“Hellooooh”. That’s strange. I’ve called the hotel in Amsterdam as instructed and have been put through to Paul Oakenfold’s room, but the person at the other end of the line sounds like a stoned Jamaican.
Seeing as they’re in the home of all things weed-related, maybe one of Oakenfold’s friends is having a laugh, so I ask again: “Is Paul there?”. “Hellooooh” the same patois accent answers. Then, suddenly, it breaks into a more recognisable East End drawl and asks : “Allo mate, it’s Paul ‘ere. ‘Ow do you like my Irish accent?”
Oh dear.
For the past few years, superstar DJ Paul Oakenfold has been living in LA, a place where irony and sarcasm are rare commodities, so it’s only fair to cut him some slack as he tries to readjust to the sense of humour on this side of the Atlantic. Hollywood isn’t a place that you’d associate with the kind of euphoric stadium trance Oakenfold specialises in, but that’s not what led him to move there. Ever the shrewd entrepreneur, he realised a few years ago that, with the exception of a few mega festivals every year, the number was up in Europe for his brand of messianic trance, and, like David Holmes before him, spotted an opportunity to score film soundtracks.
To date, he’s worked on Swordfish and Shrek, and has a number of other projects in the pipeline.
“I moved three years ago,” Paul explains. “It meant that I cut my DJ schedule in half, but it felt like the right thing to do, a move forward. I still really enjoy it and the scene is less rough around the edges and more professional. For me, there’s still nothing more rewarding than watching loads of people putting their hands up in the air in a club.”
Given the horror stories about the clampdown on America’s club scene over the past few years and the Bush administration’s attempts to legislate against electronic music, it seems sensible that Oakenfold concentrate less on playing records and more on working behind the scenes as a producer. However, he disagrees about the supposed death of dance music Stateside.
“The music scene is different in some respects, but in other ways, it’s similar to the UK and Europe. You’re right that dance music isn’t the dominant culture - rock and hip-hop is - but I travel all over the States, and because of the internet, people are aware of electronic music and know all the records.”
Oakenfold has borrowed from the worlds of hip-hop and film for his new album, A Lively Mind, recruiting Pharrell Williams and Brittany Murphy, but what’s far more interesting than his routine blending of styles is the fact that he rubs shoulders 24/7 with Hollywood’s elite. So does he have any salacious gossip about Travolta or Cruise?
“It’s not a big deal,” he answers curtly. “I work in that sphere and it’s natural that I come into contact with people like that. You see the big stars in LA all the time and they just live their lives like anyone else and that’s it. With respect, I’m not going to do a kiss and tell and because I’m able to keep quiet, I’m scoring big studio films and have progressed from driving around the M25 to play at a rave.”
Despite his refusal to dish the dirt on his famous friends, there is one person that even Oakenfold goes all starry-eyed in the presence of.
“I’m a huge Madonna fan and I’m lucky enough to be supporting her on all of her European dates,” he says excitedly. “She’s nearly 50 and looks fantastic and I’ve learnt a lot from her and incorporated it into what I do. The other people who inspired me in the same way are U2.”
Whether or not Oakenfold can reinvent himself as convincingly as U2 or Madonna is a moot point, but he has come full circle, and is happier in a studio than behind the decks. After all, he originally came to prominence with his revolutionary remix of Happy Mondays' ‘Hallelujah’, and is now staking his reputation as a producer on another band, US act Bad Apples.
“They’re like a mixture of Johnny Rotten and Johnny Cash with an electronic backing and I’d like to do for them what I did with the Mondays,” he states. “The singer fought for the US army in Afghanistan, flying a bomber jet, but was discharged on grounds of insanity, so you can imagine what the lyrics are like. As long as I enjoy it, I don’t care if people like it or not.”