RS: OK, now time for another aggressive techie question. When
people think of Radio One, Pete Tong always comes to mind. Is there
ever any competition between you and Pete?
Judge Jules: Not really, because musically we've always been quite
different from one another. There's lots of others, there's five or
six different dance DJs on Radio One, but Pete is the most
longstanding one there. What's important is that Radio One embraces
dance and new music so wholeheartedly in a way that very few other
stations do, and each of us is a little piece of that jigsaw puzzle.
RS: Very cool, good answer. You've got a new Gatecrasher CD
coming out. Is that already out?
Judge Jules: That's out actually, yes.
RS: What was the story behind that compilation?
Judge Jules: With the exception of Ibiza, Gatecrasher is my longest
standing DJ residency, a club/party that I've been playing at for
years. They've just put out a triple CD, two of which are old classics
mixed by other DJs, and I did the new music element to it. It's
actually sold more than a hundred thousand copies, which is very, very
good obviously, for a compilation.
RS: Congratulations. How do you choose songs for a compilation like that?
Judge Jules: Again, it's not rocket science, it's just choose the
stuff that you're playing at a club, hopefully the best of that stuff,
not the here today / gone tomorrow stuff.
RS: Would you say Sander Van Doorn is your hot pick of the best
new guy for 2007?
Judge Jules: I think it would be a bit patronizing to hear me say
that because I think he's there already. I think he's well and truly
established. But he's a great producer and a very good DJ.
RS: Who do you see as the next big producer coming up?
Judge Jules: Richard Durand, who's also from Holland, added a
cumulous, hybrid sort of chunky house and trance to Sander Van Doorn.
RS: Why do you think there is so much great music coming from the
Dutch DJs, from Fedde to Armin and Tiesto, and now Sander and Durand?
Judge Jules: It's a good question that not even they can answer when
you ask them. Because the UK has a population of sixty-one million,
Holland has a population of seventeen million but, you know, pro rata,
there are far more successful big DJs there than there are in the UK.
Nobody seems to know why. But certainly it's a legacy of music
making, making dance records. It goes back well before trance,
although the legacy of big household name DJs is a product of trance.
RS: You did the Amsterdam Dance Event this year. How was ADE for you?
Judge Jules: It's the first time I'd been there, and I'd been to
Miami, the Winter Music Conference numerous times. I was literally
only there at ADE for half a day, so I was sort of dipping my toes in
the water, but I'll definitely be going back.
RS: So it was a positive, good thing?
Judge Jules: Well, it would appear that way. There's various
conferences relating to dance music, or at least get-togethers that
have a dance music element – there's MIDEM in Paris, Popkomm in
Germany, the Winter Music Conference in Miami, and the ADE. The ADE
would appear to be the only one that combines work and party in equal
measures. As far as I can gather, Miami had no work and lots of
partying; MIDEM and Popkomm have precious little partying and lots of
work. And therefore if you want a bit of both, if you want to justify
the expense but still wake up with a sore head the next morning, ADE's
definitely the one to go to.
RS: Very cool, I'll send that down as a quote. What advice do you
have to up-coming producers and DJs?
Judge Jules: Well, if you're a DJ and want to make records, clearly
that isn't something you're going to be able to acquire and cultivate
quickly. But music making and DJing absolutely tie hand in hand with
one another. There's very, very few DJs who don't make records on a
consistent basis. But I also think if you're a DJ, you should think
about promoting your own events. It's only by cultivating your own
local crowd, and trying to build that crowd outside the area you start
in, that you'll build a head of steam and a bunch of people will want
to come and see you.
RS: What would you like to say to all your fans out there?
Judge Jules: That I'm not somebody who thinks about people who come
and see me as "fans." I'm just a normal bloke, lucky enough to be
living the dream, and I'm just the same as everybody else. So I don't
think really think of myself as having fans. I'm just normal and out
there and enjoying music.
RS: What would you like to say to all the people who come to see
you normally spinning records?
Judge Jules: I'm well aware that, particularly in Europe, actually
everywhere outside the US – the US is twenty-one and over in most
environments, and therefore people maybe have a little bit more money
to spend – but people start going out clubbing in the UK and Europe
from eighteen. The amount of money they spend to go out over the
course of a Friday or a Saturday night is probably a significant
proportion of their weekly disposable income. And I think we're both
mixed, from my own perspective. I think every DJ should never
underestimate how much of an investment people are making in you in
terms of the money they can afford to spend. I'd never be complacent
about that at all.
Interview posted February 5, 2008
