When DJ Times last caught up with England's superstar DJ/producer/record mogul Paul Oakenfold, he had just completed a tour of the world as opening DJ for Irish supergroup U2. At that time, he was also in the process of re-setting up his Perfecto imprint which prior had gone through BMG distribution and he was just getting the contracts down with Warner Bros to press and distribute his acts. Since then, Paul has become the resident DJ at Liverpool's Cream, by far the biggest and most popular club in Britain, as well as proven to be the Berry Gordy of trance dance music with his wildly successful label, now in it's fourth year on Warners. After conquering almost all corners of this earth with his sound, Paul is looking on spending a lot of time in the United States this year pushing the UK dance sound on a market he feels is ripe and ready for the picking. Being that Oakenfold is known to be an arbiter of taste, this can be hearalded as a very good sign for the US dance scene. DJ Times sat down with him recently and chatted about it over a few bottles of Poland Sping. Here's what went down:
DJ TIMES: There have been many stories written about you, and you've basically become an icon to an entire generation of DJs. Who were the jocks that inspired you when you were coming up back in the day?
OAKENFOLD: There was only one, and that was Larry Levan. I spent time in New York and I used to go to the [Paradise] Garage, and I could never figure out how people would stay up all night long. It took me about six or seven weeks to figure out that they were doing drugs. My friend and I would come there at six or seven in the morning virtually collapsing, drinking loads of coffee trying to stay up and Levan for me was the DJ who was very open-minded. He would play the Clash and Queen alongside dance and disco records. I felt that where I grew up, you needed to be more musically open-minded and I was. So if there was any DJ that influenced me, it was him. No English DJ did that to me.
DJ TIMES: Were you clubbing in England before you had experienced Levan's spinning?
OAKENFOLD: Yes, I was. Without being big-headed here, I always felt that I was ahead of the game. I was younger and more determined; I was lot more hungry. When DJs in England weren't mixing, I was learning to mix, because I had experienced it in New York. I had seen things that a lot of DJs hadn't seen. Even though I wasn't really a DJ, it's because I spent time here [in New York]. I had been to Vinyl Mania before anyone else had, I had been to the Paradise Garage, I had been to the Roxy, Bonds and Studio 54. I did all that at such and early age. So when I went back to England, I was mentally more educated than most of the English DJs. So I never looked up to any English DJs, because I had seen what it was all about in New York.
DJ TIMES: Skipping to now, Do you feel that the English scene is more influential than New York is now? You don't come here for inspiration anymore do you?
OAKENFOLD: No, there's no inspiration here anymore. The heart of dance music now is England. It was New York, but times have changed and now it's London. Maybe times will change again and it will be Buenos Aires or Bombay. Who knows where it's gonna be in the future, but at the moment, the heart of dance music is London. We have our time now and America had it's time before. The best thing a DJ in America could do, and I'm not dissing New York or America in any way, is come over to England and see how it's done. This is why a lot of the American DJs spend time in Britain now. I mean this in a positive way, I love New York, and I used to live here, I have the utmost respect for Frankie Knuckles and David Morales and Danny, etc... but New York is not the end-all-be-all of dance music. Europe's a lot more ahead of the game right now.
