RS:: Where do you see the sound of your music going these days?
Danny Howells:: All directions. I mean, I'm still very influenced by
the softer end, whether it's the down-tempo music, the mellow break
beats, the so-called cosmic disco sound. There's more peak time stuff,
the more techy end; there's the progressive stuff, there's still some
good stuff coming out there. A lot of the German stuff, the more
mellow melodic German stuff, that comes out – it's all over the place,
really. That's one of the things I want to dig deeper into, and have a
chance to try and reign in all of these different styles and areas of
music, and hopefully piece them together to make somethin coherent.
RS:: Talking about releases, when are you going to do another
Global Underground?
Danny Howells:: I don't think I'll be doing a Global Underground, but
I'm working on getting my new compilation out, hopefully for
summertime, but it's not going to be a Global Underground.
RS:: What is it going to be?
Danny Howells:: I'm not telling you. Hopefully, ninety percent sure,
it's going to be a Dig Deeper though.
RS:: This is a strange question, but I feel it's appropriate –
what's with the obsession with Keith Richards?
Danny Howells:: No, I'm not obsessed with him. I'm a big Stones fan,
and I think everyone got wind of that by the fact the I've got about
thirty different Rolling Stones T-shirts. I've always been a big fan.
I think that became more widely known by the fact that people thought
I looked like Keith Richards. It would have been a compliment, if it
was Keith Richards, circa 1968 to '72, but I think people think I look
like Keith Richards now. So it's not the greatest compliment, but it
could be worse. It's better than Rod Stewart, anyway.
RS:: The joke was that as your Global Underground CDs progress,
you look like him at different stages of Keith's career.
Danny Howells:: That's quite true, but the one thing is, I've actually
had people on airplanes ask me if I was Ron Wood's son. So maybe I
look like Keith, but people obviously think I look like Ron Wood more.
It was interesting either way. But it's good for me, because I'm a big
fan of the Stones, full stop, so I take it as a compliment.
RS:: I'm sort of guessing they're one of the groups that you'd like
to work with one day. Who are some other groups that you might want to
work in the studio?
Danny Howells:: Oh, I never think about that really. There's loads of
little electronic bands that I really love, but a lot of the time, if
it's somebody that I'm a fan of, I think I'd be too scared to do
anything. I like the idea of remixing, because you can do it in the
privacy of your own home and not feel scared or intimidated. I think
if I was suddenly put in a studio with Mick Jagger or David Bowie, I
think I'd freeze and wouldn't know what to do. To do something with
one of his tracks from the '70s would be for me like a dream come
true. But if for any reason he was a fan of one of my tracks, and
called me up and said, "Dave, let's do a track together," well
obviously, I'd do it. But I'd be sh*t scared, and probably fall to
pieces within five minutes of meeting him, so it probably wouldn't
work out.
