"I remember always wanting Han Solo toys as a kid," Lavelle says. "The first time I got any Star Wars toys it was quite overwhelming. When I got an X-wing fighter I felt like I finally made it. As I started my collection I discovered that there was a toy manufacturer that made different Star Wars toys in America than in England, but no one at school believed me. There was a dewback that came out only in America and I remember seeing it at a friend of mine's house who was an American. He always had toys sent to him from his family in the States. So when I was recollecting Star Wars toys at about 18 that was the first thing that I bought. It became the Holy Grail of toys for me."
For years, Lavelle slowly built up his collection of Star Wars memorabilia and toys, often mentioning them in various interviews with the music press. He even sold some of his collection to finance the beginning of his DJ career -- trading Han Solo and Chewie action figures for imported dance records. Lately he's decided to pare down the massive collection to only his favorite items, many of them being quite rare and valuable.
"I had a huge toy collection of lots of different Star Wars items, but then over the years scaled back a bit and only kept the items that were very personal to me and unique," Lavelle explains. "I have some great post-production drawings from A New Hope that I really, really like. I also have a children's speeder bike that's a bit like a pedal bike and there were very few of them made. And I own a sit-down old-school '80s arcade machine."
"A New Hope blew my mind!" Lavelle says. "I had never seen anything like it. It just changed everything. Being part of that as a child was pretty incredible. Seeing that movie just changed my life as I think it did a lot of kids. But the film I love the most, and stands the test of time, is The Empire Strikes Back. It's in many ways a piece of genius art in the fact that it defies any logic in a children's movie because the hero doesn't win at the end. It goes against the traditional Hollywood values in its movies. It's still one of my top 10 films of all time."
"Star Wars a classic fairy tale and has all the ups and downs, lights and darks of any great mythology whether that be the Odyssey to Lord of the Rings," Lavelle explains. "The films are always going to draw you in. There's a sort of innovative, technological mark to them. More than just the films, it's an entire phenomenon. Ultimately the story is classic and enduring. Fantasy and sci-fi took me to another place. You walk out of the cinema and wish you could do something like that, but what it is you don't quite know. And even though Star Wars is quite fluffy around the edges in many ways because it's a children's film, the actual story itself is enduring and hardcore in the same way like the story in A Thin Red Line or Apocalypse Now -- they take you to a place of good vs. evil. And I'm very governed in my life by those themes."
Obsessed with breakbeat and house music, Lavelle started his career as a DJ at age 15. His music earned him such an enthusiastic audience at Oxford that he started his Mo' Wax record label four years later. In 1996, he teamed up with notable producers like DJ Shadow and The Scratch Perverts to create UNKLE -- a production collective that defies definition with its blend of electronic, hip-hop, dance and rock music.
Collaborating with a who's who of talented musicians and DJs including Thom Yorke (Radiohead), Mike D (Beastie Boys), Richard Ashcroft (The Verve), Ian Brown (The Stone Roses) and Alice Temple (Massive Attack), UNKLE has been influencing the dance charts for over a decade. The upcoming release The Future is Unwritten features guest appearances by Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), Ian Astbury (The Cult), 3D (Massive Attack), Autolux and Duke Spirit, among others.
As Lavelle continues to explore and experiment with the boundaries of techno, he admits that Star Wars and filmmaker George Lucas were unmistakable muses for him to create UNKLE and start his own record label outside of the corporate rock system.
"Star Wars influenced my label and myself as an individual because I was really into George Lucas," Lavelle says. "I'm now more interested in what Star Wars has achieved as an entity and not just as a movie. Lucas is a hero of mine because he's managed to do what he wants to do and get control to create his own world, invest in technology, and developing things. He's taken one of the biggest film franchises and taken it out of the Hollywood system. And to me that's as important of an inspiration to me as the Sex Pistols or any great cultural revolution."
"When I had my label Mo' Wax we created parts of street culture," Lavelle continues. "We were the first label to start making this whole wave of alternative toys. The artwork was just as important to us as our music. And all of that stuff -- to me is what I took away from the films. Star Wars is a positive product to me. It's not like oil or cigarettes. It's created a feeling that you can achieve anything. And to me that's what the movie is about and the hope it should give you, and what I took from it to do my own thing."
To find out more about UNKLE, visit the official site here. Also check out UNKLE on MySpace to listen to music tracks.
Stay tuned to Star Wars Rocks for more interviews from some of your favorite bands and celebrities.
