There is no name in dance music bigger than that of Paul Oakenfold – producer, promoter, record label boss, theme tune composer and, of course, leading superstar DJ. Dale Lovell met the man as he prepared to embark on a UK mini-tour promoting his greatest hits album and biography.

Over the course of his career Paul Oakenfold has held residencies at Liverpool super-club Cream, the Ministry of Sound and Home, as well as countless other clubs at home and abroad. He wrote the theme tune to the reality show Big Brother, too, has had hit singles under his own name as well as through collaborations, and did we mention that he is widely viewed as the man who brought dance music to Britain?

“It’s funny where your life takes you,” he says, while reclining in a chair in a London hotel where we meet. “I never thought I’d ever end up living in LA.” In need of a new direction Oakenfold, or ‘Oakey’ as the clubbing chant goes, relocated to California to pursue his new career as a film composer in 2002.

He says of his work in the movies: “It’s going really well; it’s mainly what I do now. I’ve just done my third feature this year called the Heavy. It’s a British gangster film that will come out next year.” Although a relative novice in the film scoring industry, Paul already has an impressive list of credits to his name, including the phenomenally successful Matrix Reloaded movie.

“It’s quite a long process doing a film score,” says Paul, “you have to find a vibe and sound that the director likes and then you go on from there. The director will tell you what he likes and doesn’t like and we keep going until its right.”

Throughout Paul’s career he has always strived to be an innovator; from holding some of the first dance music parties in London back in the 80s; championing weekly residencies, promoting DJs to the level of ‘rock-star,’ in the superclubs of the 90s; to stadium size gigs and film scoring in the naughties, as well as of course, countless remixes and single releases. For someone with an abundance of energy and a creative outlook, Paul is equally as enthusiastic about his new life in LA.

“I really enjoy living in LA; it’s a healthy, positive environment. In LA they have this cheesy dream that you can go there with one dollar and make a million.”

LA Clubbing

And if anyone thought that a dance music legend such as Oakenfold moving to LA – a city not popularly thought of as having a strong dance music scene - to take up a career in the movie industry was a sign that his DJing days were over, think again. Oakenfold recently sold out the Hollywood Bowl for a gig with Underworld.

“The LA clubbing scene is so much better than London in a number of ways. They have a lot of different clubs. They have a massive dance scene, new wave and hip hop scene.

“People think of LA as not having a dance scene, but last New Year’s Eve we had Armin Van Buren, Sander Kleinenberg, Sacha, John Digweed and Paul Van Dyck all playing in one city. London’s never had that line up in one night. These acts were playing in three different venues, all competing for the same people – that just shows you how massive the LA scene really is.”

But it does seem that getting older and life in the US has changed Paul in some respects. His attitude to ID cards is hard to reconcile with the party-loving organiser of raves from days gone by. “No one wants to be told what to do, or feel like they are being controlled, especially the British, but I think if someone under-18 is in a club then an ID card can protect you. God forbid something goes on and you get injured and your there on the floor; no one knows who you are or who to call. ID cards have all your information on there, so they can help. But the problem is that makes you just one of a number.”

It’s hard to imagine the old Oakenfold thinking this way; a veteran of raves from up and down the country in the late 80s and early 90s. “I never used to think like this, but I can see the benefits.”

Ibiza Parties

In 1995 Oakenfold and his mates organised a free party at Canu Punta in Ibiza. It was a very exclusive party, one hundred per cent illegal and an event that still holds special memories for Paul.

“It was 300 people on top of a mountain in Ibiza. We went up against the whole system. We had to flatten out the dance area, bring up portaloos and a massive generator for the sound system,” he says.

“It was so underground we only gave out invites the day of the party. We gave out a map and painted rocks florescent colours so that when you were driving at night you could see which way to go.

“It was the most exciting thing ever - the party ended at 10 o’clock in the morning. It was a one off party. We could never do that kind of thing again because the police got wind of it.”

Paul laughs at suggestions that Ibiza has lost any of its magic. “It’s become more commercial, but I don’t think it’s lost any of its edge; I still hear good things about the place.”

But for any clubbers that are suffering from Ibiza overload and are always on the lookout for new parties, Oakenfold – a man who has partied everywhere from the Great Wall of China to New York, via Goa and Latin America, has some good recommendations; “Punta de Lesta in Uruguay every January is the South American Ibiza, then you have all the islands off Thailand, and of course Northern Goa is still massive. The Eastern Bloc has some good stuff too, but there’s no where better than Ibiza really. It is what it is.”

The Ibiza party was not the last time that Paul would have problems with the police. Home, the West End nightclub he was a resident at in the early naughties, was eventually closed by the police due to drug dealing and crowd control problems, plus, in 2002, Paul was refused a permit by the police to host an annual concert on Clapham Common, following the phenomenal success of a free-gig he staged with Channel Four.

“The Clapham Common gig was a massive turning point for me. I just can’t explain it,” he says of the event that cemented in his mind his star status. Channel Four expected no more than 20,000 to turn up to watch an England cricket test on a large screen put up on the Common by the TV Station, who also arranged for it to be followed by a DJ set by Oakenfold. On the day – a glorious summer’s day – more than 70,000 people turned up to see Paul in action. It was pandemonium.

“Everything fell into place. It was packed. There was a moment when I thought it could get out of control because people just kept on coming. It was a sunny day and I think the stars were aligned. If it had been raining we would have got less than 30,000.”

But Paul’s hopes of putting on a free show every year were thwarted by the police. “I wanted to do a free show every year in London, but the police said no because they said they couldn’t control the 70,000 crowd.”

Playing in front of a 70,000 capacity crowd and going on tour with the likes of Madonna and U2, is a far cry from where it all started for Paul, who hails from South London.

Although already an avid music fan before, it was as a 19 year old kid in New York in the early 80s that saw Paul’s love affair with the decks, hip hop and clubbing really begin. He was a regular at some of New York’s greatest ever nightclubs – Studio 54, the Funhouse and more, but it was Larry Levan and the Paradise Garage that really made its mark on the impressionable Oakenfold.

“It was the ultimate nightclub with the right people and the right sound system. It was for a lot of DJs who went there the greatest place to go. When I was resident at Ministry of Sound they tried to base it on the Paradise Garage and succeeded to a certain extent.”

Despite having numerous successes with acts on his own label Perfecto, and after success under pseudonyms such as Grace, it was only in relatively recent years that he has released music under his own name. Did he have any regrets about not releasing music under his own name earlier?

“I’m not interested in being a pop star; I’m not Justin Timberlake. Instead of Oakenfold I like the idea of creating separate entities. All I want to do is make good, cutting edge music.”