‘We knew a banjo house record would annoy the techno bores’: how the Grid made Swamp Thing

‘We bonded over John Waters films’ … the Grid in 1994, with Richard Norris front. Photograph: Mick Hutson/Redferns

Richard Norris, songwriter, programmer

I met Dave Ball after I went to interview Genesis P-Orridge of Throbbing Gristle for Strange Things Are Happening magazine, and we ended up making Jack the Tab, the UK’s first acid house album, under the guise of “various artists”. On the second day in the studio Gen brought in Dave. I was a bit wary because he’d been a proper pop star with Soft Cell, but NME put Jack the Tab on the cover and Warners offered us a deal even though – or perhaps because – the record contained the sounds of the bedroom antics of Gen and Paula P-Orridge and of howling wolves.