Asked to assess the current state of the EDM scene, Paul Oakenfold holds nothing back.
“It’s a business now,” the pioneering DJ says. “[Back then] it was a smaller community where everyone used to help one another and share. And now, it’s totally about the money.”
If anyone has the right to such a blunt commentary, it’s Oakenfold, who helped lay the foundation for the massively profitable art form. And now, he’s celebrating some 30 years of musical accomplishments with his most ambitious project yet, “The Wonderful World of Perfecto,” a graphic novel with its own soundtrack.
Oakenfold talked about his career and his nontraditional memoir with amNewYork.
Take me through the decision to match your memoir with a soundtrack and do it as a graphic novel.
It came about through a meeting at the Sundance Film Festival. I met a guy out there who came up with the idea. And he said, “Would you be interested in doing this?” And I thought, “Yeah! I’m a fan of comics. Where do we start? Can I be involved in the idea of the storyline? Can I be involved in the choice of the graphic novelist?” And we went from there.
What was the process for putting the book together? Was there a script?
The process was really finding [the artists]. We wanted to split [the book] into four moments that worked in the development of electronic music and my career. We brought in four different artists [Tyler Boss, Chris Hunt, Ian McGinty and Koren Shadmi] and let them, based on the story, start getting on with it. It was pretty straight forward in that respect, but pretty exciting working with the artists and fleshing out the story.
Was there ever a particular page or scene that made you just go “Wow!”
For sure. When you see the comic, it’s quite edgy in terms of the graphics. There’s a moment where I’m playing the song “Ready Steady Go” and the character that’s been drawn is really outrageous or there’s a part where I’m on the Great Wall of China and it ends with me on Mount Everest. There’s some big visual moments in this comic.
What was the EDM scene like in the early days compared to what it is now?
I think it was much more of a community. It’s business now. It’s fierce.
From creative side or the record company side?
All sides. I think the big change was when the industry wasn’t making no money out of music and it all shifted to live. There are only a certain amount of clubs. There’s a hell of a lot of DJs. That just shows you the competition out there.
If you go: Paul Oakenfold will be signing limited edition copies of his new graphic novel on Dec. 15 at 5:30 p.m. at Forbidden Planet, 832 Broadway, fpnyc.com
