This week Rubix welcomes to Sub Club one of the world’s most renowned music figures. It’s been more than a wee while since we had him in for a session (6 years!) but his legacy and music collection really should need no introduction or hype to remind you of his steez. Ahead of his return to Sub Club on Thursday night, Gilles caught up with Rubix to chat about his current projects, record labels and his love of 22 Jamaica St.
Thanks for talking to us today, Gilles. What does the average Gilles Peterson day consist of?
I’ve spent all the years building a lifestyle that I’m happy with: having an office and people working with me at Brownswood, allowing us to develop all the different strands that I’m involved with in a nice comfortable way. For me it’s always been about maintaining the passion and enjoyment in what I do. It can be really difficult when you’re an ‘artist-stroke-businessman’, which is probably what I am.
It’s basically just about enjoying everything, because the moment it becomes stressful it affects everything I do. I tend to switch myself out of music when I’m at home. I’ve got a family, another life, which is great. I really appreciate the fact that I have people who look after me. I’ve had some fortune in the sense that I’ve had people that who’ve put me back on track whenever I’ve been out of sync. It’s good to have a normal life, not that being a DJ is abnormal, but it’s a bit different to most mums and dads taking their kids to school. I live a modest life in East London.
You’ve got that home in London, but as you travel around the world for work, are there any other places you feel are ‘home’?
In Japan and the States and certain places in Europe I’ve got my family. When I say that I mean DJ and promoter family, people I’ve worked with for years. Weirdly enough I do take on gigs that are completely random. I think it’s important to not keep to comfortable. So when someone comes along and says ‘I’ve never met you before, I really want to bring you to the Philippines’ then I’m usually up for a laugh. You’ve always gotta leave it open for the odd little curveball, because otherwise everything becomes too comfortable.
But Japan’s always an amazing place to play for me, I’ve been going there since pre-acid house, and I’ve seen it grow. I always have a wicked time in Toronto. There’s a big audience for me in France – I do radio there and I’m half French so they connect with me on that level – but the club culture over there is a bit confused sometimes. So I set up my own thing, which I’ve been doing now for two years in Paris, and it’s become probably the best gig that I do. Every Sunday I play from 5 in the afternoon until 1 o’clock in the morning, so there isn’t the Saturday stress you might get playing the Rex at 3am. Probably the best thing I do is the festival that I run every year in France [Worldwide Festival]. It’s a platform for all the friends, artists, bands and DJs that I love. Everyone who I’ve visited over the year seems to turn up for it so it’s always great.
Gilles Peterson Worldwide 2014-05-10 Melanie de Biasio in session by Core News Uploads on Mixcloud
Worldwide Festival is a big celebration of all the music you love, but so too are your World Wide Awards. What’s the process behind choosing the shortlist and the winners?
In terms of the shortlist, I get together with a bunch of people who work in the game – Alex Patchwork to Thris Tian [Boiler Room], BPM, Benji B, Lefto – we throw it all in and work out what the year’s best records were. By being on the radio every week, having the festival, and hearing other radio shows, you can see things coming out of the scene. For me its important to say ‘Look, you can put these great people on the same line up’, covering everything from Sun Ra to Fela Kuti via Photek and James Blake. What ends up happening is that all these different musical genres help each other. That’s always been my approach, and I think it’s worked, because dynamics is what makes music so amazing. The Awards are to celebrate all that music. And, you know, we gave Benga an award, Jay Electronica, Skream, so it’s not just ‘intelligent’ music. It’s all about celebrating soundsystem culture, because that’s really where I come from.
Does that process ever feed into the music that you put out on Brownswood?
I’m very aware that I don’t want to be seen to be benefitting from my events by promoting my own artists. I think that’s disingenuous. What I do on the label is one thing, and its great when you can have success with a Ghost Poet or all the Mala. Obviously Mala works amazingly well for certain events, Swindle did last year and we just put out his single at the moment, or we might put Jose James or Zara MacFarlane on a line up. But I’m careful with the Awards. Bands signed to me tend to be at a disadvantage as well, because I can’t actually play any of my own music on the radio. I’m only allowed to play one of my tracks every couple of weeks, so I can’t play a whole hour of Brownswood. I wish I could. I’ll play loads at the club on Thursday.
Staying on Brownswood, is running a record label in 2014 very different to running, say, Talkin’ Loud in the 90s?
Yeah, it is. In a way I wish it was 1993 again, and I could be an independent label putting out records and selling loads of vinyl. But everything’s changed, especially in terms of making money in the music industry. Putting records out is really hard. I did Talkin’ Loud through Universal. They offered me a job after I was doing Acid Jazz, which I was just running out of my flat and getting broke. As there weren’t any other record labels like Talkin’ Loud then, there wasn’t really anybody to compare myself to or to be able to learn from, so when I went in I just thought I was lucky. But it would’ve been more beneficial financially if I’d stayed independent.
Having said that, I had learning experiences at the label: all the records I put out, like the Young Disciples and Roni Size, going to America and learning about how the industry works from a major label point of view. That was massively important for me, and that’s how I signed The Roots. I wouldn’t have done all these things if I’d been running a little independent label. And I can put all of that back into Brownswood now. The people who work within Brownswood have all had quite a lot of experience, and we can have fun putting out records we love whilst trying to make sense of it financially. It’s very hard though. I understand why labels are closing. If you’re Warp or Ninja, they work because they put out so much music. There’s not a lot of profit but there’s that much music that it works. But it’s tough for them. You need your Bonobos to come through.
Talking about big things coming out, could you tell us a bit about your recent project Sonzeira?
That was a project I did in January. It was a lot of fun to go to Brazil and create a ‘Brazillian super group’. It was like being able to handpick the artists that I’ve always loved and working with some amazing younger producers too. The fundamental bit of Sonzeira is Dill Harris. He’s an engineer: he did a lot of the Brokenbeat stuff, Matthew Herbert, he mixed Mount Kimbie’s last album. Then you’ve got Kassin, who’s amazing, he’s like the Brian Eno of Brazil. And then Rob Gallagher, who’s really conceptual. He’s my MC and my ‘general ideologist’. And then there’s myself. So the 4 of us had a lot of fun making this record with some legends, and we’re going to make another record next January. It’ll have a British spin on it this time. So Sonzeira’s my new group basically. It started off being a Brazillian Supergroup, but it’ll probably turn out as a sort of European Minor Quartet.
And what role do you play in it?
Well, that’s a good point actually. You should ask them! They’re probably thinking that I’ve been bluffing it all the way and they’ve been carrying me. Ideas? Obviously I don’t write music, but I suppose the remixer and producer in me is the one who goes ‘Let’s do a really crap version of Southern Freeez by Freeez’, and ‘Oh yeah, lets have a 5-minute string intro with harps and we’ll be all good’, so I’m that kind of person in the group.
You mentioned Rob Gallagher [aka Earl Zinger]. We’re really excited about having him up for the gig on Thursday. Could you tell us a bit about him and your long-standing relationship with him?
Me and Rob go back a long way. I signed him to Acid Jazz, the first record on that was Galliano [Gallagher’s acid-jazz band], and then I signed the band to Talkin’ Loud. They were amazing. People forget, they played Glastonbury 8 times. They were huge. But it was a time when the British music industry was still being run by the NME in a way and there was a sort of distrust of anything that wasn’t coming from the indie scene. So we were always fighting a little bit of an uphill struggle. People forget that. These days, if you’re on, say, Young Turks it’s great, but if it hadn’t been Mo’ Wax and Talkin’ Loud and a bunch of other labels, there would never have been a Young Turks. These are labels that came through the back of all the hard work that we did, because at that time the industry really wasn’t ready for anything remotely Black or Funky or anything. It was so hard to get anything played on the radio. Galliano was all part of those years of challenging the British establishment, and Rob’s just been incredible all the way through it. He’s been a great MC, a good laugh, and he holds me down. He’s a poet and he’s got a real big body of work, whether its as William Adamson or as Earl Zinger or Gallaino, he’s published a lot of incredible music. There’ll be a day in the future when everyone will go ‘This guy’s amazing’. But he’s just always ahead of the curve.
Will he be doing any spoken word on Thursday?
No, we’re just gonna have a laugh. He’ll play a little bit of music live, and we’re working on effects. We just had a gig a couple of weeks ago, and were trying some stuff out there and that was pretty good. We’re just constantly, er…constantly searching for the perfect beat!
Now, on Thursday, you’re back at the Sub Club. You recently put Subbie in a list of your favourite things about Scotland. What is about the club you love?
I’ve played the Sub Club about…definitely double figures. When you’re a DJ going around the world, you appreciate walking into places where they appreciate the sound and the culture and the music. For me the Sub Club’s always held that, from DJs like Harri to Nick Peacock to Paul Cawley. I’ve had some crazy nights there, back in the day. I just love walking down those stairs really. There’s nowhere else with that size and numbers like it. I’m just really excited to be coming back.
You can ready the full favourites feature over HERE.
And do you plan your DJ sets, or is it more a case of improvisation?
I don’t really plan. Whenever I’ve tried to, I go straight off it. I get bored really quickly. Of course there are a few tracks that I fall back on every now and again to reconnect me with the audience if I go a little off piste. But there’s so much music. If you were to look back at my radio shows you’d see I tend not to repeat records. There’s just so much music going on, I could do a different set every week. But then again, you’ve got your little moments that are working quite nicely, things in the back of your that you’re thinking ‘Ah wicked that worked really well the other day’. But I never plan anything really, in that sense.
Where do you feel more comfortable: on the radio or in the club?
It’s difficult. Radio can be great. If I do a really good show that I’m pleased with I get big satisfaction out of that, and the great thing about radio of course is that a lot of the people who are listening aren’t actual clubbers, so it’s different. But then again, the feeling of playing a few hours and the sun coming up…there’s nothing that beats the clubbing experience for me. The thing is for me, they feed off each other. I’ve always thought I should stop DJing soon cos I’m getting a bit old and the lifestyle’s a bit intense, but in a way, if you can control that and keep on top of yourself, then there’s nothing better than the club experience.
This mix is a particular favourite of our and has been on repeat at Subbbie HQ lately. We hope you enjoy listening to it as much as wee did.
Advance tickets to catch Gilles and the Rubix crew on Thursday are on sale HERE. More will also be on the door from 11pm.