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Purple Revolver dragged the DJ extraordinaire away from the turntables for a quick chat ahead of his highly anticipated UK tour.
How’s the tour going?
‘I’ve been touring around for six and a half months now and I’m actually home for the moment, and in about three weeks I’ll be heading to the UK.’
It’s been a while since your last album, can fans expect something different this time around?
‘I would hope so. It takes me about four or five years to collect enough ideas and samples to cobble together a new album, so hopefully in that timeframe I’ve taken in some new influences and tried some new things.
‘I’m always trying to do things differently or better, while all the while trying to retain my initial vision and reason for doing what I do.’
How would you sum up your sound?
‘I’ve been saying a lot recently that I think the foundation for what I do can be heard on The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash and the Wheels of Steel which was a mix that came out in 1981 and was the first rap record that I bought.’
Where do you get your inspiration? Is it always just from records?
‘On Endtroducing I sampled of a couple of TV shows and movies. I’ve been sampling a lot of cassettes recently, and by cassette I don’t mean something that came out on record, I mean things that only came out on cassette, and just taking it into un-chartered territory for me.
‘The days of going to little record boutiques and buying some record because some other DJ made it famous already is kind of arbitrary, I’m always trying to be where no one else is.
‘I’m trying to buy things that are undocumented. What I’m saying is I’m not using James Brown and Kool and the Gang, I’m using more and more obscure stuff.’
How do you feel about the growth of the music industry is at the moment?
‘There’s always going to be a new generation of bedroom producer in the same way that I was a bedroom producer, there’s always going to be new ideas.
‘But I also I think that the music industry used to fund a lot of big dreamers and provide a living for people who wanted to create something unique and when that funding doesn’t exist a lot of interesting ideas don’t get realised in the same manner.
‘There are new sounds out there and I don’t want people to write what I’m saying off as bitter, I’m aware of what’s going on I just don’t necessarily see the revolutionary components that some people do.’
We’re launching a 90s reboot season on Purple Revolver and have identified ’93 as a pivotal year in the throwback nostalgia that’s starting to take hold of today’s trends.
What are your memories from the early 90s, ’93 in particular? Any music, movies or cultural highlights that have influenced you?
‘I’m kind of bias because that’s when I started to make a small dent in creating an initial ripple in what would become Endtroducing. Influx, my first single on Mo Wax, came out in 93.
‘It was a huge year in my life because I was getting over the hump of being in college and trying to figure out how to tour and going to Europe, I was extremely focused on getting started and it was really an exciting time.
‘But I always identify 93 and 94 with the rise of Oasis. Especially spending so much time in the UK, as I was, and starting to see little mentions of myself in NME and Melodymaker.
‘For me I identify that time with moving away from the whole Happy Mondays and Stone Roses scene and more into this new New Britannia.’
As a DJ are you hoping vinyl will make a big comeback in the future now that CDs are becoming obsolete?
‘On one level I don’t think anyone could have predicted the rapid decline of vinyl in the early 90s and then the decline of the CD in the early part of the noughts was alarming too.
‘I think living through both of those makes it difficult to predict what’s going to happen next, I don’t think anyone could have predicted in 1998 that we would be where we are now with the industry.
‘It’s kind of like sitting here and saying there will be no Hollywood Movies in 10 years time.’
What does the future hold for DJ Shadow? Will you always be making music?
‘Yeah, I was making little beat tapes and mixes when I was 13 years old. I love making music and I love listening to music, I’ve always felt that even if I cease to become relevant or I don’t have a forum to make the music the way I want to make it, which is time consuming, I could always just sit back and listen to the music other people have made and be happy.’
DJ Shadow’s The Less You Know, the Better is out now.
Catch him live in the UK at one of the following upcoming dates:
Nov 28, 2011 O2 Academy Bristol
Nov 29, 2011 Rock City Nottingham
Dec 1, 2011 HMV Institute Birmingham
Dec 2, 2011 O2 Academy Leeds