Gilles Peterson Interview

"I’m A Survivor" by Amar Patel

Come mid-week, many of us feel the need to just sit back, unwind and escape from a monotonous grind by catching a little radio in the twilight hours. The worldwide platform that is the BBC provides this, enabling one to uncoil passively, to submit to all possibilities. Just maybe, everyone has unintentionally caught Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Show on Wednesday midnight at least once. You may have been seduced by a foreign alluring vocal, hypnotized by a perfect beat or maybe you’ve just been blown away by everything in between.

This is the world according to Gilles Peterson. His story is an eventful one, full of influence, passion and legendary enthusiasm. Sitting in a comfy cubicle on a Monday night in Bar Rumba, scene of Gilles’ illustrious lovechild, the weekly shindig This, the mood is noticeably chilled. It amazes how this underground labyrinth can contain 450 sweaty freestyling groovers. The night’s 10th birthday has come and gone save for the staff commemorative T-shirts. Gloria Estefan’s sugar coated Latinizing trickles from the speakers. I put it down to the foreign bartenders’ indiscretion. The night feels like a moment of truth - of reckoning - in finally meeting the most elusive and hard working of internationally renowned DJ’s. At one point it never seemed like materializing. Now Gilles is thirty minutes late. The clock hands move purposefully. Suddenly a minute striding figure marches across the bar, literally escorting me into the dark doorless unknown. Post handshake I am humorously informed "15 minutes will be alright won’t it." Deep breaths. Hopefully he hasn’t got a watch; 15 minutes in which to dissect the eventful multi-chaptered rise of an anorak cloaked "weird alternative music obsessive, the product of mixed European lineage and ground in middle class suburbia. Gilles is due to start his set. One very much feels that they are retarding a natural progression, call it human nature. He just wants to get on the decks and play some records from his tardis-like record box of delights to the discerning and willingly lent ears of a diverse faithful.

The DJ booth is dark and offers no platform to sit and maintain eye-contact free of couch syndrome’ neck ache. Like a suggestive dream, the empty dancefloor foreground disorientates and excites in equal measure. Still, a handsomely stocked mini bar is clocked, from which Gilles generously offers a Red Stripe to loosen the tongue. Gilles encouragingly arranges for the music to be turned off, drawing the curtain on Gloria. "Just because it’s (sent) free, doesn’t mean you should play it", he quips to the girl. Cohesion isn’t on the agenda for this free-minded interview. I opt for an unconventional playback of the man himself on the microphone to the nation before a recent Maida Vale live session with neo-soul prodigy Dwele. A slice of excavated Roy Ayers vibes induces a gasp of overwhelmed contentment and amazement in Worldwide’s father. Suddenly he coughs in disbelief: "Ahhhhh! Just how good is this record?"

Here is the reason that many of the Worldwide faithful listen to Gilles. It’s not just about the quality of undiscovered music but also the emotional content on the part of our captain, our filter, our guide, our prophet. Taken back is an understatement. He appears vacant, maybe even irritated. The point of this exercise does not shine through. Then again Gilles only started recording himself three years ago. He eventually cottons on: "Ah well, thanks very much. That’s what it’s all about." There is a sense of urgency yet professionalism about Peterson. It quickly becomes apparent that any hopes of delving into the psyche of this fascinating character in a pre-set chat are unrealistic. He’s in his working surroundings and obviously thinking about tonight as well as what to do tomorrow.

Gilles recently came down to Brighton as part of Radio 1’s One Live Week. We reminisce over the Worldwide show, some solid live performances and a packed appreciative audience. It’s quite bizarre seeing the man unwrapping the show before your very eyes in close proximity to the audience. He acknowledges the vibe as we trade opinions on the lack of audience participation. My mind drifts away to visions of what seminal parties at Handbury Ballroom and Dingwalls in Camden must have been like; sweat joy and freedom everywhere in an unpretentious freeform environment; crowds lunging, strutting, leaping and kicking to the fast, deep exotic and percussion heavy sounds. Nostalgia creeps up on Peterson, a man who laboriously yet lovingly worked his way towards being at the hub of the London Jazz scene from his earlier Sutton soul patrol leanings. "Dingwalls, well [it’s] still probably the best club I’ve ever done. It’s a bit sad to say that in a way. That was a special time and era sort of ’86 - ’90. It was very new, very fresh; everyone was going out who was into music. It was the type of place where you would bump into Grooverider, or Pharoah Sanders or Brandon Block you know. It was that type of special thing." The freedom of music choice and blank canvas approach still reigns supreme though. "I think people like the fact that we take risks," he muses.

Both of us are now warming up. Gilles patters rhythmically with his heels against the makeshift black chair, staring off into the dim distance in between glances, as I struggle to put light on the clipboard situation. Plotting a course around this limitless career, which reads like a chronicle of underground British dance culture, is near impossible in those 15 precious minutes. Peterson has seen it all; daytime soul parties at 13 instead of the conventional uninspiring education, the babysitting years, setting up a weekly 14-and-under disco at St Andrews Church in Belmont, forming his own sound system with friend Andrew imaginatively called ‘G&A Disco’, residency at the Clare’s Wine Bar in Cheam, embracing pirate radio with his garden shed set up and phone box office, having to shut down his own radio station after threats from gangster rivals, taking to Kiss then BBC radio, setting up innovative record label Talking Loud, getting international airplay and bookings and even getting married. A random hand into the top hat technique is employed.

Tentative steps are taken to get beneath his skin. "Yeah I am a soul man. I mean at the end of the day my roots are in jazz, soul, and funk and I’m a soul boy. I collect old music; I buy a lot of old music and spend money on it." Ignited by mammoth record listening sessions, parties and religiously tuning into pirate radio like Invicta, Gilles would pursue his passion to its logical conclusions, be they DIY broadcasting on Epsom Downs or mobile DJing from bars to bararmitzvahs. No doubt it was this passion, which reassured him in his earlier days starting out when his parents were less than convinced. "DJing and broadcasting provided enough to live (my parents had gone back to Switzerland), I was 18 years old, renting a flat in South London. I didn’t know where it would lead in a few years’ time but I had this burning feeling inside that it was going to be alright although my family was concerned."

Listening intently to this broadcaster supreme, it begins to dawn on me that the tables have been turned. Peterson, who has smoothly interviewed such awe inspiring artists as Sun Ra, Erykah Badu and DJ Shadow, now has the microphone well and truly sourcing in his direction. A glaring question was whether he felt as though he had a specific radio persona. Do we only hear the professional side to Gilles Peterson? "I’m a busy guy you know and I have a lot of different things I do but at the end of the day the radio show is this thing that I do. I’ve been doing radio all my life and I suppose I do go into Gilles Peterson ‘the radio broadcaster’ mode when I’m there. I think a lot of people do tell me though that my shows are quite moody, not necessarily in a bad way, but sometimes they can tell whether I’m in a good mood, a mellow mood or whatever. I mean it’s not like you know…I listen to Westwood on a Saturday night and he’s always so hyper. He’s a phenomenal broadcaster. With me I suppose… I am what I am that day and fortunately, I am able to have the freedom of musical choice that they give me at radio1 and I’m very grateful for that." Even if the sands of time are cascading, this exuberant veteran evidently knows and loves what he’s talking about.

Gilles Peterson Interview ontinued