Paul Oakenfold Interview

Paul Oakenfold Interview image

We get the confirmation call from Perfecto Records 10 minutes before Oakey’s set is about to start in the Godskitchen Arena of Hi Fi South’s Matterly Bowl. After a brief sprint through the crowds we dash backstage to catch up with one of the world’s most famous and well respected DJs, Mr Paul Oakenfold. His rock-star status haircut droops over one side of his face as he’s digging into his rider - he clocks us, clocking him as we prepare for the Clubbing UK exclusive.

Paul Oakenfold image Drawing some incredible resemblances with some of our own accidental career paths, a common ground of blagging press passes seemed a great place to start things off: "Basically I moved to New York and I had no money, so I wanted to go to clubs, I got a false NME pass made up with my photo - you need ID in America - my friend got Melody Maker, it’s the best thing to do - for your readers out there if you want to blag your way into clubs in America, get false IDs made and you’ll get in to all the clubs!".

Paul Oakenfold has long been one of the most important - if not the most important - name in modern club culture, and certainly an undisputed tastemaker and UK house pioneer. People who don't know that much about DJ culture or the music itself are familiar with Oakenfold's tunes. Even many people who think they're unfamiliar with Oakey’s music may have actually heard it quite frequently, thanks to appearances globally on the radio and TV featured in commercials supporting mega brands such as Coca-Cola, Toyota, Motorola and Saab - all of which ran throughout 2005. Not to mention his contributions to hit films such as "Swordfish" (which Oakenfold scored), "The Matrix Reloaded" and Michael Man’s "Collateral", and who hasn’t heard the UK "Big Brother" theme tune, which he also wrote. In fact, when the superstar DJ sold out the Hollywood Bowl a couple of years ago, many pundits controversially viewed the event as definitive proof that dance culture had finally arrived in America - a force as powerful as any other in modern pop music.

Still, when he works as a DJ and/or as a remixer and releases mix CDs, it's not a total expression of this Grammy nominated artist’s musical creativity. Thus on his second artist album on Perfecto Records, "A Lively Mind" features 12 new songs composed and created by Paul Oakenfold. A work of love and passion, it’s been three years in the making. "Bunkka", his debut artist album featuring the hits "Ready, Steady, Go" and "Starry Eyed Surprise", was released in 2002, sold over a million copies worldwide and went Gold.

"I'm an infant in the 'artist' world, weaned and ready to blossom," jokes the composer. "I still primarily believe that songs are the way to move forward in my musical world, which has always been very instrumentally-based. So coming up with great songs takes time. And, naturally, I'd jump from making the record to working on cues for films or doing a couple of remixes and then I'd get inspired and jump back into it. Some of the tracks have been reworked many times over to find a comfortable arena for me."

A perfect blend could also be the perfect phrase to describe the cohesiveness of A Lively Mind - a title which means "an active person," says its creator. Balance was the key on this one, and the artist believes that this album may strike with a larger audience than Bunkka, an album that tended to alienate a small portion of his large audience.

"What I set out to do on my last record was probably one step ahead of the game," he says in retrospect. "The dance world or electronic world was expecting more of a DJ record and I wanted to make a record that was more out there. Direction is hugely important to me--to have a balance. And I felt like maybe I'd lost a bit of balance on Bunkka. So this record is a lot more up-tempo, a lot more focused, and a lot more comfortable in the electronic world than the last record was and yet it still has a variety of flavours."

Getting back to his mind-blowing headline festival sets he performs all summer, how does he know which track selection will secure the best crowd response? "All my own"… his look of concentration breaks to a smile, "nah not really. I’m gonna be playing a lot of new stuff from a lot of new producers and I’ve got a new album coming out in a weeks time so they’ll be a lot of new music from that."

Oakenfold’s career began in London, when he began DJing in small clubs around the West End. His rising reputation led to a job as an A&R rep at the UK-based Champion label, where his first signing was Will Smith (still part of Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince). His second? Salt N' Peppa. Not bad for a novice record exec. After stints at Profile and Def Jam (where he perfected the talent scouting skills that would eventually lead him to start his own Perfecto label in 1991), he returned to DJing stateside.

When it comes to the domestic brunch, where does he prefer his croissants? "I moved to America for work reasons, I went to Los Angeles to score a movie. I really enjoyed the process of scoring and writing to picture, I had no choice really - I had to move to Los Angeles cause that’s where 90% of films are made, and if you wanna be in film; you gotta live where it’s at."

Oakenfold changed European youth culture throughout the late '80s and early '90s. He was one of the first DJ's to have a residency on the Island of Ibiza, leading to both a new sound and a yearly festival. He also started regular "Balearic" club nights in London, attracting a crossover audience and remixed legendary bands such as The Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays (whose Pills 'N' Thrills and Bellyaches album was produced by Oakenfold and his production partner Steve Osborne, becoming the biggest album of the band's career).

His pivotal role in the Manchester scene was Oakenfold's visa into the rock world. Over the next several years, he, along with Osborne, remixed tracks by legendary bands New Order, The Cure and Massive Attack. In 1991, he first worked with U2 remixing "Even Better Than the Real Thing" and "Mysterious Ways" from their Achtung Baby album. It was the start of a long partnership with that band. He was the DJ on their historic ZOO TV tour and later remixed the band's "Beautiful Day," a number one hit for U2 on the U.S. and U.K. dance charts.

Over the years, he's remixed tracks for everyone from Madonna to Elvis Presley to Justin Timberlake to Moby to Snoop Doggy Dog. He's the first electronic artist ever to be in the Guinness Book of World Records--for being the biggest DJ in the world. He's the only DJ to have a display case in the Hard Rock Cafe's Rock & Roll Museum. 2003 saw Paul perform a unique concert on the Great Wall of China. That very same year, not only was he honored with the UK's "Pioneer of Dance Music" award which was presented by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (at the "Pioneers of the Nation" celebration), shortly after Oakenfold had played the Nelson Mandela-organized South African AIDS benefit concert alongside Bono, Peter Gabriel and Beyonce Knowles. With his recent mix compilation "Another World" selling over ½ million in the U.S. alone (making it the biggest selling DJ compilation), he's also one helluva cook, having graduated from culinary school before beginning his journey in the music world. With all this what would he describe as the pinnacle? "There’s been a few, touring with U2, supporting Madonna, playing main stage Glastonbury, doing Clapham Common was a big one for me (75,000 people), Net Aid, scoring movies, my record’s sold over a million copies; there’s a lot - it’s hard to say one."

So 2006 sees Oakenfold continue with the hectic schedule he never preserves as work - he comments: "I never thought I’d see the world through a box of records and I’m still loving every minute!"… Outside the busy DJ schedule he’s not short of projects to keep him occupied; "I enjoy writing music to film, and I’ve got my album coming out and I want to support that, so I enjoy that process. I also enjoy finding new talent, and there’s a lot of young DJs that I’ve come across; Nat Monday from England, Kenneth Thomas from America, Liam Shachar from Israel - so I’m trying to support them."

If you wanna catch him between productions "I’ll be doing Amnesia during the summer in August and I’m scoring a movie called "Nobel Sun" at the moment which will have a lot of club acts involved, I’m trying to get the Chemical Brothers, Groove Armada - I write the whole music to the whole film. There are certain cues that I wanna bring in other people to do so then I’ll put out a soundtrack with all of us on it… I’m even trying to get Pete Tong to do a track for me!"