Paul Oakenfold: An Englishman abroad

What's a top DJ to do once they reach the height of their game and have spun more sets than had hot dinners? Hang up your headphones and start a restaurant? Think Danny Rampling. Reinvent yourself on the back of the latest gizmos? Hello Sasha. How about moving to the hills, the Hollywood ones that is, and composing soundtracks for big budget studio films? Meet Paul Oakenfold – DJ, producer and now film composer.

It's almost twenty years since Paul Oakenfold headed off to Ibiza, bringing back the sounds which changed the face of London and UK clubbing. Oakenfold's bio is impressive, dance music fan or otherwise. He co-produced the Happy Mondays on 'Pills, Thrills and Bellyaches', he signed artists like Salt & Peppa as an A&R rep – Oakenfold has been in the biz and pushed dance music a lot longer than most of us have been listening to it. There were the Madchester days, the MoS days, the Cream days and now there are the L.A. days and Hollywood nights.

Compare the Paul Oakenfold of today to that of days gone by and – like the title of one of his mixes – it's another world. These days Oakenfold rubs shoulders with the likes of Danny DeVito and Alec Baldwin; he's reinvented himself as a Hollywood go-to man for film soundtracking, scoring for such films as 'Swordfish', 'Collateral' and 'The Matrix Reloaded'. His name just doesn't grace flyers now, it scrolls by on the big screen as you reach for the popcorn.

Oakenfold has also established himself as a major dance music force in the States, currently flogging his second artist album 'A Lively Mind', his follow-up to 2002's 'Bunkka'. But he's not messing about up north with a nobody called Bez on this one; this time his collaborators are Pharrell Williams, Grandmaster Flash and actress Brittany Murphy – bankable names, and bankable names need massaging sometimes. This time making the album has been a more negotiated process.

"It's a long road and sometimes the walls that appear are very hard to climb. Finding your sound, finding the songs, working in collaborations, meeting these people. Bear in mind that I don't sing so there's a lot more that has to come to the table, working with the likes of the people I work with. There's many meetings, creative conversations. Then you've got to go in the studio and make it work."

This stage of his game began four years ago when Oakenfold was invited to score a film in L.A. He took his family and upped and left his native London for America, and while his first celluloid effort might not have earmarked him for an Academy Award, it did change his ambitions, introducing him to a world away from the throbbing bass of smoky clubs.

"I was invited there to work on a project, on a film and stayed because of that. I wanted to move on from DJing and change direction. I wanted to do more than just be involved in the dance scene. I wanted to have another career and another job in film."

But rather than make the full switch to scoring, Oakenfold is keeping his DJ name alive, too. But while New York, Chicago and Detroit might have laid the dance foundations many moons ago, few would namecheck L.A. as a hotpot for dance music. When you're living with the wife and the kids near the Hollywood hills and the beautiful beaches, mingling with the Hollywood elite, how's a former top jock supposed to stay in touch with the scene? Is it possible that Oakey no longer has his finger on the pulse?

"Wherever you live is irrelevant. If you've got access through the Internet to record shops then you've still got the music."


"Wherever you live is irrelevant," Oakenfold retorts. "You could live on the moon. If you've got access through the Internet to record shops then you've still got the music. Ninety per cent of the music I play is not on the radio. You can't get any more underground than it not being on radio and no one else having it."

But even the dance music pillars in the UK are begging to differ. "Paul Oakenfold Worst Essential Mix ever?" read the byline at the Radio 1 website promoting Oakey's Essential Mix last weekend. A far cry from his 'Goa' EM effort in 1994, it was roundly slated by listeners, especially English ones. So what does Oakenfold say to his British detractors? Are they right that he sold out for the Yankee dollar?

"As a nation we love to moan and we love to complain even when the sun's shining. In Los Angeles, if you work hard and you do well people pat you on the back and say, 'Well done'. In England we slag you off."

Point noted. It's not simply a case of Oakenfold suddenly hankering after celluloid dreams or mainstream plaudits – in hindsight he's always been connected to the mainstream of dance and pop. Perhaps we were all too starry-eyed to notice in the mid-nineties, but even 'Not Over Yet' which Oakenfold produced with Steve Osborne for Grace in 1995 was a chart and commercial radio hit. Is Oakenfold right that it's the people around him that have changed and not the other way around?

"In London, it's very difficult to motivate people and to get things done. In Los Angeles it's the complete opposite. It's a fantastic work ethic. It's much easier where I live to be the person I want to be."

So this is Oakenfold today – a hip English film composer in the City of Angels, oodles of creative freedom, surrounded by motivated and lively minds. Is that satisfaction enough? What does he want to achieve next? An Oscar? A Grammy? Oakenfold, stop confounding us and tell us your plans.

"Well I'm doing it, living it, in the middle of it. What I want to do is what I'm doing now. I'm just trying to promote my record and that's the plan – doing as an artist what you do when you've got a record out."

"In London, it's very difficult to motivate people and to get things done. In Los Angeles it's the complete opposite."


So no grand plan then. But whether it's "Oakenfold" on the album covers, or "Paul Oakenfold" on the flyers, no matter how good or bad his deck skills are, he'll still be "Oakey" to the old faithful. He's still on the summer festival circuit, his name a trusted crowdpuller. When questioned on his upcoming dates at the SW4 Festival in Cardiff and London, Oakenfold's voice lights up.

"Coming from London, it's so good because all my old friends and my family can come along. [Last year] because it's a day event, my brother brought his kids and you know, it was really nice to see them all in the day rather than be in a club in two in the morning."

Oakenfold's enthusiasm takes cynical old me aback. You'd think after all these years of promotions and jumping through hoops, he'd be sick of the talk and the hype, but Oakenfold is genuinely excited about the gigs next weekend. And with several thousand punters chanting your name, pleased to see you back in the booth, why not? You get the feeling even torrential English rain wouldn't dampen his spirit. Once a DJ, always a DJ then?

"It's a true passion of mine. I don't know how I'm going to stop doing it, " he laughs. " I'll probably end up playing in a little bar once a week."

But whether that will be a little bar in the Hollywood Hills or a pub in Connaught Square in London in the years to come, who knows?

Paul Oakenfold plays the SW4 London and Cardiff festivals on August 26th and August 27th respectively.