Orbital are brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll. Raised in Sevenoaks, Kent, they first worked together as bricklayers for their father’s business, but started recording music in 1987. Their first single, Chime, entered the Top 20 in 1990. With their crossover fusion of underground and stadium electronic music, Orbital went on to become one of the biggest British dance acts of the decade. The reissue of 1991’s The Green Album is out on 19 April. They tour the UK from 24 April.

Paul

I lived in that jumper. Mum knitted it for dad, but when he saw it he said, “I don’t want that”, so I took it instead. I absolutely loved it. When rave arrived so did big, baggy clothes and the jumper was perfect. Then one day in 1992, I had a hangover and left it on a train on the way into London. I checked lost property, but it was never found. I cried. But we did have some good times together. It came with me to our first Glastonbury.

This photo was taken in the cupboard-under-the-stairs-turned-office at my parents’ old house. We had just been on Top of the Pops and Chime was in the Top 40, so the Sevenoaks Chronicle wanted to interview us. We’d never done press before, hence the incredulous expression on my face. The photographer would have been saying: “Can you pretend you’re doing something?” And I’d have been thinking: “Is this what you want? Really?”

While we weren’t media trained, we were living out our fantasy – plucked from the obscurity of Dunton Green into superstardom. I was a nerdy, geeky person but had absolute determination, that “get me the fuck out of here” attitude. My earliest memory of my brother sums up his character pretty well. I was three and watching telly when I heard a commotion. Phil ran into the sitting room, followed by my mum and nan chasing him. They got hold of him and started smacking an arse cheek each. I saw his face taking it, but accepting it, too. That’s who Phil is: the bloke who acts before he thinks, does what he wants and deals with the consequences later. Lots of trouble, but also exciting.

My brother is four years older than me. He was my hero until I was about 12. When he hit adolescence he would tease and taunt me a bit, and we drifted apart. Before then, I would follow him blindly as he was so confident – even though he was probably hiding insecurity like most of us do. Phil was known as the hardest person in our school as he was a bit of a vigilante. One time, he saw a fifth-year picking on a kid who was younger than him in the tuck-shop queue, so he shoved the older boy’s head in the dirt. That earned him a reputation for being scary and meant anyone who wanted a fight backed off when they found out I was “Hartnoll’s brother”.

When we were bricklayers, I’d bring my tape recorder to work so we could listen to pirate radio and annoy the other builders. On our lunchbreaks we’d dream about what it might be like to be in the Cocteau Twins. Eventually, Phil bought a drum machine, I played the guitar, and we began trying to make Cabaret Voltaire-type stuff. In his crazy style, Phil decided to go to America to discover hip-hop. I thought, “Well, fuck you”, and focused on composing on my own. Once my music started taking off, he wanted to join in, too, so we decided to make a band.

When it comes to our creative relationship, he’s the hare and I’m the tortoise. I’m the writer and do all the hard graft, while he runs around the background, saying: “That’s excellent!” or, “That’s too complicated!” It’s useful to have a sounding board, but when you’ve got three kids, you start to think, why am I doing this and giving you half the money? There were times when I couldn’t make my peace with that. All of the splits in Orbital have been initiated by me.

I’ve now done 10 years of therapy and our relationship is much better – I’ve stopped trying to change him and I’m working on how I can deal with big characters better. As a result, I feel like Phil is calmer, too. I used to wake up in the night arguing with him in my head. Now I just wake up, go to the loo and get back into bed. We’re in a better place than we’ve ever been.

Phil

My brother used to go out with a nurse and I’m dressed in her scrubs. I’m not sure why. This whole period was like being thrown in at the deep end.

As a boy, I was pretty feral, but very nurturing. I didn’t have soldiers or an Action Man, but I did have a doll called Betty. I loved it when my brother came along. My dad was working all the time so I stepped into that role when we were little.

I have got ADHD, and Paul is on the autistic spectrum. Growing up, he would sit in the corner being studious. I was dyslexic, which wasn’t even a word then, so I didn’t get on well with school. My mum had lots of problems with her menstrual cycle and was on this “housewife drug” called Halcion, but she thought she was covering it up. She always said everything was my fault, and Paul grew up absorbing that atmosphere. I was a bit of an emotional crutch for her during my adolescence, and I wasn’t very equipped for it.

I’ve got this huge dent in my arm – a big scar. I did some homemade tattoos when I was 14, including an Anti-Nazi League one. One day mum took me to the local GP and gave him permission to practise tattoo removal on my arm, which involved slicing it off and using a cauterising iron. Then, Mum, feeling bad about what she’d done, suggested I get a tattoo to cover up the scar, which I did.

This was the period of time that Paul thinks we weren’t as close, but actually I was just dealing with quite a lot of crazy things at home, trying to keep things calm, while also finding school hard. There were lots of happy times, too, though – Mum’s cousins had parties all the time where DJs would play Motown and Trojan Records tracks.

I’ve had so many good times with my brother. When we had baths together as boys I made up this game called Shiftybum where we would hang off the side of the bath then jump in. In 1994, on stage at Glastonbury, I looked at him and said, “Let’s do the Shiftybum!”, which made him laugh. Another time, we were playing at the top of a flume in Scandinavia. It started pissing it down during our Hammer House of Horror version of The Box. I was saying: “Paul, you’ve got to get down! We’re going to get struck by lightning.” I was worried about him dying of electrocution for his art. But there is no stopping Paul. He’s a man obsessed.

Paul has split the band about four or five times. We didn’t speak to each other in between breaks. It’s tough, as I wasn’t just losing my band but my brother, too. Thankfully, our relationship is really good since he’s been to therapy. I used to worry because it was like he never seemed to enjoy being in Orbital. He was always asking – what’s next? Now he’s less stressed and there’s a lot more peace between us.