DJ Paul Oakenfold has been a mainstay in the DJ scene for nearly 20 years. He exploded in popularity in 2001 due to his work on the film Swordfish. Since then his tours and albums have become better and much larger in scope. His latest album is A Lively Mind and, as usual, it features plenty of guest artists such as actor Brittany Murphy, uber-producer Pharrell Williams and old-school DJ legend Grandmaster Flash.
Buy A Lively Mind
Daniel Robert Epstein: What was the inspiration for A Lively Mind?
Paul Oakenfold: The inspiration came from working with a lot of new artists prior to the record coming out.
DRE: Will this album sound a lot different live?
PO: Hopefully not because a lot of it was recorded. Certainly in terms of a live setup we did a lot of that stuff as a band so we know how to record and perform it live.
DRE: Do you want it to sound different live?
PO: I think that it'll be a little more spontaneous live and once we get to that point where we will go live, like we did with the last record, maybe we will change it up a bit. I think that sometimes it's good to change things. On the last record I really changed it around a bit.
DRE: How long have you been living in America?
PO: Four years.
DRE: Was having so many American musicians on this album a result of living here?
PO: No, not really. On the last album there were a few American artists. It's just a case of wherever I am, through my travels, and finding good talent to work with. It just happened that I was mainly spending my time there and that's why I ended up with a lot of new American artists rather than European.
DRE: Does finding new talent mean that you go to a record store and buy a lot of albums?
PO: No, none of the artists apart from Grandmaster Flash and Pharrell [Williams] have ever put a record out. It was word of mouth from going to shows, finding that talent and sourcing that talent.
DRE: Was it living in LA that inspired the song, Sex and Money?
PO: Yeah, to a certain extent. But it's also based on a lot of traveling that I've done and realizing that that's current climate in the world. People are obsessed with celebrity and that's the idea of that track. Living in LA, you can go to a restaurant and the waiter is an actor or the waitress is an actress. Everyone seems to be obsessed with it at the moment and that is the idea with Sex and Money.
DRE: What made you want Brittany Murphy to sing the lyrics on Faster Kill Pussycat?
PO: Well, I've been spending a lot of time working on films and scoring films and I really wanted to feature someone from the film world. She's cutting edge so she tried the vocals out and it went really well.
DRE: How did you hook up with her?
PO: I was introduced to her by a mutual friend and it was like, Why don't we try this? She did and it came out really well. She had done some singing before, but she'd never had put a record out.
DRE: Are you going to produce a record for her?
PO: If she does a record I would certainly help.
DRE: How was it writing Faster Kill Pussycat with Kelli Ali?
PO: We just came up with the idea of collaborating on a song and then I took it to instrumentation. Working with Kelli was great. It was very quick really. Kelli came to the table with a lot of ideas. She's really good and we came up with some killer choruses and some great parts.
DRE: What are your recording sessions like?
PO: Usually if I'm writing with someone it's just us. Maybe an engineer and, for instance, Kelli and me. I think that it works better with less people.
DRE: Whats your writing process like?
PO: I have samples and keyboards. It could be a sample from someone else's record or it could be a sample of a sound that I heard and I could write around it. There is no formula, it is just whatever works.
DRE: It is rare when a DJ becomes a celebrity, how do you deal with your celebrity status?
PO: People are friendly and respectful so it's fine.
DRE: A lot of people dont like it when a DJ gets popular.
PO: No, they don't.
DRE: How do you deal with that?
PO: There's not much that you can do to deal with that. Believe me everyone wants their records to be popular. If a DJ is telling you different, he's lying. What's the point of making good music and not sharing it?
DRE: Have you produced anyone else lately?
PO: From a production point of view I've got two albums that I'll be producing. Spitfires solo album and the electronic rock band Bad Apples. There is a movie coming up that I'm scoring and then a bunch of remixes of Madonna and U2.
DRE: What do you like about remixing?
PO: The process really of taking something and throwing it into something else, but keeping the integrity of the artist, whether it is Madonna or The Editors, makes it work in a completely different area. I strip it down, change the arrangement structure and add a lot of additional stuff to it.
DRE: What is the new movie you are scoring?
PO: It's called Nobel Son and Alan Rickman and Danny DeVito are in it. It is very much in the mood of Snatch and Pulp Fiction.
DRE: How do you pick the movies you score?
PO: The producers were looking for something in the MTV culture, something dark, so they approached me.
DRE: Do you want to write screenplays or direct films?
PO: I don't know about that. Ive been scoring films for four years now and doing quite a lot of it so I don't know about getting into writing or being a director. I'm not very good at writing.
DRE: What are you listening to now?
PO: A lot of Middle Eastern music. I'm doing some research for a film that's just come along so Im just tossing in a lot of ethnic sounds.
DRE: What is the film?
PO: It's called nine one.
DRE: I read that you compared Paris Hiltons singing to Kylie Minogue, is that true?
PO: Yeah, very much so. She sings very much in that range of Kylie. It's not that she sings like her but she sings in the range of her. There is a big difference there.
DRE: What do you do when youre not working?
PO: I'm the same as everyone else. I go to dinner, watch movies, hangout.
DRE: What are some movies youve seen lately that youve liked?
PO: The couple of films that I've seen were only okay. I've seen a couple of the big Hollywood films that I thought were okay. The one that I really enjoyed was Thank You For Smoking but Mission Impossible III, I didn't enjoy. I thought that X-Men was just alright. Those are the last three I've seen.
DRE: Are there projects you want to do that you havent been able to yet?
PO: I feel that I'm pretty free to do anything that I want.
DRE: Do you have a dream project?
PO: Not at the moment because I'm really busy with doing the promotions and then the projects that I have coming up.
DRE: I just heard you remixed one of Burning Spears tracks. Are you a reggae fan?
PO: I am a fan of reggae. I came from a Black Jamaican area in London and reggae has always been a part of my life. Also Ive got a lot of respect for Burning Spear. I thought that I could do the right mix and so I did.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Buy A Lively Mind
Daniel Robert Epstein: What was the inspiration for A Lively Mind?
Paul Oakenfold: The inspiration came from working with a lot of new artists prior to the record coming out.
DRE: Will this album sound a lot different live?
PO: Hopefully not because a lot of it was recorded. Certainly in terms of a live setup we did a lot of that stuff as a band so we know how to record and perform it live.
DRE: Do you want it to sound different live?
PO: I think that it'll be a little more spontaneous live and once we get to that point where we will go live, like we did with the last record, maybe we will change it up a bit. I think that sometimes it's good to change things. On the last record I really changed it around a bit.
DRE: How long have you been living in America?
PO: Four years.
DRE: Was having so many American musicians on this album a result of living here?
PO: No, not really. On the last album there were a few American artists. It's just a case of wherever I am, through my travels, and finding good talent to work with. It just happened that I was mainly spending my time there and that's why I ended up with a lot of new American artists rather than European.
DRE: Does finding new talent mean that you go to a record store and buy a lot of albums?
PO: No, none of the artists apart from Grandmaster Flash and Pharrell [Williams] have ever put a record out. It was word of mouth from going to shows, finding that talent and sourcing that talent.
DRE: Was it living in LA that inspired the song, Sex and Money?
PO: Yeah, to a certain extent. But it's also based on a lot of traveling that I've done and realizing that that's current climate in the world. People are obsessed with celebrity and that's the idea of that track. Living in LA, you can go to a restaurant and the waiter is an actor or the waitress is an actress. Everyone seems to be obsessed with it at the moment and that is the idea with Sex and Money.
DRE: What made you want Brittany Murphy to sing the lyrics on Faster Kill Pussycat?
PO: Well, I've been spending a lot of time working on films and scoring films and I really wanted to feature someone from the film world. She's cutting edge so she tried the vocals out and it went really well.
DRE: How did you hook up with her?
PO: I was introduced to her by a mutual friend and it was like, Why don't we try this? She did and it came out really well. She had done some singing before, but she'd never had put a record out.
DRE: Are you going to produce a record for her?
PO: If she does a record I would certainly help.
DRE: How was it writing Faster Kill Pussycat with Kelli Ali?
PO: We just came up with the idea of collaborating on a song and then I took it to instrumentation. Working with Kelli was great. It was very quick really. Kelli came to the table with a lot of ideas. She's really good and we came up with some killer choruses and some great parts.
DRE: What are your recording sessions like?
PO: Usually if I'm writing with someone it's just us. Maybe an engineer and, for instance, Kelli and me. I think that it works better with less people.
DRE: Whats your writing process like?
PO: I have samples and keyboards. It could be a sample from someone else's record or it could be a sample of a sound that I heard and I could write around it. There is no formula, it is just whatever works.
DRE: It is rare when a DJ becomes a celebrity, how do you deal with your celebrity status?
PO: People are friendly and respectful so it's fine.
DRE: A lot of people dont like it when a DJ gets popular.
PO: No, they don't.
DRE: How do you deal with that?
PO: There's not much that you can do to deal with that. Believe me everyone wants their records to be popular. If a DJ is telling you different, he's lying. What's the point of making good music and not sharing it?
DRE: Have you produced anyone else lately?
PO: From a production point of view I've got two albums that I'll be producing. Spitfires solo album and the electronic rock band Bad Apples. There is a movie coming up that I'm scoring and then a bunch of remixes of Madonna and U2.
DRE: What do you like about remixing?
PO: The process really of taking something and throwing it into something else, but keeping the integrity of the artist, whether it is Madonna or The Editors, makes it work in a completely different area. I strip it down, change the arrangement structure and add a lot of additional stuff to it.
DRE: What is the new movie you are scoring?
PO: It's called Nobel Son and Alan Rickman and Danny DeVito are in it. It is very much in the mood of Snatch and Pulp Fiction.
DRE: How do you pick the movies you score?
PO: The producers were looking for something in the MTV culture, something dark, so they approached me.
DRE: Do you want to write screenplays or direct films?
PO: I don't know about that. Ive been scoring films for four years now and doing quite a lot of it so I don't know about getting into writing or being a director. I'm not very good at writing.
DRE: What are you listening to now?
PO: A lot of Middle Eastern music. I'm doing some research for a film that's just come along so Im just tossing in a lot of ethnic sounds.
DRE: What is the film?
PO: It's called nine one.
DRE: I read that you compared Paris Hiltons singing to Kylie Minogue, is that true?
PO: Yeah, very much so. She sings very much in that range of Kylie. It's not that she sings like her but she sings in the range of her. There is a big difference there.
DRE: What do you do when youre not working?
PO: I'm the same as everyone else. I go to dinner, watch movies, hangout.
DRE: What are some movies youve seen lately that youve liked?
PO: The couple of films that I've seen were only okay. I've seen a couple of the big Hollywood films that I thought were okay. The one that I really enjoyed was Thank You For Smoking but Mission Impossible III, I didn't enjoy. I thought that X-Men was just alright. Those are the last three I've seen.
DRE: Are there projects you want to do that you havent been able to yet?
PO: I feel that I'm pretty free to do anything that I want.
DRE: Do you have a dream project?
PO: Not at the moment because I'm really busy with doing the promotions and then the projects that I have coming up.
DRE: I just heard you remixed one of Burning Spears tracks. Are you a reggae fan?
PO: I am a fan of reggae. I came from a Black Jamaican area in London and reggae has always been a part of my life. Also Ive got a lot of respect for Burning Spear. I thought that I could do the right mix and so I did.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 9 of 9 COMMENTS
"Will this album sound a lot different live?"
dude... we need to talk...