Basement Jaxx Interview

Pelix Buxton of Basement Jaxx speak to Peter Herbst, (aka Dr.Disk - Copenhagen,Denmark), In Assoc. with Disco Mag. DenmarkAfter desperately trying to get an interview for months with the men of the hour, Basement Jaxx,I finally caught up with Felix Buxton in november 1999 when the guys where in Copenhagen,Denmark for a live-gig

DHN: How did you guys meet?

Felix: We met in London. I was working in an office and I was putting on parties in London, djing and I wanted to make my own dance tracks because I felt a lot of the dance tracks around seemed very simple and weren t well enough. And I heard through friends of friends that Simon... he had some equipment in London so I gave him a call and said could I hire some time to go into the studio. He charged me 10 pounds an hour or something to use the equipment and then we got talking... and I was very into the American, New York sound and he heard some of this and he said it d be interesting to try and make some. So I said would he be prepared to try and do this project and that s when we started. It took about a year to do that with me every two weeks. He was still at college and doing some other music aswell. And about the end of that year we had some things finished and I was talking to a distibutor and asked if he had this would he distribute it? He said yes and I said could you press it for us because we hadn t any money and he said yes. A friend of mine did the logo. And then the parties I was doing..I said Simon this logo and the name Basement Jaxx it s cool so would you mind if I called my parties that aswell and he said yeah call it whatever. Nothing mattered anyway and noone knew anything about it. And then Simon started djing at the parties aswell. And that was it.

DHN: It was in some basement in Brixton ?

Felix: Yeah, in a Mexican restaraunt.

DHN: Then there s the Jaxx, what s that?

Felix: Jaxx, well basement is just because we were doing basement, underground music and jaxx was the fact that it wasn t like European club music or British club music which at the time was very boom, boom, boom. It was jacking .It was like jack your body like the american house music. It had a shift to it , a shuffle. And t-r-a-x trax that was the first main house label and hence Jaxx.

DHN: So it was more like a garage thing?

Felix: Yeah, more rhythmical. It s bringing in other elements. It s bringing in latin rhythms it s bringing sort of soul,gospel, and more rhythmical music. More black music and less boom, boom.

DHN: Where did you get your inspirations?

Felix: For me it was all dance music. I think when I was about sixteen I started hearing the early house music and hip-hop and rare grooves and jazz... And that was for me to go out and go dancing that was what I fell in love with. It sounded fresh and exciting compared to like all the kind of brit-pop, rock that was going on. To me that was boring that was like old music. And it was all very miserable aswell. There wasn t much spirit or life in it. I think Simon was probably more into the rock side and he was in a jazz-funk band and into fusion. So that was...definitly an area where our taste met in sort of fusion. For me it was more like from a soul-jazz angle and for him more of a jazz-rock angle.

DHN: You ve been labeled punk-garage, how did that happen?

Felix: It was a friend of ours who actually first mentioned it... he said that our club was like punk-garage because we played garage but we played it with a punk attitude. We distorted it . And there would always be feed-back if there were mcs..it all sounded really bad...and that seemed to be cool..And then we said it a couple of times then different people said it

DHN:And then it all made sence?

Felix: Yeah..

DHN:When you were making Remedy did it affect you that it was going to be out on XL, a big label.

Felix: And what about now as it has been such a succes? Well, it s obviously going to affect you because your concerned that people are gonna like what you do. But I mean thats why we re very eager at the moment to carry on doing music and to not really think about the outside world just to carry on as we did before. Hopefully from next week we ll go back in the studio again. It is difficult and I know a lot of fans find that difficult..But I think we kept our feet on the ground. We haven t got too rapt up in it. We re very eager to be making music so hopefully we would do that and I don t think it would sound commercial. The difficulty for us might be that we will go too much the other way and go too underground again.

DHN:Yor current single is Jump N Shout. That s quite a dare compared to the other singles.

Felix: Which is good because we want people to know where we re coming from...because in England in a way the record company were worried that we would be seen as to poppy because Red Alert and Rendez-Vu were bigger hits than they d ever imagined. So you know they were the most played records on Radio One, the main radio station in England. So that was a real supprise to them. And I think with Jump N Shout it was kind of saying this is more of the story. So it s not just kind of catchy dance music. And in England generally and in Ibiza aswell loads of people were playing Jump N Shout and going mad.

DHN: I saw it on Carl Cox playlist from Ibiza

Felix: Yeah, he played it when we arrieved in Ibiza...and he played Jump N Shout twice in his set. He played it as the last record of his set and everyone just went crazy so that was great.

DHN: You ve been compared to Daft Punk. How do you feel about that?

Felix. I wouldn t agree with that...a lot of people if the don t know that much about it they just pick up on the labels that they think are right and just stick them up which is why when we were first talking we talked about punk-garage because we didn t wanted to be talked about as anything else. But we respect what Daft Punk do because they created their own sound. Since Daft Punk there hasn t been anything particulary strong. They did something which was new for the time. I mean it was borrowed heavily on what came before but the way they produced it and put it together sounded fresh.

DHN: I was supprised to find the lyrics to songs on the cover, who decided to print them ?

Felix: It was our idea. The problem with dance music is that it s often very impersonal and the people aren t speaking to you. I mean that was the joy of the original house music. It seemed to be very soulfull and raw. And like someone would sing and they were speaking to the audience. It was a very intimate thing. And house music has become just very well produced a lot of people not putting anything into the music. It s just a style. And for us we want to put our personality into it and say what we want to express. Like other musicians do. Just because your in dance music doesn t mean you have to kind a not make any sense or just have throw away lyrics. It could be music that means something. And that s what we re trying to do.

DHN: You recently released the Betta Daze EP on Atlantic Jaxx, how do you find time to juggle that in between touring and promoting the album?

Felix: Betta Daze, actually, was going to be on the album...it was actually the last track. The record company was saying to us that in a way they didn t need that at the end. It was fine and we wanted to keep it short. Because with other dance albums people just gives you loads and loads and we wanted it to be all concise so it was like no wasting time. Like this is the idea this is the creativity... I was quite keen to leave that and Simon thought yeah let s leave that. But we weren t bothered because we got our own label and we can put something out. So it s a freedom that we got and we said to XL we re going to put this out should we put it out as Basement Jaxx or not and they said yeah put it out as Basement Jaxx.

DHN: So you don t have any restrains about using the name at the moment for other purposes?

Felix: No. There s another thing we re talking to them about at the moment that we want to put out. And we weren t think of doing it as Basement Jaxx because when they heard it the first time they didn t really like it. But now they re like maybe hold on that. Maybe it should be Basement Jaxx. It does sound like Basement Jaxx. But I think it s about them gaining confidence aswell because Jump N Shout on the b-side there s a track called La Photo and that was also one of the first tracks we did for the album. And the record company weren t keen on it because they said it was too arty. It s fine because we got all these tracks and got our own label you know. We can put the music out íf we want to.

DHN: What s your policy on the Atlantic Jaxx releases?

Felix: We want to make everything like a mini lp so that there s different sides to it. Something hard something jazzy, something melodic you know whatever. Often we d have a track that had nothing to do with house music. Something interesting to give it varity.

DHN: I heard your early this year at the Roskilde Festival which was mainly a dj-set. But what can we expect from you tonight?

Felix: Well, it s sort of one step further on from what we did at Roskilde really. It s the seven of us there and the main thing that we ve brougth in is a visual show and light-show. And that really what there is to say but I think it does work as a show. I ve seen some of it on video and it s something . It s not like any dance scene I ve seen before because it s got a human element aswell.

DHN: Have you any musicans with you this time?

Felix. No, but Simon plays the guitar and there s singers and percussion. Simon plays the keyboard and I play samples. But we don t tend to play loads of the samples live just for the sake of it. You can do that. You can like take samples from tracks as though you were playing them live but what s the point.

DHN: But you play samples and acapellas from other peoples music for instance you played Inner Citys Good Life at Roskilde

Felix: Yeah,yeah.yeah that s a bootleg we ve done actually. That s just a special track we made... for fun.

DHN: Your playing big venues and festivals now. Do you plan running your club nights again?

Felix: We re keen to start our little evening again in Brixton as soon as we get back. So in like two months we ll start something again. But we ll just keep it very quiet so you probably wont hear about it, heh heh, just so we can dj again. Most of the time we re djing on the radio or for some festival . But it would be nice to take a few steps back and just enjoy that side of it. The Basement Jaxx nights before were kind of our nights off once a month. We weren t playing some big things. We re in Brixton we don t have to do an amazing set. We play some records we wanna hear and it doesn t matter if the records skip because people always be banging into turntables and everybody just go waaayyee! It was great and I think a lot of people liked it because it wasn t cool and serious. So a lot of the trendy people in London the people who deal with the magazines they went there because they didn t have to be cool anymore. It wasn t everbody watching. They could relax and I think that s what a lot of people want to do.

DHN: So what s they club scene like in London at the moment?

Felix: Well, there s some real good parties at the moment. I think parties are happening more than clubs at the moment. That s just people making their own fun. It s like less emphazism on the big name dj and getting a group of friends together and getting a cool party happening which is really what we re doing with the Basement Jaxx club. It s more of a party than a club because clubs become so kind of formal with bouncers and problems getting in. You just wanna have a nice time.

DHN: What about Home, is it really all that?

Felix: I mean Home is just like another big commercial big shed where you get loads of tourists and loads of people in and it s got no atmosphere and no personality. And it s sad because it s been talked about in all the magazines. But the fact is that the people that made Home are friends of all the people in the magazines. So theres s a dance music industry. And it s a shame because that controls the opinion of people which it shouldn t really. Because a lot of it is made out to be alot better than it is. I think it s bad. Sometimes the hype it too much particulary Home. I went there. I was like aahhh I ve heard there s a new club and this is it. It s just like another club. There s nothing different it s like big firedoors, steps so they can fit loads of people in... I m not into it.

DHN: What s your plans now?

Felix: In January we go off a month to Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong. We haven t been to Hong Kong before so we probably take the live show with us there. And that ll be it. After that, get back into the studio and say no to everything, heh heh.

Yes, the Jaxx certainly had the last laugh of the century. Thanks to Peter Herbst & Disco Mag. Denmark for conducting this interviews with Felix.

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