and more personable based on that they really want you to dig deep into your music vaults or crates of music to basically give whoever is in front of you the very best time possible. You can’t hide behind anything when you’re in a smaller room. You’re right there with everyone. They can see the mistakes, they can see you sweating, they can see you choosing your music, and they can see you performing as a DJ more than if you were in a big room – they can’t see any of that. When I’m doing the Ultra for instance, when you walk in it’s spectacular, it really is, but you miss the things that I am doing that are so minimal and small, the touches and things, the loops, samples and things that I am creating – you miss all of that. You hear it come out of the speakers but everything that I do is so intricate that it’s hard to follow what I am doing creatively as a DJ. But when you’re in a small room you see all of those intricate things. They can see that you’re working really hard to create the moments of music that you do as a DJ, and I really like that. People can look over at you on the turntables or CD players and go “Ah alright, that’s what you’re doing”. How do you adapt what you’re doing for different sets across the world? Ummm that’s kind of difficult because it’s not about adapting, it’s like I say - I’ve got 5,000 tracks with me, and a lot of that music goes way back, a lot of the music is for main time peak/stadium kind of sets, some are for dead underground kind of afterhours party music. There’s so much music in there that I can choose. I never pre-programme anything; I have no idea of what I’m going to play on the night. I just go on there, see the people, choose my music and go bang! And that’s how it starts! Then I kind of take the journey where I think the night should be and turn it into the Carl Cox kind of night and by the end of it all I’ve got an understanding of where the people are. So it’s something
that I’m tuned into. That’s something I’ve always been able to do, home in to what I believe people should be listening to or enjoying. I really enjoy the idea of not knowing where it’s gonna go. What’s the most spontaneous thing you’ve ever done or played in a set to entertain your crowd? It’s quite funny because I did Snowbombing about 2 weeks ago up in Mayrhofen (Austria)…. So I’m on the line-up and The Prodigy are playing and I’m playing in a main room called The Racket Club. There’s a big sound system, lasers, a light show beyond belief and everything else that goes with it, and also I was playing back-to-back with Nic Fanciulli, but they’ve got a little place 1,500 metres up on the piste and they have created an igloo club. It’s only for 200 people and I went up there and I wanted to play Definitive (my schooling has been coming from 60s and 70s, playing Funk Soul, RnB music and into Hip Hop) so that’s what I wanted to play. I said to the people that’s all I’m gonna do. I didn’t want to waste people’s time, you know 200 people going up 1500 metres into coldness, in an igloo, so I told them and explained that it’s going to be special. When we did get up there it was… cold [laughs], the igloo was freezing and there we are. Once you’re up there, you’re there for 3 or 4 hours – You can’t go back down, so you gotta make the best of it while you’re there. But because of the music I was playing (they have never heard me play that type of music before – well some had/some hadn’t), but I was just enjoying the music that I grew up with through my childhood. And I was able to play more or less whatever I wanted so I played Eddie Grant – Electric Avenue, I was playing Bee Gees – Should Be Dancing. It was almost like a wedding set. I was playing Kriss Kross [sings] “who’s gonna make you jump jump” and all sorts of things. It was just wonderful to be able to do that. And the people’s reaction was just great. They
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