RS: The tracks that you make yourself, when you're in the studio
working on music, do you think about what's going to sound good on the
dance floor?
Judge Jules: Well that's exactly it, really. I do a bunch of
different things, but the studio is really my day job when I'm at
home. I don't start out making any track with the ultimate aim of it
being released. What I'm doing is making tracks for my DJ sets, and
probably one in every three tracks that I make ends up getting
released, and the others I might play for, you know, three or four
weeks and then they sort of get discarded. It's only the very best of
those tracks that stand the test of time, that work in lots of
different environments and for lots of different crowds, that
ultimately end up getting released.
RS: When you're in the studio what software do you use?
Judge Jules: For sequencing, Logic and ProTools.
RS: Cool. And what's your favorite keyboard right now?
Judge Jules: Well most of what I use is plug-ins, and I'm appalling
on the names of plug-ins because I keep changing them so often.
RS: Very cool. Going back to Asia and Hong Kong, are Asian
crowds different than European crowds and US crowds?
Judge Jules: People have got access to dance music on a global
scale, so the need to play a different soundtrack to a different
market isn't there. I mean, if you're a reasonably well-known DJ, you
turn up with people having a fairly good idea of what your sound is.
So no, I certainly wouldn't find myself playing any differently to an
Asian market and, you know, when they go for it, they go for it big
time in the same way that a sort of European or American crowd would.
RS: One thing I really like about your site is how you have the
download music store, how is that going for you? When did it start
and…?
Judge Jules: It's very new, actually. I've only had it for a couple
of months. I couldn't tell you how it's doing in terms of traffic
but- I answer every eMail that I receive via my site which is usually
time-consuming, but then again I spend so much time on playing music,
it's a good way of passing the time. And I've had loads of good
feedback, but I haven't had the opportunity to monitor how it's doing
in terms of sales just yet because it's too much in its infancy.
RS: One problem we have here in the US is that people will hear
a DJ but not being able to buy the music that they play. And that's
one thing I really like about you and your site, I'm guessing if they
hear a song you play they can go to your site and buy and download it.
Is that sort of the goal?
Judge Jules: Yes, I mean, it won't be possible with everything,
because a lot of stuff I play, is very early in its lifecycle.
Because of my radio in particular, I mean I get just about everything
first of joint first and it's not always the case that people want to
release the stuff that early, and there's a certain amount of sort of
bootleg mixes and kind of unclear samples which can't be included on
the download store. But there's definitely a decent proportion of
stuff on the store that is very much what I'll play on a Saturday
night and you can then buy it on a Monday morning sort of thing, or
later on the Saturday night if you fancy.
RS: You know, I always used to see the record store as the
filter; there's a million records that come out, these are the ones
we're selling, and you as the DJ, these are the records I'm playing
and so these are the ones I approve, sort of thing.
Judge Jules: Yes, that's basically the aim.
RS: OK. I saw on your playlist for your last Radio 1 show that
you did a track with BK.
Judge Jules: Indeed, yes, I've done that. In fact the most recent
track I've done with BK is going to come out on my US release artist
album as well.
RS: Really? I always see BK as more like a hard-dance hard-house kind of
guy, and I always saw you as more like a trance-energy guy. Do you
often work with people outside the genre or do you even consider
yourself in one genre?
Judge Jules: Yes, I think it's important to. I mean, I wouldn't
consider myself one hundred percent trance, I mean a lot of what I
play is trance, but then I can step out of that as well, but I'm
definitely not a hard house guy. But normally it's quite interesting
to do collaborations with people from a different area because you
often find yourself meeting in the middle, style-wise. And I've now
done three tracks with BK and that's definitely been the outcome.
We're both quite pleased with the way things have turned out.
