Articles - Interviews

Gilles Peterson’s Fighting Talk

 “Touch wood, I’ve always been all right, in fact I’ve never even been punched in my life as a DJ. Though I’ve almost punched a couple of people myself, actually I’ve been pretty rude to people on occasion. When people are rude to you when you’re DJing, well, I don’t take it. Anyway, I’ve been beaten up other times, but not as a DJ.”

Though his fellow Radio 1 DJ Tim Westwood was once shot, Gilles Peterson’s reputation as one of the friendliest, down-to-earth DJs has long preceded him, and he laughs as he recounts his relatively trivial brushes with danger, behind the decks and elsewhere. Like Westwood he’s long specialised in urban, underground, eclectic styles of music, though steering broadly clear of gangsta rap, has instead ended up something of dance music institution, his self deprecation only partially concealing a razor sharp mind. Respected as much as he’s liked, he’s also long attracted devotion from his army of fans, with one or two crossing lines that even he felt uncomfortable with.

“I’ve had a few stalkers incidents, a couple of crazy women, I’ve had the police on two women,” he admits.

“They wanted everything and they became obsessed,” he explains.

“That’s the radio thing, I guess, and some people who are mentally unbalanced can turn it into this crazy thing. If you acknowledge them, that’s it. You’re saying yes to marriage. It got frightening for me at one point. .  But that was a few years back, I was younger and better looking then,” he laughs.

The ‘radio thing’ he refers to is his phenomenally popular, heavily syndicated weekly show on Britain’s Radio 1, that celebrates its 10th anniversary this month. For Peterson, he admits the landmark is ‘a big deal’.

“Ten years is a big part of my life, I’m very grateful to still be part of what I believe is still the best radio station in the world, that is a pretty big deal. I’m one of their leftfield DJ’s, so I’m hanging on in there,” he enthuses.

Skrufff (Benedetta Ferraro): How difficult is it to maintain your enthusiasm week after week: year after year, how do you avoid falling into a routine?

Gilles Peterson: “Luckily for me, the music that I play is still diverse and therefore exciting. Sometimes I feel a bit sorry, maybe I shouldn’t use that word, what I mean Is, I don’t know if I could be just a drum ‘n’ bass DJ. If all I ever played was drum ‘n’ bass, I don’t know if I could still be here doing what I’m doing. The great thing for me is that by playing such a wide musical range, if I don’t get it from Hip Hop, I’d get it from Electronic or I might be hearing some new bands that are really exciting. Generally for me every week there’s something new to get excited about.”

Skrufff: You must be being sent hundred and hundreds of tracks week after week: how much does the standard vary?

Gilles Peterson: “It varies enormously. I’m not one of these guys who listens to everything and writes notes about everything I listen to, I’m actually an awful communicator. I don’t really have a set way of doing things; there are time when I listen to everything that gets sent to me and other times I don’t. Sometimes I listen to what gets recommended to me, and somehow it all works out. I try not to make it a job. Ever. If I’m not in the mood, I won’t listen, because I don’t want to force myself.”

Skrufff: How much do you believe recession and hard times are good for creativity?

Gilles Peterson: “I think so, musically it’s a good time certainly, though I know I sound like a cliché. The good thing about being in England is that it’s quite a cynical place, it’s a hard place, very competitive, it makes people work really hard. People do work really hard here to make good music so you can’t bluff it as much as anywhere else. And I like that. It’s a hard place, but it’s more real in terms of the development of music.”

Skrufff: What's your take on the digital revolution: are you still carrying vinyl around?

Gilles Peterson: “I play mainly off CDs because I like mixing with the Pioneers (CDJ 1000s), but then again if I play small places, like ‘Plastic People’ I quite like playing vinyl, because these are clubs where they still manage to look after their equipment therefore vinyl sounds really good. Also some people still like watching me playing vinyl and I think they’d be really upset if I’d turn up with a laptop. I use it just occasionally, but I don’t see myself switching to it totally because I think DJs who just use computers end up always playing the same music. One of the good things about bringing your CDs or vinyl is that you only bring a certain type of music, which in a way makes you more creative. If I know that I have the big records in my computer, I know I’d end up playing them; and then you’ll end up playing just the hits. Whereas, if they’re not in my box or in my computer, then I’ll have to break new stuff. That’s exciting.”

Skrufff: your BBC biog says that 'Gilles' show on London's Jazz FM was axed in 1990 after he played 'inappropriate' music and made statements supporting peace during the Gulf War': how hard was it to stay quiet during the 2nd gulf war? how tempted are you to speak out now, about Gaza?

Gilles Peterson: “Once you experience what I’ve experienced, you definitely don’t want to go back there. I’ve made my statements when I was younger, got in trouble for it, and especially with what’s going on these days, with all that Jonathan Ross situation  that just happened and general paranoia, if you have a little bit of experience as I have, you just stick to what you’re good at. You’re not brought in to be a politician. I was young and naïve back in those days. I had a gig in Tel Aviv coming up and obviously I had to cancel it, but it’s not something that I’m going to talk about. Sadly it’s like that. That’s the state of the nation. But you know, you can always be subtle, with the music that you play, for example.”

Skrufff: going into your background: reading your biog on the old trust the dj site, it talked about you getting the residency at the Electric ballroom coz the previous resident thought you'd fuck up: how aware were you of that hostility at the time?

Gilles Peterson: “Again, I was young and naïve so I didn’t really realize at the time. I guess I must have been very annoying because I was very keen at the time.”

Skrufff : How did you handle all the negativity and stop it from crushing you?

 Gilles Peterson: “I think when you’re young and so determined you just go through anything, don’t you? You’re more radical, resilient, when you’re younger, as you get older you become more sensitive. The funny thing with that DJ, Paul Murphy, is that we still DJ together sometimes these days. Every year we do a party together and I do have a bit of admiration towards him; I think in terms of jazz/dance music he was and still is number one.”

Skrufff: Was there any point when the hostility disappeared?

Gilles Peterson: “I think DJing is a bit of a sport, it’s very competitive and boys will be boys. There’s always going to be jealousy and competitiveness in DJing and I think a lot of DJs must have been wondering why have I done so well. I think I was very lucky because I came right at a time when DJing became a career and you could make a living out of it. I got the timing really right; I was the right age at the right time.”

Skrufff: How have things changed?

Gilles Peterson: “Things are a little different now. I think DJ are still worth more than they should be, I also think the ‘super star DJ’ thing of a few years ago was almost ridiculous, and I was quite happy to see the end of the ‘Super Clubs’ because music was not a top priority for them. I think now there’s a better balance; there are some very good DJs out there who deserve what they get, just a bit like footballers. Some may say how could they afford them, but if people pay money to go and see them than they’re worth it.”

“To be honest, from my point of view, I’ve never really thought of it that way. To me it was, has the club got a good sound system? Do people like what I play? These are the important things to me, otherwise I would have dome a lot more worse gigs that I have in the last twenty years.”

Skrufff: Danny Rampling told us a while back that DJs’s fees took off in the house scene, when Club UK got going (leaping to 4 figures): did you go through a similar leap in fees at one point?

Gilles Peterson: “You know what, for me I’ve been pretty steady all my life. I guess that’s why I still get a lot of work, because I was never out of reach. Again I play at a lot of parties for my friends for nothing; if I like the party, I’ll play. Obviously, when the big things come in you’re looked after. It’s just a question of balance. I think the days of the £15,000 a gig are gone, maybe a few people like Mark Ronson are still on those figures, the guys who play big celebrity parties and maybe some of the trance DJs still do too, but most DJs have gone down in price for sure.”

Skrufff: what do you make of the growing gang violence in London: why do you think there are so many shootings- particularly black on black shootings? How do you think it can be addressed?

Gilles Peterson: “Well that’s a sociological question… I don’t know. Violence has always been there, obviously the drug thing cannot be ignored, but I think mainly London is a very tough place to live in especially if you don’t have much money. I often wonder how do some people survive. It’s a dog eat dog place. I live in Hackney and with all the different tribes here I can tell you it’s mental… the thing that always gets me is to see police outside schools. Scary. But I remember being in clubs or pirate radio stations twenty years ago and hearing about the same things going on. I didn’t read about those things, but I knew they were happening. I don’t go to these clubs anymore but, back in the days, I used to play in more urban clubs where things were definitely more intense.”

Skrufff: you were a member of Level 42's fan club…

Gilles Peterson: “Yeah, big time!”

Skrufff: did you ever meet them?

Gilles Peterson: “Er, no.”

Skrufff: Have you ever considered your own fan club?

Gilles Peterson: “I have my Myspace page, and I think I manage that quite well.”

Skrufff: What type of fans do you usually attract?

Gilles Peterson: “I get all kinds, they’re usually quite pretty, but generally I get a good cross section. My fans are brilliant, I’m really proud of them, they’re cool, they’re into good music… I’m saying it half tongue ‘n’ cheek but actually I have an unofficial Peterson’s website with message boards called Brownswood.co.uk and that’s amazing, what they get up to, and the community is incredible. Some of the people on it were on the message board at Radio 1 when I first started, and my message board was so popular, it was by far the most popular, so the BBC decided to change it all by putting all DJs all together. My fans hated that, so they decided to create their own message board. They have grown so much, some of them even promote events, and some of them have even become my friends. They’re supporters, but they also keep me in check. If they don’t like something that I play, they’ll let me know. It can be wonderful, but it can also be painful as nobody likes to read bad things about themselves, but they do keep e in check.”

Skrufff: are you still in touch with the likes of Courtney Pine, Brand New Heavies or Galliano or Jamiroquai: or Colin Favor?

Gilles Peterson: “I do yes. Galliano was MCing with me in Australia just recently, I saw the Brand New Heavies in Serbia and we shared the same mini bus. It’s good. A lot of these people I see here and there still. We still stay in touch and with some of them we’re still friends.”

Skrufff: You seem to have had a seamlessly upwards path in your career: looking back, what have been the biggest mistakes you've made?

Gilles Peterson: “We always wish we could have done certain things in a certain way, but what we talk about the most when I talk to people of the older generation is that it would have been nice to have had more advice when I was setting up Acid Jazz or Talkin’ Loud… it would have been good to have had better management because financially we could have done a lot better. On the other hand, I think the reason why we were so successful is because we didn’t really care about money; the whole thing was about being into what we were really into. Maybe if I had that business side, I would have lost out in creativity. But you can’t really think that way, you just have to be happy and move forward. I’m just happy to be healthy and that my friends and family are healthy and that I still do what I do. I wake up and I’m excited. These are massively big things.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/gillespeterson (listen to Gilles on Radio 1 here)

http://www.myspace.com/gillespe

Article by Benedetta Ferraro (Skrufff.com)

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