English DJ Carl Cox Releasing his new single on 12th March
Our Chief Music Editor, Natasha Booth has recently interviewed the award-winning DJ Carl Cox (58). He is a house and techno record producer and DJ. He is also a Residency DJ on BBC 1. Cox has featured on stage at many festivals such as Ultra Music Festival, The BPM Festival and Tomorrowland.
#CabinFever - Sunday Vinyl Session 051: The history of Chicago! 😎❌ Re-listen & access to the full archive via #MixcloudSELECT ► https://t.co/r0V82CAnPt pic.twitter.com/1P8I7YVkWz
— Carl Cox (@Carl_Cox) March 9, 2021
So happy to announce... I'll be joining @BBCR1's Residency! 😊🖤 I'm on every 2nd Monday of the month, beginning from March 8th. I’ve got so much new music to unleash, it’s going to be an absolutely fantastic journey...Oh yess!! pic.twitter.com/rwQX99xHnf
— Carl Cox (@Carl_Cox) February 26, 2021
We can all dream that we are in Ibiza now and enjoy the music of one of the best DJ’s in the world the British DJ Carl Cox. We can almost feel the Balearic Sand under our feet and enjoy the Moon and Stars shining above Ibiza. Cox’s new single is boasting sun-drenched beats, rousing synth arpeggios and the abundance of lush strings first aired as the exclusive title track to the sports subscription service DAZN’s 5-part football documentary series: ‘Club Ibiza: The Sessions’.
Our editor Natasha Booth aka Natasha Nicholls who is a musician herself www.natashanichollsmusic.com interviewed Carl who has been living in Australia for some time now. The weather is always nice there and the covid-19 pandemic problems are far less than in Europe.
Carl Cox explains that it is going well with him and that he is living in Australia. “I am good, as well as to be expected. Over the last 40 years, I have been sharing my love of music since I was 8 years old. In March last year, I was on an amazing American tour playing all the amazing cities and clubs as I did for the last 20 years, but due to Covid-19, my career fell off a cliff. I had a decision to make whether to stay in Australia, where I am now in Melbourne or go to the UK. My normal lifecycle is based on me being in the UK in the summer months and then in the winter months I am in Australia so missing out on the Winter as much as I can. Then in between that play as much as I can wherever I am. Coming to Australia at the time I was supposed to leave in March and leave in April to go back to America, then America back to the UK, but I haven’t been able to leave Australia because of the pandemic. So I have actually been here in Australia since March 2020.”
This week we are going back to where house and techno music was born... #CabinFever - Sunday Vinyl Session 051: The history of Chicago! Jack your body to the beat. 😎❌ Tune in this Sunday via my #MixcloudLIVE channel from 7pm GMT!
— Carl Cox (@Carl_Cox) March 5, 2021
► https://t.co/lhEuoMeeuu pic.twitter.com/wbQtGLACeD
For Australia Day Carl was doing his first event. An event he has been doing on a yearly basis in Australia based on the music he grew up with, disco-funk soul music and early house music these have been seen as very popular parties to go to, and he can do it as a Covid safe event in Melbourne. Unfortunately, his father died in the midst of all this pandemic. It was very hard for Carl to go through that as he couldn’t leave Australia to go to the service at the funeral. Carl had to watch it on YouTube. It was being streamed from Barbados so his life has been seriously up and seriously down, but where I am at the moment my cabin fever shows which I have been doing every week a live streaming show, we are now up to almost 50 shows. There has been plenty of work, Cox says. “I have been doing remixes in my studio and I have been making my own live music and I am looking to eventually go live with my own live.” “Regarding Covid, Australia is much, much, much, much better actually there have been zero cases and zero deaths in the last 12 days (January 2021), but before that we had 60 days straight of no cases and we only got the cases based on people coming in from overseas or some people lying on their resume. Where I am in regional Victoria it is as big as England if not bigger there are so many amazing places to go and visit it’s not funny, if you just see where I live we have mountains, we have wineries, beaches are fantastic, lots of places of interest I can and will never get bored where I am right now. I also race motor cars and ride motorcycles, I travel around the country on motorcycles. I have a bike collection of over 100 motorcycles, I have a car collection of over 30 cars, I actually drag race professionally and race cars.”
Carl Cox's Cabin Fever - Episode 51 https://t.co/HnQUergqYY
— Carl Cox (@Carl_Cox) March 7, 2021
That sounds wonderful I have never been to Australia so I would love to go one day. If I went to Australia would you recommend Melbourne to go to first?
“100% you should check it out – I am English and England is my first home, Australia is my second home but first love, I love being here, when my family and friends come over I love showing this place off to them and they can’t believe it, the open spaces and what it has to offer and quality of life. From my personal experience I think Melbourne is best. People from Sydney wouldn’t agree, you know, because Sydney is the place or Adelaide, but from my own personal experience of being here in Australia I have chosen Melbourne.” Physical shows are possible in Australia Cox did physical shows on 25th and 26th of January which is basically Australia Day and it is called Carl and Eric’s mobile disco at the Sidney Myer Bowl in Melbourne. “We have done it in the last two years we have had nearly 10000 people attend every time we do it at the Sidney Myer bowl. We have had to cut the numbers down, literally by half just so we have a Covid safe event. It will be the first time ever we have had to comply with the social distancing rule, we don’t have to wear any masks as long as there is social distancing there are no masks required also at outdoor events it is not an indoor event at all. It definitely works for us, we would normally do one day, but because of the number of people we can have we will run it over two days and have about 7000 people at the end of the day attending because of those two dates. It is 7000 total that is 3500 over two days, a little bit of what we would normally get. When you see it there will be something live, you will see people dancing and enjoying themselves, there’s going to be a lot of jealous people cursing their computers.”
What have you been doing music-wise in the past year?
“I have been in my studio basically just writing new music and not only have I been writing new music, I have been writing new music on the basis of that when I go back out I won’t be basically DJing like I used to, I will still be playing at a certain amount of parties from a DJs point of view, but as a live electronic artist its where I really want to go back out and create some new energy, new music, new kind of foresight in what it used to be to where we are and where we are going in our future, so I am just basically making a whole plethora of all brand new tracks from me which I will be performing with production around it eventually in the next coming years. Because I am not going anywhere I will be able to really concentrate on doing that. I have always wanted to do it. I have been over the years an electronic live performing artist with a concept we had a few years ago called the Carl Cox concept and then about 8 years ago when I had my last album “All Roads Lead to the dance floor.”
Do you have any release dates planned for your music?
“ I am actually in the midst of signing a new recording contract with a major label (BMG) and new publishing contractsl as welll which will probably be in the next week or so.” (Ed: 12 March 2021 Carl Cox’ single Sand, Moon & Stars will be released).
How many songs have you created during the pandemic?
” I have made 3 albums worth of music so that is probably about 40 tracks.”
So that completes your BMG deal?
“Yes, already done. It has become a no brainer because normally when you sign an
album you get your first album done first then we get on with the next 2 or 3 but they are already done and we have more concepts and collaborations with people to come within the deal which we are looking forward to doing as well.
On the basis of what criteria do you choose to do an event?
“I think the idea really is whoever chooses me to do these things do so on the basis they would like me to do it, not because of my name but they know my music, they know what I can bring to the table, they know how happy I can make people with how I perform my music, they know I am very professional and that I can get the job done.”
Why do you always seem so happy during your performances?
“I have been doing this for 40 years and I am still happy to do the next performance. I have always enjoyed it. I can put on a record and put my headphones on, listen to that record and be in tears based on how happy it makes me. So when I get that record and I share that record with you, you may not be in tears, but you will have a reaction based on what you are experiencing, and that is what I love, I love that and when I see people react to that and I feed off it that gives me the energy and the joy and the passion to play the next record, and the next one, and the next one. I am giving you something of the quality of energy of the nature of someone’s soul and power, don’t just sit there aimlessly it’s impossible!!! If you are not enjoying it, not feeling it, you should just push off and go somewhere else I will always make sure, whatever I do, that my shows and performance are 100% from the heart end of story.”
You just seem like a nice, positive person so that reflects your performances, I guess?
100% yes. Look I could be down when my father died, I couldn’t even bury him or go to the service, but what I could do was play one of my shows the global show and played his records in his honour. Can you imagine I am playing my dad’s records who has died in a pandemic and I am sharing his music with you because without his music there is no me, that is one of the hardest shows that I have ever had to produce, and I still did it, I don’t think everyone could have done that it just makes me feel wholesome knowing that I could share the love of something that I cherish nearly every day that I am even able to talk to you in this way of my own experience through music. Nobody expects that at all at the end of the day, but that’s the way that I am, this is not about fame, money, drugs, women it is all about how I am still able to utilize the power of music just through how I feel and that was when I was at my lowest ebb and still music was able to push me through it, it means a lot to me.”
Do you have collaborations with other artists?
“I do. My hero of the dance music scene Nile Rodgers I went to collaborate with him, it was an amazing exercise because first and foremost, I wasn’t worthy, I was like you are Nile Rodgers!! I came with an idea with Nile to say a lot of your music is guitar licks which is your style I want to hear you play I want to hear you solo I want to see you in a chair with your guitar just playing, that is what I want and I will record that – he said yes great I can do that, nobody asked me that before because everyone wants him to do guitar licks. So he played solo and what we recorded was just unbelievable.
Natasha: “I enjoyed talking to you the interview has been fantastic you are such a wonderful person. “
Carl: “You too Natasha”
#CabinFever - Sunday Vinyl Session 050: Nu Skool Breaks ❤️❌ Re-listen & access to the full archive via #MixcloudSELECT ► https://t.co/r0V82CAnPt pic.twitter.com/d3KJL1Qd6U
— Carl Cox (@Carl_Cox) March 2, 2021
