Coxy Coxy
This chant greets legendary crowd-pleaser Carl Cox when he
plays in clubs across the world. Now he’s releasing an album
called ‘At The End of the Cliché’. Is this the beginning of
a new Coxy era?
“I love the music for a start. It’s the only thing that
really keeps me going. I love seeing people enjoy the music
that I play, obviously, there’s a lot of talent out there.
People come and get inspired and then try to copy it and do
well by themselves. In the early days, there was a lot of
rock bands and people looked up to The Beatles and stuff -
playing air guitars and wanting to be like them. Now with
the DJ situation, people want the decks and they want to be
like Carl Cox, Sasha, Paul Oakenfold, Digweed…. I suppose
we’ve become like the hierarchy of our century but I don’t
see it like that. My interest has always been music and
records. I never professed to be a live musician as such but
at the end of the day, I took the bull by the horns and said
‘Okay, this is my fate’. The DJ – picking up on other
people’s music and playing it to the rest of the world at
the smallest clubs to the biggest parties you’ve sever
seen”.
Carl Cox is talking about how he came to be where he is
today as we sit and chat in the Velvet Underground just
before the doors are opened for Ultimate BASE, his regular
Thursday night residency. Tonight will prove to be quite
special as Cox plays a full five hour set, spinning
everything from post-ambient to trip-hop beats, jazz, funk,
house and soul. The first trickle of punters will soon turn
into a veritable flood until the whole club is positively
heaving. I’m asked over the course of the evening why
‘Britain’s Biggest DJ’ should choose to play such a small,
intimate venue when he could pack out privileged position to
do as he pleases and he wisely chose not to loose touch with
his grass roots as he attempts to realise his ultimate
ambitions.
“My parents were into R&B, funk and soul, Jim Reeves, Duane
Eddy…. A completely eclectic style of music. Not that there
was any one genre you were supposed to listen to. As a
start, I had a good education. Whether a singer’s black,
white, green or blue, if you can feel their music and they
have something to say – you can really appreciate that and
that’s what I picked up on. The same has always been true
throughout my career. I used to do weddings and birthday
parties and introduced 60s music and rock and roll era as
well as Madonna, Adam & The Ants and that sort of stuff. I’d
just gel it together hopefully with some dance music thrown
in for good measure – some O Jays, some Pendergrass. I
become unique because I was always trying to introduce dance
music from a very early age rather then profess to be just a
rock and roll DJ”.
Cox is at great pains to make the distinction between his
DJing and his music making. “I’m someone who is able to
create music because (technological) progression has allowed
us to do that. I’m just expressing myself really. What I
have in my head and what I’m trying to release. I could have
made a really commercial, successful record but in that sort
of situation, you’re living a lie to yourself and insulting
your intelligence. I know I can make music as well as a
musician. If I didn’t then I would just make the hits and
get the money and ‘Oh yeah, here’s the next 2 Unlimited’. I
have something to say and hope that other people can respect
that what, at the moment, they clearly do”.
“I’m trying to set a high standard of what you’re supposed
to listen to from a DJ point of view. Its nice to have DJ
mixes of this, that and the other. You’re supposed to know
how the dance floor works but when you’re hot, you’re hot,
and when you’re not, you’re not. At the end of the day, you
have nothing to fall back on when you fall out of favour
with these people. I have something to say with my own
music. Here it is. If you want that sound then you can have
it as a remix because I already have my initial sound.
Nothing like that comes in and I just carry on with my own
music. The worst thing about remixing is if you have a lot
of ideas, you’re just giving them away to other artists and
they do really well with it”.
“People will see you as someone who has made just that style
of music while I’m someone who has grown up with all sorts
of different styles. I’m able to make all sorts of styles so
therefore in a form of expression, there should be no
limits, no boundaries. People just take you for what you
are. You’re a person making music no matter what it is. I
just felt that as I’m going along in my career as a DJ and
obviously taking another step forward and producing the
stuff, there’s no record label that was required to make
music from my end of it – as a DJ – hence I started the
record label up myself because I’m the only one who can
understand how to sell Carl Cox. It’s not an easy road
because as soon as there’s something a bit strange, a bit
weird, it won’t get in the Top 20 or whatever, they just say
no – you don’t get a second chance and therefore it pushes a
lot of people into making dance accessible records”.
It was Cox’s disillusionment with other record companies
which lead him to found Worldwide Ultimatum – changed from
just plain Ultimatum after it was discovered that the Stereo
MCs had a production company of the same name. “I had a
record deal in my early days with Perfecto Records in 1991.
I had three successful years with them but I got burnt over
how they treated me as an artist. They just wanted to make a
certain sound but I wanted to say ‘I have this, but I have
that as well’. They didn’t want to know about that, hence
not being signed to Perfecto Records anymore. So there was
no point rushing into another recording deal because it
would have been more of the same. I decided to set up a
smaller label called MMR (More Music Records). I did quite a
bit of licensing from Germany and Holland and put out a few
of my own records – not like the ‘big splash Carl Cox – go
and buy it now’. I just like people to pick up on the music
at face value and that kind of slowly built”.
However, Cox soon realised that his music would get out to a
wider audience if it had some money behind it, which lead to
him hooking up with Edel Records. “I wasn’t about to turn my
small label into something like CBS because I would have to
give time and dedication to it which, at the moment, I
haven’t got. I needed a company which could take at face
value what I have as an A&R person, as an artist and someone
who actually has something to say in respect to setting up a
label which has a certain type of music coming out of it but
also allows the artists to express themselves/ I don’t care
what it is as long as I can feel what you’re saying and that
is the whole basis of Worldwide Ultimatum Records”.
Worldwide Ultimatum’s first release was a sampler featuring
tracks from Judge Jules, Josh Wink, Craig Walsh, Josh
Abrahams and a couple of tracks from Cox himself – the
melancholic ‘Song for Rachel’ and ‘Education’, a
collaboration with Eric Powell, Josh Abraham’s excellent
‘The Satyricon’ quickly followed. Forthcoming are albums
from Cox and the newly signed Craig Walsh and Sub Culture,
as well as a second sampler. “It’s very hard. I get a lot of
demo tapes and stuff, but I’m not feeling what Josh or Craig
is giving me or what I’m doing myself”.
Cox’s first offering himself from Worldwide Ultimatum was
the recent ‘Three Paintings and a Drum’ EP, featuring lead
track ‘Phoebus Apollo’. “It’s a bit of a weird one really.
These things kind of collect together like pieces of a
jigsaw puzzle. When you normally do a track, you just focus
– you know who’s going to buy it and you just make the track
but it was very important for me not to sell out between
making something which would definitely to into the charts,
and something which has emotion and feeling. The way that
'‘Phoebus Apollo' came out was completely perfect for me in
respect to coming back into the mainstream again with this
sort of record. It also broke down all sorts of barriers
where, at the end of the day, you don’t have to make a
record that you know is going to go into the charts – you
can just make what you feel and what you believe in and I’m
sure it will come through and people will appreciate it”.
Cox and all concerned were consequently pleasantly surprised
when ‘Three Paintings and a Drum’ went into the Top 30. “I
was so shocked and so pleased by that. A lot of people
around me, especially the hierarchy – the record company and
the DJs – were just astounded by that”.
‘Phoebus Apollo’ is aptly named after the Roman God of music
and the sun. “When I was making the record, if I just stood
back and listened to it, it just gave me a feeling of warmth
like the aura of the sun. We looked it up in the thesaurus
to see what the aura of the sun was and it ended up being
Phoebus Apollo. It just evolved from that. When we were
recording it, our minds were working towards something which
has substance. It’s quite cool. I could have made a real
‘hands in the air’ handbag record which has nothing to do
with anything apart from being commercial enough to be on
Top of the Of Pops. I knew that I could go past that with
something which has real meaning. I like to think that I’m a
bit of a genius in that respect because most people would
never have thought about that song in that situation. Fair
play to Rachel. She heard it and said ‘What does it make you
feel? Why did you make that?’ I explained it and we kind of
worked together on it”.
Cox’s follow-up single, ‘Sader’s Dream’ which was released
at the end of April is, he says, “A lot more house
orientated and a little bit more old school. I want people
to know that there is a sound that evolved before the sound
that you’ve got today. ‘Sader’ is a sample that I’ve taken
off a Crusaders groove. Again, there’s a lot of feeling and
energy. It does sound old school but with a new school
flavour. There’s a lot of strings in there and it sounds
quite inspiring. So, I’ve done this track which throws
everything out of whack because it’s got nothing to do with
techno. It’s just a really good, pumping house track with
feeling. I’ve also done a remix of it which brings the sound
up-to-date as well as a really minimalistic underground
record called ‘Worldwide Ultimatum’ which is basically my
voice going through filters and soundscapes. It’s really
dark and different”.
Cox’s long awaited album, ‘At The End of the Cliché’ will
finally see the light of day at the end of May. “In the
early days, you needed cliché to get where you wanted, but
I’ve always made my own path in life – so it’s like the end
of the cliché – just breaking things down in that respect”.
“There’s a lot of down-tempo dub and guitar stuff. There’s
also a lot of expression. Every record hasn’t got slamming
acid, relentless beats and stuff. You have to listen to it,
that’s all I can really say. I could have made dancefloor-friendly
music if I wanted, but I just haven’t got the feel for that.
That is a very industry-friendly game to play and I’ve never
really been industry-friendly. My heart doesn’t lie in that.
I want to make hits for radio and stuff. All the remixes
that I’ve done have always had inspiration in them – but
it’s cool because I have stood my ground for what I truly
believe in”.
Cox certainly won’t be slowing up in the near future. Apart
from Ultimate BASE, his monthly residency at Cream’s ‘Full
On’ and regular stints around his home town of Brighton,
he’ll also be appearing once again at this year’s Tribal
Gathering. He certainly has fond memories of last year’s
landmark dance festival.
“I went on after Orbital and can’t really express how I felt
after what they did. People really got into it. It wan’t
really classed as a rave at the end of the day. It was just
a really big party. People from all over the country and the
world coming together and having a good time. I thought that
was really positive for the whole scene and the industry as
a whole, because the authorities are always trying to break
down the raves and the gatherings but we’ve got Underworld
doing this and Leftfield doing that. It was just brilliant.
Glastonbury even more so – it was just the best event I’ve
ever done in my life. A totally landmark party”.
DJs
