Master DJ CARL COX speaks to JOE JACKSON from clubbers' paradise Ibiza, about his role in the evolving face of dance music, releasing a new single, and what dance fans can expect to hear when he headlines the SW4 festival at Clapham Common on Saturday, August 26. CARL Cox is big - in every sense of the word. He's built like a rugby player, and if you spend five minutes with the world famous DJ, you are left in no doubt he possesses every bit as much presence as a Dallaglio or the all conquering Martin Johnson himself. But it is as a person who has never been afraid to take the risks necessary to move himself and the music scene forward that has truly marked him out as the biggest fish in his pond. Dance music is booming in a period of sustained mainstream popularity and Carl is its perennial ambassador, a brand name around the globe synonymous with thumping techno basslines and progressive club nights. The 44-year-old's ability to know what clubbers want before they themselves even seem to, has been the driving force behind his phenomenal success in both performance and music production. From being one of the first to embrace 'acid house' when it broke onto the UK dance scene in the late 1980s, through to his continued involvement in shaping today's clubbing scene in the summer capital of the world - Ibiza, Carl Cox has always been one step ahead of his imitators. "When the acid house sound came around I felt 'yes', that is where I'm coming from," he recollects. "People thought I'd flipped out. They were saying 'it's not soul, it's not funk, Coxy's gone gay' and all this sort of stuff. But I was like, no. This is the future of music and eventually you will all understand the reason why I took this step forward." It is not just through foresight however, that this icon of modern club culture has propelled himself to worldwide recognition. As soon as Carl began to display his innovative performing qualities live, his passage to international DJ stardom seemed guaranteed. "I went through the whole hip-hop era of mixing and scratching on turntables," he says. "But when it came to house music you couldn't really scratch and mix in the hip-hop fashion, you had to blend the music. I had no problem with that but then it got to a point where there was only so much I could do with two turntables. So I thought: 'what if I introduce a third one'?" And so early one hazy Sunday morning in 1988, he did exactly that, coaxing 15,000 tired all-night ravers back on to their feet with a display of musical ingenuity that has gone down in clubbing folklore. The awe-struck South London crowd had never seen anything like it before, and immediately crowned him the 'Three Deck Wizard' a nickname that, to his dismay, has stuck to this day. "I put myself in it, to be honest," he laughs. "It's hard for DJs to mix on two turntables these days so to do it on three, it was always something else. Clubbers really wanted to see this, every single time! They'd call me the Three Deck Wizard so people would be sitting around going 'well do three turntables then'!" So with mixing vinyl records on 'decks' playing such a large part his rise to fame, and cementing his DJ character, one might be surprised that Carl has abandoned the turntables for live performances. But he maintains the nature of technical progress spawns further innovation and creative dynamism - something he clearly thrives on. "I stopped playing vinyl two years ago and completely went over to CDs," he explains. "I'm still creating an art of performance but from a new digital point of view. I have three CD players... and I'm also creating loops, samples, triggers and all sorts of stuff that you can't do on turntables." But fans should be assured Carl has no intention of letting his enthusiasm to embrace new technology get in the way of his iconic style. There will be no computer-editing software on stage. "I won't play on a computer because that's not my art of performance. There's no way I'm going to have a mouse clicking on to a screen and then go 'yeah wicked!' I could never do it." The DJ is pragmatic about what current trends may mean for the much-loved vinyl format. "Unfortunately vinyl is getting more and more of a kicking," he concedes. "We used to listen to '8-track' many years ago, now we listen to MP3s. It's just a natural progression of where it will end up. Eventually, there'll be a few DJs who continue to play vinyl that will be left out in the cold. But it's still playing music at the end of the day, no matter what form it comes out on." His commitment to music can be seen throughout the DJ-producer's current ventures. Last year's Carl Cox and Friends events brought musicians on stage, introducing a live music element into his sets, and showcasing acts that the artist felt deserved musical recognition. "I am opening the door for people that I think should come through because I believe in them," he states. At the same time Carl has created his own record label, Intec, which produces single-track releases for previously unknown artists, who would otherwise struggle to get their music heard. "I don't want to turn them into an album artist, or acoustic bands, or get them to festivals... this is not what the label does," he stresses. "It's still very independent. Everything that's spent on Intec records comes out of my own back pocket. No major labels are involved, no major investors. It's just me! If it does well I get the benefit but the important thing is people get to hear new music." Intec recently celebrated its 50th release, and it was decided there was no better way to mark the occasion than for its founder to release his first original track on the label. Publicly aired for the first time by Pete Tong on Radio 1 last week, the double-sided K'passa/Spoon release will get one of its first live outings at the upcoming SW4 festival on Clapham Common. Following his participation in 2005, Carl is SW4's ambassador for this year. And having hosted the launch party at the Brixton Academy in April, with a marathon four-hour set, he is the festival's headline act, a gig he is clearly looking forward to, despite it being in the middle of the day. "I'm a South London boy true and true," he admits. "Clapham Common is a place my mum used to push me around in a pram so I feel associated with not only the event itself but the venue. It blew me away last year when there were 15,000 people who had come to hear me play at two o'clock in the afternoon." And Carl reveals that there is another little piece of personal history that has drawn him back to the common to play SW4. "Years and years ago there was a big 'Sunrise' party called 'In Search of Space' in Popham. About 10,000 people would descend on Clapham Common for an after-party, all dancing to the same radio station called 'Centre Force Radio'. "After a while it became the thing to do. Police eventually stopped it because unsavoury things were happening, but it's great to see that it's moved on into something else. So for me to get up on stage there is just a really positive thing." Until this mighty reunion of Carl and Common, the DJ is where all international dance artists want to be in summer: Ibiza. The Mediterranean club capital has been hosting Carl for the past five years at the newly revamped Space nightclub, and once again he has been displaying his progressive streak by breaking with convention and organising drum'n'bass support acts, instead of sticking to the traditional house and techno line-up. "My nuts were out for that one! Even the management of Space thought it was a bad idea," he recalls of the serious risk that he took with last summer's invitations to d'n'b favourites Roni Size and LTJ Bukem. "The mixed international crowd are really enjoying it and the reason is they get so much house everywhere around the island that when you offer nights a little bit different they're like 'ahh... thank God for that, something refreshing!' he explains. For someone who consistently likes to progress and change things, what is it about Ibiza that keeps pulling him back summer after summer? "I've been coming here over 22 years, and I still love this place. I love it," says Carl. "We should be over it, have moved on, found something else. But there isn't anything else, this is as good as it gets! And for me I'm really happy to be a part of it." Carl's love of his music, his life, his experiences, become so tangible when you listen to him speak you can't help but become infected by his enthusiasm. You want to go straight to a party. Having had so many seminal moments in his life, could he pinpoint one that truly stands out? "That's a tough question... there have been some serious defining moments in my career," he recollects. "I mean if I had said to my mother, 'okay in 10 years time I'm going to play to 1.8 million people in Berlin' or 'for the millennium I'm going to go to Sydney, Australia, DJ for six hours then jump on a flight for eight hours to go back in time and do it all over again in Hawaii', she would have said: 'I'm going to take you to a f**king shrink! You're tripping!' But these are all the things that have happened in my life." Probably not surprisingly with this wealth of life experience, Carl exudes a positive outlook more in tune with an Indian guru than a bloke from South London. In the past, he has stated that he uses music 'to cross physical and cultural boundaries and bring people together'. So how does he feel when he looks around the world and sees others, namely politicians, seeming to work against this vision? "Put it this way, I was in Beirut, Lebanon, two months ago and when I got there people were so happy - Carl Cox has come to Beirut, Lebanon. We've had so much crap go on here in our country and for once we're all going to dance under the same beat, under the same roof... we don't want to kill each other, we just want to have the best time possible. The people were amazing," he says. So does this 44-year-old workaholic see himself continuing on into his 50s and 60s - a Mick Jagger of the dance music world perhaps? "Na!" He laughs. "I've dedicated my life to music, performing, travelling, and to being professional and giving people the best time possible. So it will reach a stage where I need to start getting my own life as well and rest on the laurels of what I've done. I'm not sure when that is, but I'll live the rest of my years out knowing that I've given happiness to millions of people worldwide." And it's happiness that one senses Carl Cox has had a fair share of along the way. * The Metro Weekender (comprising Get Loaded in the Park and SW4), Clapham Common, August 26-27. For full line-ups see www.getloadedinthepark.com and www.southwestfour.com Tickets are available for the entire Metro Weekender, or SW4 and Get Loaded individually from ticketmaster. Tickets are £30 for SW4 or £55 for the weekend. Ticket hotine: 0870 0601 801, or www.ticketmaster.co.uk | 
