Dave Clarke: "I do have faith in the next generation coming through... I think they’re starting to rebel in a very cool way”

“It feels good,” opines veteran DJ Dave Clarke from the study of his Amsterdam home. No, he’s not describing the fervid relief of removing your socks in bed on a hot day, or the unparalleled satisfaction of seeing Jordan Pickford pick the ball out of his net in the 86th minute of a Euro final.

He’s referencing the release of a bumper six-vinyl set commemorating 30 years of his landmark Red and Archive One projects. The innovative records helped shape the sound of electronic music of the ‘90s from the underground and beyond, so much so that their creator has come to be known as the Baron of Techno.

“It sounds so different to the majority of techno that’s around today,” he says. “Not in a superior way or a negative way, but just a positive way. Occasionally I’ll play some of my stuff from that period, but not that often. As it became apparent this was going to happen, I started playing the remasters and I’ve been touring with this album in mind.”

Beginning his rise to prominence after signing to XL in 1989, the Brighton native often cites the countercultural appeal of rap and post-punk as an early catalyst for his love affair with music.

“The punky stuff was influencing my life, more so than my music,” Clarke shares. “I was growing up in Thatcherite Britain and a lot of the politics we were learning wasn’t socially aware - we weren’t pointing out the dark side of colonialism. We were taught that England brought justice to the world and all that bullshit.

“I started hearing hip-hop and punk and it just blew my mind. There were sarcastic songs like ‘Making Plans For Nigel’ by XTC, and I realised how the sarcasm was really a statement about what society expects from you. I realised that the world wasn’t what was being presented to me at school.”

The values buttressing electronic dance music were similarly rooted in the issues of the day, Clarke iterates

“I saw dance music as a very political movement,” he reflects. “Not necessarily because of the actual music itself, but for the respect it had for race, for difference and for non-cis people. It was in reaction to everything being squashed by a Tory government in the UK. In the US, it was in reaction to racism and homophobia, and provided safe spaces for those on the outskirts of society to express themselves.

“Now, you can be blacklisted for being political because it’s not good for business, and managers have become a lot more involved. Therefore, any artist that has anything to say would be going through a committee to find out if it’s okay to say it.”

I sense a tone of disapprobation for the current industry. It’s been said that Clarke goes through phases of being proud and ashamed of his profession. How does he feel at the moment?

“Ashamed,” he deadpans. “The art of it is not a predominant force for success anymore and that is incredibly sad. The technology now is the stuff I dreamed of, we have so much to let our imaginations run wild. I played on vinyl for the first time in 15 years at a friend’s party recently - and this is going to sound really blasphemous - but I was bored. I couldn’t take it to the level I wanted.

“Despite what we can do, people will turn up with a pre-mixed set on a USB and dance around and do lots of hand movements. It’s about presenting an experience, it’s not about culture anymore. I don’t call them artists, I call them acts, because they’re acting. They’re still entertaining a crowd, so they’re acts and entertainers, but they’re not artists.

“The world is in a very interesting place. There’s so many new pressures, so people need an escape. Venture capitalists are providing the escape for people through things that are not challenging artistically. There’s cakes being thrown and people wearing Sergio Tacchini clothes, dancing on stage with their testicles almost hanging out. It’s a circus”.

Often going hand-in-hand with techno-scored escapism are drugs. Deep within the Hot Press archives is an interview with Clarke in 1999, in which he stated that people in the scene were taking drugs due to the “poor quality of most of the DJs, who have failed to entertain them.”

“I was reacting to the boredom of minimal, I felt it was just a k-hole for a lot of people and it was boring,” he reflects. “I was also probably disingenuous because I don’t do drugs.”

Nonetheless, his personal reluctance to indulge led to him being cast as a clean-nosed pariah within the community.

“I was an odd one out and was chastised about that side of my life heavily,” he reveals. “There was a journalist from a DJ magazine that really put me down, saying, ‘You can’t trust a DJ unless they’re on drugs’. I found it offensive and difficult to deal with, so much so that I actually ended up spending a lot less time in clubs. I didn’t want to be judged.

“Nowadays, there’s a lot more DJs that seem to be healthy in that regard. They’ve seen some of the caveats and disasters that have happened with some people, and they’re not being chastised for it, so that’s a positive thing.”

Closer to home, Clarke has a strong affinity to Ireland. Having hosted over 960 episodes of his weekly show White Noise on RTÉ 2FM, he’s been a regular champion of Irish noisemakers across all genres, including Fontaines D.C., who he remixed in 2021 with a trance-tinged overhaul of ‘Televised Mind’.

“I felt something for them at that time specifically,” he explains. “It was honest, no bullshit. Apparently some of my tracks are favourites of theirs too, so it just worked. There’s no such thing as fake synchronicity. Synchronicity happens because it’s meant to happen. That’s a musician’s thing, I think. I really like working with bands and vocalists. I like lyrics, punkiness and edginess.

“We’re now in this situation where the world is not heading in the right direction, and I seem to be heading back into music with a more human edge to it.”

As someone who’s been there and done it, what’s Clarke’s advice to budding artists?

“If you’re young and you’ve been good, you have the freedom to experiment and do your thing, and you’ll never have that time again,” he warns. “Don’t follow trends, follow what you feel from the heart, because the world really needs individuals or collectives that represent something unique.

“I do have faith in the next generation coming through. The kids I’m teaching in the Netherlands have a different approach to the ones that came before them, and I think they’re starting to rebel in a very cool way.”