DJ Paul Oakenfold - Lord of the dance

By MIKE HOULAHAN

For dance music fans, the visit of British DJ Paul Oakenfold to New Zealand may well be the night out of a lifetime. It will be another night at the office for the man himself - but as far as he's concerned, a night at the office is all about giving people the best night out of their lives.

"People know me, they know I have a reputation, and so far as I'm concerned I have to live up to that," he says.

"I don't want people to go out to Paul Oakenfold expecting this magic night out and then going home disappointed. That reflects badly on me and it reflects badly on the music.

"That's why I have my own tour manager. As far as I know I'm the only DJ who does. That means I have total control and can do everything in my powers to make things as good as they can possibly be."

Oakenfold is the biggest name in dance music, a big statement which can just about be touted as official, given that the 1999 Guinness Book of World Records named him as the world's most successful DJ.

His reputation in one of the fastest-moving musical genres around, where a track can be yesterday's news almost as soon as it reaches the record store shelves, comes from being at the forefront of dance music since the 1980s.

Oakenfold - a one-time record company talent scout who can count Will Smith among his discoveries - discovered the delights of what was then known as acid house while holidaying on the Spanish resort island of Ibiza.

After a particularly wild Oakenfold birthday party on the island in 1987, he came back to London with wild plans to transplant the party scene to his home city.

He wasn't the first person to have the idea and, with like-minded people such as Danny Rampling and Nicky Holloway also opening clubs, the new dance scene moved from being a short-lived trend to a long-living phenomenon.

That dance beats are now the soundtrack of the 21st century is in no small part because of Oakenfold.

When wayward Manchester rock band Happy Mondays became part of the acid house revolution and consequently emerged as the biggest band in Britain at the time, Oakenfold was one of the producers who worked on their top records.

His stature was enhanced further when U2 asked Oakenfold to ride with them on the Zoo TV tour as the show's resident DJ, and also to re-mix Even Better Than The Real Thing.

"I've kept that connection up. Just this week I've finished doing a mix for the new U2 record," Oakenfold says.

Tours such as Zoo TV and being asked to mix artists as varied as Massive Attack, Smashing Pumpkins, Simply Red, the Cure and Snoop Doggy Dog have seen Oakenfold take his dance music gospel to wider and more varied audiences.

"There's no difference in the type of set I'll be playing in New Zealand and what I might be playing if I was DJing in a club in New York or London. It would be patronising if there was," Oakenfold says.

"If I'm supporting a band, obviously you realise you can't play the same stuff then. If I'm playing with U2, say, there's no way I can play the same sort of set I'd play at Cream [a famed Liverpool club where Oakenfold had a long-time residency].

"I can play some tunes that might cross over but, in that situation, my job is to be the warm-up act for the band.

"Having said that, if you can slip in the odd tune which might catch people's attention and make them say, 'That's wicked, I want to hear that again,' then that's great."

Being an influential DJ, through what he plays and what he releases on his Perfecto Records label, can come at a cost. If Oakenfold can be perceived as the voice of orthodoxy in dance music, what he plays has come under fire from those who see themselves as more cutting edge.

In particular, he champions trance music, which some see as lightweight pop-chart fodder compared to drum and bass or big beat. Unsurprisingly, Oakenfold doesn't have a lot of time for such comments.

"It's a load of bollocks said by people who are trying to get a name for themselves in the media by saying something outrageous," he says.

"I play trance music, sure, but trance music is good music and it's popular music. Yeah, there's a lot of bad trance out there, but I won't be playing it.

"Anyway, there's a lot more to Paul Oakenfold than just trance, and if you listen to Travelling (his new double album DJ mix, released in New Zealand to coincide with his tour) you'll hear that.

"There's house, progressive house, breakbeat, techno and, yes, there's trance. There's a whole variety of music though, and that's one of the beauties of dance music, that it can incorporate so many different sounds."

- NZPA