DJ B: Where does your superstar DJ lifestyle find you today?
Paul Oakenfold: I'm in Phoenix, Arizona.
DJ B: Ah, nice and cool.
Oakie: And it's 117° here.
DJ B: I used to live in Tempe.
Oakie: Did you?
DJ B: Yes. Are you spinning there sometime this weekend?
Oakie: Yes, I was there last night.
DJ B: Round building, kind of funky-looking outside?
Oakie: Yes, that's right.
DJ B: Yes, that's Gammage, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
Oakie: Wow, there you go. So yes, it was a good crowd and I really enjoyed it, so we're currently just touring through America.
DJ B: So I guess the first question on everyone's mind is why the hell are you coming to Nashville?
Oakie: Well, I've always actually wanted to come there, obviously because of its musical roots and I was given an opportunity by a local promoter to come and play there. I've never been there, and I thought it would be a nice time to come. So I'm going to be spending a couple of days there and taking in the sights and hanging out and?
DJ B: So this is your very first trip to Nashville then?
Oakie: Yes, so we'll see. Looking out for those Country and Western songs, who knows. Maybe I'll take one and remix it with a new vocalist and make it a dance record.
DJ B: You could be remixing Ernest Tubb, that would be scary. I was looking on your web site and I noticed that you had just done a few dates in the Slavic part of Europe; a date in Poland and then one in Moscow and St Petersburg.
Oakie: Yes, I don't know if you're familiar with White Nights in St Petersburg. It's a period of time for about six weeks when the sun doesn't actually set, and it's amazing.
DJ B: I noticed that you got started early on playing at Glastonbury, and we just had some folks from here, from Nashville, called Venus Hum. They're a little electronic pop trio touring with the Blue Man Group right now, and they did the Hurricane Festival in Germany and then they were at Glastonbury last weekend. And they said they hadn't heard of too many artists there, so I'm gathering that you weren't there this year.
Oakie: No, I wasn't there this year, but I was actually in Moscow.
DJ B: And they actually have a remix contest going on right now on Acidplanet, where people can get their loops and samples and turn them into some music of their own. And I noticed, I'm actually sort of loosely connected with the folks in San Francisco that make Mixman, the remixing software for the PC. And you did a single for them ("Dark Machine" from the Swordfish soundtrack) I guess, in the last year or so.
Oakie: Yes, that's right.
DJ B: Did you have any involvement with putting that together and how did you decide what song to release to them and all the rest of that?
Oakie: Generally there were some remixes. Either the record company or the management of the artist contacts you and then asks you if you would consider listening to the track and remixing it. So when it comes to mixing, it's done on those bases really.
DJ B: This is a little bit different though. This is somebody taking something of yours and slicing it up into pieces so that consumers can download sixteen or so samples and remix them. So people are actually remixing you.
Oakie: You see, what I wanted to do, and I did this through my internet site, was give people an opportunity to do exactly that. I've had many people have attempts at remixing my stuff, and it's quite interesting because it's really refreshing to hear how other people interpret your own work.
DJ B: I was reading some biographical material today to try and ask intelligent questions during interview, and I saw that your version of Even Better Than The Real Thing actually charted higher than U2's version. Was that kind of like a watershed moment for you and you sort of knew you'd arrived when you were bigger than U2? I mean at least for that one moment?
