NEWS
EVENTS
Doorly speaks out on defying the haters, working with your idols, reinvention and mint choc chip ice cream
House | Friday 14th November 2014 |
Doorly has been a succesful house DJ for years now. However, he achieved mainstream recognition at the height of the UK dubstep explosion, culminating in a popular Essential Mix in 2010. However, in this in-depth interview, he explains how all this success was in fact an accident - his heart was always in house. Having moved to LA, Doorly finally feels like he's "found his groove" - despite what the cynics and critics of England might of thought of him. With a string of succesful remixes, projects and collaborations ongoing, we called up the man himself ahead of his appearance at a pioneering warehouse party in Singapore.
So thank you for taking the time to talk to us, have you been having a mad time in Singapore? How long have you been there?
Yeah, got here yesterday morning, and I've got a lot of friends that are here this week as well, so we had a bit of a night out last night. We went to this Marina Bay Hotel with like a ship...
Ohh, is that the one with the swimming pool on top of the ship?
Yeah, it was mental! So yeah, now I'm just getting ready for tonight really, looks like its going to be really good. It’s this warehouse party thing, they've never done it before, so it’s all quite exciting.
That's really cool because I wouldn't necessarily associate Singapore with warehouse parties and all that kind of scene to be honest.
Yeah well its never been done here before, these guys run this really cool club and they've just decided to step up the game now and do some big things. It's a really big space, kind of this warehouse-like old movie studio that they've taken over for the weekend, so yeah it should be really good.
That sounds cool, have you ever played in Singapore before?
Yeah I've played here about 4 years ago. It wasn't anything special, that one, but this one definitely will be I think.
Yeah. Ok so I actually had a quick look at your RA page, it really looks like you've been living the life and travelling loads recently. Do you have any recent highlights?
Well, I just kind of chase the sun really! We spent most of the summer in Ibiza, I live in LA in the winter, I've just been home 2 weeks. But this is where it all gets going now, Singapore then off to Australia for about a month… but in the middle of that there's a festival in Fiji that I'm playing, Your Paradise in Fiji. We're gonna stay for a week, and one of the parties is on this sandbank that doesn't exist until the tide goes out and it pops out in the middle of the ocean. So they ship us all out there, put a sound system on there and then we all party on this little island until the sea swallows it up and we get back on the boats. It's gonna be amazing.
Wow! That literally sounds incredible. Am I right in thinking it's been quite a big year for you then? Because you also seem to have released a lot of new material recently, and obviously there was Piano Weapon which shot to the top of the Beatport charts - massive massive tune! Were you expecting such a big reaction to that?
To be honest, yeah, because as soon as we played it on the radio it went nuts and we kind of knew... it’s been about a month in the making trying to get it released properly. There's also a vocal version that gets released at the end of November and that's when it goes towards the UK charts... so that's pretty exciting. New territory for me for sure. But I've just kind of found my groove now, it took a little while but this last year has been great. I’ve hit a really good patch with music and I've found my sound now. It took me years to find it. Now I'm working with all my heroes, which is more than I could have ever asked for - people like DJ Pierre, Cajmere, Todd Terry... I find it incredible that these people are coming to work with me. These are the people that are the reason I started doing this, so its really nice at the moment.
That's really cool. Speaking of which, you've got a Todd Terry track that's just dropped on Toolroom, what's particularly exciting to you about this record?
Well the original of that was just one of those mad records - it just stops and then it's got a guy talkin to the crowd, and whenever I played it people think its me on the mic! It's a bit of a crazy record and I just kind of wanted to gently bring it into 2014 really. I messaged Todd Terry and he's not got the stems for it, so I just kind of had to bootleg it, but he loved it as well so that's why we kind of did it on the Doorly & Friends EP coz he really wanted to get it out there too.
Yeah, it's cool that he's so on board with all that. I noticed that you called it a Re-chunk instead of a remix, why is that?
Well it's not really a remix as I didn't have the stems of it or reinvent it... I just beefed it up a bit, added some new sections, just made it a bit more chunky! I've kind of respectfully beefed it up for the club.
Ok so as you were talking about getting into your groove and finding your sound, I have to say I think a lot of people in the UK of my age might perhaps still associate your name with that massive bass scene, because obviously you were big in that, you've got a minimix and an Essential Mix in that vein as well as all the stuff you produced at the time. Did you find it quite hard to break out of that association?
Yeah, totally, yeah. At the time, when I started I never really wanted to do it anyway... I was always a house DJ, and when that mash-up era happened I just kind of fell into it really, it just went way beyond my control. People assumed I was a dubstep DJ... fair enough I did ride it a bit too long, made a few more tracks than I should've done, but I didn't see it going that far, it kind of terrified me where I found myself in situations at gigs where I was playing after people like Skrillex. I love Sonny, he's a really nice guy, but I just found myself playing after DJs that played as hard or harder than he does and they were the opener DJs! It was terrifying! I just had to make a mature decision to just bow out and not do it anymore. It was tough because I just had to turn down 95% of my gigs and remixes until people just didn't associate me with it anymore. It's taken me about 3 years to feel like I'm back on top again now. I didn't want to change my name, even though it probably would've been a lot quicker but the thing is, its my actual name... if I had a different name I would've dropped it like a hot potato, but as it's my surname I didn't want to go down in history as that shitty dubstep guy so I just rode it out. It's interesting, but not many people these days seem to remember it… I'm not ashamed of it, and I love telling people about it, but its funny that nobody seems to really know dubstep any more - people that are still in the music industry, having got a bit older, think its pretty cool. But I'm happy I managed to distance myself slowly and reinvent myself without changing my name.
That's pretty impressive actually, because it is quite hard... we kind of saw a similar thing with Skream where he just had to transition out of that and explain that that wasn't what he was about anymore. It's great that you've managed to make a similar success out of it to be honest.
Yeah, it wasn't easy, its like one of the reasons I left England actually... English people can be very bitter about things, they love to write on forums and bitch about stuff. I didn't find it productive, because when I was changing, all I seemed to get in Britain was hate: ohhh look at him now jumping on the bandwagon… it was horrible! I'm not jumping on any bandwagon, I'm a house DJ, you just think I'm a dubstep DJ because I made a few records! I wanted to move to LA anyway, so I thought this was the time to go and find myself... not to sound like a hippy but just be inspired by another place and not be in gloomy London surrounded by haters. I've built an incredible studio in LA, just being surrounded by positivity... Americans are so positive it's unbelievable! It's just nice to distance myself from that London scene for a little while, so now I can come back and do my thing properly.
That's really interesting actually, I was going to ask you what the reason was for the move to LA. It's interesting to hear what you experienced... English people are quite cynical and it is shit weather here so I don't blame you at all!
It's just one of those things... but the English scene is so important and it's amazing that we have it, because it seems as soon as something becomes popular we don't just sit and rest on it, we have to move onto the next scene and all of a sudden popular things aren't cool anymore. Its just one of those things though, it keeps the whole world moving forward musically and we help to pioneer that. But sometimes it can be done in a negative way, this horrible hipster mentality... although you can get that anywhere in the world. But it wasn't just that - in hindsight it’s really helped, but I mainly moved to LA because it's amazing! It's sunny every day, it's quite cheap, it's just a really nice life, I would've done it anyway. It's the best place in the world. I toured here for 6 years before and every time I left I felt like I needed to stay there. It's only LA and Ibiza that's ever had that kind of effect on me.
So basically like you feel really at home now in LA, that's good. But is there anything that you miss about the UK since you moved?
Well yeah, obviously I miss my friends. And I do miss the gigs, they're always really good: people know the music, you can play whatever you want in England, it's great. Having my friends to come down and hang. It's a smaller world than it used to be now though with the internet... I do not miss the weather at all though!
I think you're doing the right thing right now as you said, chasing the sun, running off to Fiji...
With the exception of Snowbombing festival, I don't ever really go where there's cold weather.
Yeah, don't blame you! You did mention that you spent your whole summer in Ibiza, do you do that regularly? What do you love about the island?
That was my 9th full season in Ibiza, so yeah I do it every summer really. It's just the best place in the world to be in the summer, I feel like I shouldn't be anywhere else for those few months... every night there's the best shit in the world happening. It’s obviously a great place. I've been running parties there with Ibiza Rocks, and we set up a new one at Pacha this year -the Ibiza Rocks House. I helped to program that lineup. So its kind of like fantasy football when you've got Pacha, because you kind of just book anybody! People like Giorgio Moroder, Cajmere, all the new talent... its been one of those dream seasons for us this year.
That's really cool. Do you have any particularly weird or funny Ibiza stories, because I find that most people do tend to have one... generally from their first visit!
Hmmm... Most of it I've forgotten! One time after Manumission, we decided to stay up all night until the next day which was an Ibiza Rocks show, I literally fell asleep DJing whilst I was mixing... People had to come and step in because I just couldn't keep my eyes open - I just thought I'd give my eyes a little rest just during this one.... and I just fell asleep! The Cuban Brothers had to come and take over. That was quite funny. But there's probably 50 things better than that which have happened this summer alone!
That's impressive though!
Yeah, there's just so many parties that strange things happen every day. It's everyone's one week of the summer where they can just go crazy.
Yeah, but I haven't ever heard of anyone literally falling asleep whilst DJing before. That's a good story! So obviously Ibiza is a really crazy place, but you have done a lot of travelling - so I was wondering what your thoughts are on where the crowds are the craziest?
Hmmm, Scotland actually. Scottish people are absolutely bananas, they bang on the ceiling, its like old school people cheering and going crazy at the breakdowns, I don't think there's a crazier crowd than a Scottish crowd. Americans are pretty up for it to be fair, everyone's smiling and they really appreciate it because the scene in America is still so fresh and new. It's just a positive happy atmosphere playing in America all the time, but yeah, Scotland is mad.
That's interesting, a lot of people have mentioned Scotland to me recently actually.
Oh yeah, they're mental! *laughs* Jackmaster's army!
So now that you've found your groove as you were saying, have you got any plans or projects for the future that you're really excited about?
Yeah, I’m working on some more stuff with Cajmere, I think we're going to be longtime collaborators. This Doorly & Friends thing is gonna continue, cause it's worked out really well. I've got this thing with Dino Lenny, that we've just done that I'm excited about, a big epic end of the night record. I'm excited for people to hear that. Yeah just all going really nicely at the moment.
Well that's good to hear, so now we've kind of talked about your future plans and the musical side of things, there's only one question left for me to ask. If you were an ice cream, what flavour would you be and why?
Oh God! Umm, now that's a good question... *laughs* I feel like this is one of those Blind Date questions that takes some real thought and the answer needs to be as cheesy as possible...
Yeahhh that's true
My favourite flavour of ice cream is mint chocolate chip, I don't really know what that says about me?
Minty fresh!
I've got nice breath, but there's chocolate stuck in my teeth! *laughing*
That's a good answer!
Yeah, I don't think that would win Blind Date to be honest.
Well, its better than vanilla by far.
