Interview with Carl Cox

DMA: Do you feel you've fully realised yourself as a producer yet?
COX: I think on the next album, that question will be answered. At the beginning, I was signed by Perfecto Records for the first three years...

DMA: Those were three great singles!! "I Want You (Forever)" was the bomb of '91!...
COX: Thank you! But it was very hard, because I wanted to be percieved as an album artist. Between '91 and '93, I had only put out three [singles] but they wouldn't go with what I believed in and how I wanted to express myself. At the time, the thought was that DJs cant make music and especially make full albums -- that DJs could only remix music and give other people's records a 'club feel'. At this point, I think people have finally realised that DJ do have a brain. I love DJing, but I also love making music -- technology has allowed me to do that. I think that over the last five years, I've finally become confident enough to write, produce and engineer my own records. It's a great feeling when people go and buy a tune I did and I can sit back and think 'they like something that I did!'

DMA: Your last album, At The End of the Cliche', how come you didn't put that out on Perfecto records when Paul took his label from BMG to East West?
COX: When Paul went to East West we all got dropped. Hung out to dry, basically...(brief pause) that's a difficult question, mate.

DMA: Do you and Paul still talk?
COX: Yeah, we still talk. It was just a big, major learning process on how not to treat artists. If I felt that I signed someone on the basis that for the minimum of five years, that's what I can do to justify me being within the Perfecto camp or being someone who he felt like he could develop a career and then stay with through thick and thin, he should of still been there. As soon as his deal [with BMG] went sour, we all went sour, but he carried on.

DMA: As a writer, I've interviewed many of the new camp of Perfecto artists, and all feel very strongly about Paul's stance on being an artist label. He certainly does all the things big label people like Berry Gordy or even people like Puff Daddy do now. Piggybacking artsits, and giving them the freedom to create what they want. I suppose his time at BMG was also a learning experience for him, too, because what happened to you doesn't seem like the same Paul Oakenfold of now.
COX: The bottom line there I think was that BMG wanted to see more action from Perfecto, and they didn't. There was a little action, but nothing consistent. At the time, BMG records saw lots going on over at DeConstruction Records, and I think they put those kinds of pressures on Paul to come up with hits like they did, so, yes, I suppose he was learning as well. I feel like the best lesson I learned was that I didn't regress and decide that I hated the music industry and then take a job at McDonalds -- I used the experience to my advantage. I know that I couldn't treat other people as Paul treated me as an artist, and that's the best lesson learned here.