Interview with Paul Oakenfold

DJ TIMES: So then, if New York is not looked up to, why do English clubbers flock to the clubs they're guest DJing at?
OAKENFOLD: Because they're a lot bigger over there than they are here. They worked hard for what they have and they deserve it. Fair play to them, but New York hasn't been 'it' for quite a few years now. So you read in the press about your Juniors and your Dannys, but if that's New York's best shot, people need to come to England and see what happens. Junior came to England and he slated it. He slagged it off because he didn't understand it. It's not fair to come to one place that you've never been before and slag it off and I'm sure if you spoke to Roger Sanchez or David Morales, they would give you a much more in-depth view of the country or Europe for that matter because Europe's an important part of what's going on. Junior's king of the castle here, but that doens't mean fuck-all in England. New York is just a little blob on the scene now. You've got Frankfurt, you've got Paris with Air, Daft Punk, Dimirty, you've got a huge scene out of Amsterdam, you've got a huge scene in Berlin. In Berlin, you have the biggest open-air festival [Love Parade], it's actually bigger than the Rio Festival and it's all based on dance music. 24 hour radio stations, clubs every single day of the week. Everywhere in Europe is past New York.

DJ TIMES: I have asked this of many other people i've interviewed from England, but what do you see as the reasons why the UK have surpassed America when it comes to dance music -- music that by and large, we created.
OAKENFOLD: The first and most important thing is youth culture. America's youth culture as far as I can see, have grown up on hip hop. And then you have your hispanics that are growing up on something completely different, then you've got another form of music which is huge in America which is country. These things are not happening in the UK. R+B and hip hop is not a form of music that kids grow up on. In England, kids grow up on dance music. Our youth culture is dance culture. In Europe, we're all growing up on similar sounds whether it's techno or house, it's still dance. As an international traveling DJ, I can say the last place on the world map to catch onto dance music is America.

DJ TIMES: Well, it certainly doesn't hurt that your national radio station has Pete Tong playing upfront dance music at 6:00 on Friday night back announcing every song. Since we don't have syndicated radio here like in the UK, and the corporate mentality that runs the radio isn't about to play un-proven music during prime time listening, can the scene happen here without a show like Pete Tong's Essential Selection?
OAKENFOLD: Yeah, we did. We've been running clubs since '85. Let's say you don't have a radio station with a syndicated show. America when it comes to dance music has only just started. You are where we were in '87. You have no infrastructure when it comes to dance music other than the old DJs who dictate what goes on in New York. You have pockets of younger DJs around America from Orlando, to Los Angeles, to San Francisco who are younger in age and younger mentally who are more open minded and ready to take it to the next level. But you're years behind the UK, because your youth culture is so different. In England when you leave school, you become a clubber, because that's what youth culture is all about.

DJ TIMES: So you're saying that hip hop in the UK is like dance music is to the US?
OAKENFOLD: Exactly, exactly -- brilliant example. In England, you have 24 hour radio stations, 24 hour clubs, you go anywhere from a hairdresser to a restaurant to a supermarket and they're all playing dance music. You have dance music all over the pop charts, you even have dance remixes of rock records in the chart. You've got dance compilations outselling major rock bands. The whole country's gone dance mad. NME just did a report that said over a million people are taking ecstacy each weekend.