ON @ Roxy Blue

• Everything But the Girl
• Lazy Dog

"Tracey in My Room," the dancefloor hit that blends Everything but the Girl's 1996 single "Wrong" with a Soul Vision remix of Sandy Rivera's "Come Into My Room," is set to receive an official U.S. release on February 8, according to EBTG's U.S. label, Atlantic Recordings. Having emerged as an anthem at EBTG producer Ben Watt's weekly London club night, Lazy Dog, "Tracey in My Room," named for the electronic-pop duo's singer Tracey Thorn, was initially pressed in a tiny 500-copy run and distributed to select DJs. But reaction to the song was so great that a commercial release was planned. (The single comes out January 15 outside of North America.) "I was playing this Soul Vision track and was messing around with it one day at home and realized it was exactly the same key as 'Wrong,' " Watt said of the track. "The two just seemed to fit hand in glove; they could have been made for each other." The song was included on the recent Lazy Dog double mix-CD on Astralwerks Records, which features approximately hour-long discs by both Watt and Lazy Dog co-resident Jay Hannan. The pair often test new cuts at the club, and "Tracey," which Watt said he first played around Christmas 1999, was no exception.

"I tried it at the club and it was absolutely instant with the crowd," he recalled. "They told me it was the right thing to do, and I'm a great believer that the dance floor never lies." Lazy Dog will begin a five-city U.S. DJ tour on February 7 in Chicago.

"Lullaby of Clubland," the third single from Everything but the Girl's 1999 album, Temperamental, reached #3 on Billboard's club-play chart in November, following the two #1s "Five Fathoms" and the title track. Rather than hype "Tracey in My Room" as the next EBTG single, Watt chose to let the song enter the public consciousness more organically.

"We put out white labels and the only thing stamped on it was 'Tracey in My Room'; it didn't say anything about Everything but the Girl," he said. "As the summer went by, DJs were picking up on it and it started appearing on hype charts and things. It built like a proper dance single should. ... We kind of bootlegged our own track." Lazy Dog tour dates:

• 2/7 - Chicago, IL @ Smart Bar
• 2/8 - San Francisco, CA @ 1015 Folsom
• 2/9 - Denver, CO @ Next
• 2/10 - Santa Fe, NM @ Paramount
• 2/11 - Los Angeles, CA @ Fais Do Ballroom

• Everything But the Girl

Everything But The Girl's Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn currently have the number four single on the "Billboard" dance chart with "Five Fathoms," and their new album, "Temperamental," drops in stores on Tuesday.

• Everything But the Girl

British dance-pop duo Everything But the Girl will release its ninth album, "Temperamental," on September 28.

The group's first full-length release since 1996's "Walking Wounded" will feature J Majik of Metalheadz on one track ("Blame") and will include a new version of EBTG's 1998 club collaboration with Deep Dish, "The Future of the Future (Stay Gold)."

The onetime cocktail-jazz duo experienced growing pains after its first record was released in 1984, but its career was revived with a little help from prominent fans in the trip-hop and drum-and-bass movements. Vocalist Tracey Thorn gained new prominence after she appeared on Massive Attack's 1994 album "Protection," and Todd Terry's remix of the 1994 EBTG track "Missing" hit the "Billboard" singles chart in 1996 and remained there for 55 weeks, peaking at number two.

• Everything But the Girl

April 1 [12:00 EST] -- Just out in bookstores is "Getting High: The Adventures Of Oasis," a drugs, spats-and-all chronicle of the Gallagher brothers' band by veteran British rock writer Paolo Hewitt.

Ben Watt of the English duo Everything But The Girl also recently arrived in book bins when his "Patient: The True Story of a Rare Illness" was released on Tuesday. The tome deals with his struggle with Churg-Strauss syndrome, an auto-immune disease afflicting the lungs and intestines, which Watt contracted in 1992.

Watt will also be DJ-ing at a club in Santa Monica, California called Science this coming Sunday, and then on Monday he'll start a book tour at Rizzoli's in Santa Monica.

Everything But The Girl also appears with Bjork, Goldie, and Placebo on MTV's "House Of Style: London Edition" airing Tuesday night at 10 p.m.

• Everything But the Girl
• Oasis

Jan. 6 [10:00 EST] -- You may not have realized it, but Everything But The Girl held the record for the longest stay on Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart. The group nabbed the record on August 24, 1996 after their hit "Missing" spent 55 consecutive weeks on the charts.

And just who could topple Everything But The Girl from such a lofty perch?

Well, after logging a staggering 56 weeks on the singles chart, Los Del Rio seized the record this week with their seemingly indestructible hit, "Macarena."

We are all very sorry.

• Everything But the Girl