Ponderous Paul
The highlight of the Space Terraza this summer at We Love. Weekly
Paul Woolford clarified, refined and defined the sound of one of the most important rooms in contemporary dance music each Sunday. Paul Woolford’s
Intimacy Music label is an outlet for his more experimental offerings. Not limited by genre or expectation, Intimacy Music aims to deliver the highest calibre dancefloor techno and tech-house while also proactively trying to surprise people with avant-garde productions. If you haven’t checked out his remix of DJ Hell and P. Diddy (yes Puff Daddy, Sean John Combs, Puffy, et al) – The DJ, then do so, it’s great.
Q. Is there one book that you have read that has been life-changing for you?
A. Paul Arden’s “Whatever You Think, Think The Opposite”. I don’t really go in for self-help books, but this is more like a tool for refreshing your state of mind. It comprises of a series of very short, direct, statement designed to make you think around creative problems. It’s something I always have to hand in the studio, and I’ve ended up giving away about 5 copies of it to friends over the years.
Q. Did your parents encourage you to work in music?
A. Yes. My parents supported my interest in music from a young age, and kudos to them as I started to gravitate towards drums when I was 10 – they were asking for trouble in the noise department. This didn’t end up with a kit in my bedroom, which was probably a good thing for them. I learnt the basics in lessons at school and then moved onto keyboards which offered wider stimulation. Yamaha & Casio home keyboards of the 80s had some incredible features on. One of the first Yamaha keyboards I got had a very basic but effective FM synthesizer on it, which served as a good introduction to how sounds are made, and then I moved onto a Casio SK5 which had a very crude sampler on it, so between the two, I had unwittingly began to teach myself some very raw skills. These were the building blocks of everything to follow.
Q. How did you begin to work professionally in music?
A. The first record I had available was a collaboration with Swedish prodigy Tony Senghore. It was on a 3 track EP on his Anonym label and the track was called ‘This Last Week’. Heavily psychedelic deep house, and that sparked a really fertile series of collaborations and a very intense and incredible friendship. We met through a mutual friend, and immediately embarked upon a relentless period of experimenting. The first track we made was a very deep, almost aquatic drum n’ bass thing, and that was within an hour of talking to each other in the flesh. As our friendship grew, we became inseparable and made about 4 12″s including a double pack which brought us to the attention of Kevin McKay of Glasgow Underground. They signed us up for an album, which took about a year to complete in between many, many late nights of inspiration. Although I had been djing and begun to make a name for myself, I’d say this was the moment that things started to move into a professional capacity. Tony lives back in Sweden now but I still speak to him occasionally via email. I miss his humour. We had an amazing time.
Intimacy
A. This one’s a very complex one to answer in a manner that will do the question justice. Suffice it to say that it happens every day.
Q. Where is your current studio and what is it like?
A. It’s my second home and accordingly very comfortable. It feels right. A mixture of analogue hardware and various carefully-chosen items. I’m adding and subtracting constantly but there’s some core items that will never change. I can’t keep out of there.
Q. How much have you had to consider marketing issues since embarking on your career and how has that affected your creativity?
A. I’ve thought a lot about this over the last year, and it’s true that many DJ / producer types promote themselves in ways that make them look as if they are selling racing bikes or razor blades. There is nothing quite so counterproductive as that stuff to my mind. I’m more interested in developing as an artist & producer. Marketing is a necessary distraction, but it has to be taken into consideration.
Q. How would you describe your work?
A. Exhausting but fulfilling.
Q. Who were your teachers?
A. There continues to be more & more. You never stop learning and absorbing, which is one of the most exciting things about this. At a practical level I learnt a lot from a guy called Jamie Sefton who’s studio I rented when I was about 20, Tony Senghore, and then from listening to records, Rick Rubin, Brian Eno, Steve Reich, Phil Spector, Stevie Wonder, Trevor Horn, Manuel Gottsching, Prince & many, many more incredible people. Outside of music, Jeff Koons and Andy Warhol have made many astute observations that are probably more relevant to the marketing question but nevertheless, lessons to be learnt.
Q. Your home is burgled but fortunately the culprits are caught and your possessions returned to you. What would you deem a suitable punishment for the burglars?
A. The misery that comes their way naturally is punishment enough.
Q. You have to make one species of animal extinct. Excluding insects, which species would you make extinct?
A. Skunks. They stink!
Q. If you could spend one week in any period of history, which period would you choose?
A. This period. I don’t want anything to change.
Paul Woolford – DJ Profile
Paul Woolford – Myspace
Intimacy Music – Myspace
Paul Woolford – Twitter
