DJ Spooky Speaks... by Nitricboy

Nitric presents the full interview transcript of his interview with DJ Spooky -- this had to be trimmed to 600 words for the magazine that originally published it. Here it is, uncut.
Earlier this month a magazine asked me to interview DJ Spooky for a short 600 word article.

I went along to a gig he was doing with Luke Vibert in East London with the intention of interviewing him there. Unfortunately he was late for the gig (late night in Brighton the day before I think) and I missed my slot. So the next day I got a call at 10 in the morning telling me to be in Islington at his hotel for 11. I raced over there and we met up in the lobby. After a trip to Boots the Chemist to stock up on toothpaste and deodorant we sat down for a coffee and chatted for a good 45 mins. As the article I had to write was quite short it seems a waste to just discard some of the stuff I couldn’t use (especially as Spooky is such an intelligent, funny and interesting interviewee). So here is the transcript of the interview in a rough, unedited form. I hope you enjoy it. - Nitricboy (28/11/01)

On New York:
I’m originally from mid-town Manhattan near Madison Sq Garden scene. My other studio used to be on Canal Street which was my favourite area it was like Chinatown mixed with Little Italy and that kind of whole downtown hybrid scene. But it was a bit too hectic so I moved uptown to this industrial area.

On the September 11 attacks:
It makes me realise how totally ignorant most of the US populous is in terms of the ruling classes’ games. People are always wondering why foreigners hate the US or have a lot of bitter things to say about it but if they just looked at a lot of the US govt's policies over the last thirty years or so there's a lot of reasons for anger. The city has been reeling in this intense paranoia like psychological uncertainty.. like you never know. I left JFK airport for example and a day and a half later this plane crashed coming out of JFK. That kind of had me flipped out. But near me the Rockerfeller Centre had an anthrax attack and so they had these guys wearing biological warfare suits and machine guns...you know its a bit hectic in terms of everyday reality is now feeling more and more like some science fiction military shit. A friend of mine is designing the memorial. There's going to be these two huge towers of light where each tower stood. These laser pulse columns that will be simulations of the tower but will reach up into the sky. It's going to look amazing. They're trying to move ahead with it to show that America can heal and things so...it's like a really poetic statement so the landscape will be pierced by these huge lights and that's gonna be a sign of resilience. Psychologically you'll never know 'what next?'

On his style of music and the ‘illbient’ tag:
It was just meant to be a sense of humour word play - I think a lot of people take everything way too over the top in terms of whether or not something has the right label. Like hip hop is four beats in a certain measure or a certain tempo range or techno is this or that - it's just a load of shit it's just mainly about the music you know... The idea is to make people focus on ideas. So somehow that term illbient doesn't have the baggage all those other terms have and so.... Music these days, you go to remember that most people have it pounded into them that music is supposed be un-intellectual you're not supposed to think about anything it should be a basic consumer, fun, party. So as things get a little more conceptual also people get a little nervous but the fun thing about being in NY is that it is a culture which has a tradition of composers doing wild shit. It's a culture in the US that's been able to deal with a diversity of mental stuff. You have Yoko Ono, Philip Glass, Steve Wright. I can recount zilions of composers who have lived there but in top of that when you add hiphop and you add break beat culture why not try and continue those traditions and try and make it evolve into the 21st century?

On ‘intelligent music’:
Yeah I'd say Philip Glass and David Bowie are both pretty popular you know, and they're both conceptual headz. I don' think David Bowie is a knucklehead just hanging out, he's into art and music or whatever. It's mainly a matter of perception. That's one thing everyone kind of thinks of me 'oh this guy wants to try and push people to read books and think about things' but at the same time, in this day and age, my God if you don't know anything forget it. The 21st century is all going to be about information. And if you don't know anything you're just a basic consumer hanging out - it's a very limited shelf life on that one.

On collecting and beat digging:
I've been collecting since I was a kid and basically I just kind of think of it as a kind of extended memory, of how things could be. I went to high school where the punk kids were hanging out with the reggae kids and the reggae kids were into the DC beat scene and that was like Go-Go and then we had this weird early industrial scene and Meat Beat Manifesto used to come through so it was a lot more mixed and when I got to NY everything was a lot more rhythmically segregated: the hip hop kids were strictly that, the breakbeat scene was strictly breakbeat and that was really boring because 4 to 10 hours of the same style of music all night is mental hell for me...I don't know how to describe it...it’s like listening to the same MP3 files over and over you know, it just doesn't work. Somehow because that's the basic standard of the consumer mentality for music it's just been conditioning, but for beats that's where people can show they love music it's not about what style, people just look for 'interesting shit' period. Everybody has the pride of his or her collection. I'm open to stuff - somehow at the beginning of when I was starting to DJ a lot somehow the reputation got to be the arty thing but my sets are meant to be a mix of hiphop, drum and bass and breaks but with different weird randomised sounds and stuff but it started out as an art project - it was meant to be about invisible sculpture: taking fragments of sound and making it collide and somehow it took off and took on a life of its own. All of a sudden that meant it had to be super-esoteric and not you know...

On his novel and Science Fiction:
I’m taking two months off early in 2002 to finish the book (as well as two compilations already published). It’s set in the near future with bio-tech shit and sound-as-virus type stuff. Kind of William S Burroughs meets JG Ballard with a little bit of voodoo stuff thrown in. The DJing has slowly evolved out of this idea of invisible sculpture - taking fragments of time and mixing them back and forth a plain straight-up simple equation of totally unprecedented human expression so I would make these mixes and give them out - encourage people to make their own mixes (this is back in 1996) and so eventually DJ Spooky came to be one of the main characters in the novel to try and blur the line between fiction and reality. Once you get to this post-modern shit.... Sure [sci-fi] influences me. I read a lot of it. At this point I have to admit the world is becoming science fiction - when I saw those planes bank into the WTC and anthrax letters all this shit is like something straight out of some crazy JG Ballard book - it's all super over the top. Even a year ago if you'd said you know that you're going to wake up one morning and see the WTC people coated in white dust I'd be like "right that sounds like a weird party but not one I'd be at anytime soon you know." The way the TV focused on all the repetition of the images I was in Sweden - I had to call Thurston Moore his practice base was near there. I would take a led-zeppelin balloon over the Atlantic in a second. I think it would be cool.

On the mix CD ‘Under the Influence’:
The basic idea around 'under the influence' was to show that its all about patterns.. beats are just ways of organising sound, so the whole thing about names and titles for different styles etc etc is pretty much bullshit to me, and the mix was to show how its all linked.

On remixing as opposed to original compositions:
When I make my own material, its much more an interpretation of my own situation, and that means its an interior thing... when you work with other peoples stuff its your interpretation of their situation... its more like a conversation. External... the idea on the new mix is to balance between the two... internal and external... we live in a world where we're bombarded with signals and sounds... I like to think of what I do as just opening my self up to the world around me.

On ‘real’ instruments versus electronic methods:
They are just reflections of one another. Like I said earlier, its just patterns. The real deal with 21st century culture is going to be when people finally realise that everything can and will be digital - its just a matter of time, so the old instruments I treasure for the way they remind me about being physical... its sometimes a little more fun than just typing on a keyboard or laptop...

On the live show:
I'm not really into rules about beats and styles so I tend to switch things up a lot, but this is a dance oriented mix, so I'm trying to figure out ways to make sure that people can get the basic situation of how stuff works in downtown NYC... I represent that New York sound of the underground. Laptop, turntables etc etc its all part of the situation...

On music and it’s relation to art and philosophy:
People really need to relate to something that's part of their daily lives. I look more at the Warhol model of how music and art can flow together... its philosophy as environment... but yeah, sound already speaks about what people do and think... dj'ing is folk culture for the digital age... but the main thing is that people explore how much it all is changing, and that's why its become so important. It will be integrated into 'academic culture' but in a way that won't parallel the 20th century's needs or goals...

On DJ Culture and the ‘Superstar’ DJs:
A lot of 'superstar' dj's are really dumb... and a lot of pop stars are full of shit... I don't really care that much about either... but I like people who are really into what they're doing. That's the mark of someone who will be around for a long time. Most of the people who make their living from hype fade away after a pretty short while. Its the ones with ideas that last for a long time. It's the David Bowie syndrome... so many of the short term pop stars from his era are gone, yeah?

On the upcoming magazine project 21C:
It’s a cross between a magazine that people can check out for ideas or one that they can look at for images... there's so much to be thought out - magazines are cool because they give you new perspectives, and I think that we're kind of saturated right now with the normal run of the mill pop stuff... its time for some new perspectives...