John Digweed: Renaissance Man

Global dance music royalty John Digweed speaks to us before he takes his Bedrock label to Edinburgh

Feature by Neil Murchison | 28 Feb 2012

When it comes to maintaining your position at the pinnacle of any profession, you have to work pretty hard to remain in the same place – a somewhat ironic concept when applied to John Digweed, who in dance music circles is synonymous with being ‘progressive’. 

Digweed has been a significant player since the release of his Renaissance and Northern Exposure mixes alongside longtime confederate Sasha in the mid-nineties. Since then, his label Bedrock has been, as the names suggests, a solid, permeating force in the cyclical world of electronic music. The eternal search for the next great record without compromising on quality has rarely been met with such appreciation and respect by audiences, and the Bedrock / Digweed brand is one of the trusted few that has crowds lapping up many hours of music, rather than a few moments here or there.

Last summer Digweed released his second Structures album, a longplayer that took full advantage of his position as a global DJ figurehead and label boss by signing up many of the tracks he wanted to feature as exclusives, and in some cases requesting that changes were made to them so that they fitted exactly as he wanted them to in the mix. This reverses the old adage that a DJ just ‘plays other people’s records’ and seems a good place to begin our interview.

With Structures and Structures 2 you were working with a lot of unreleased material that you had signed exclusively for the album. Is that a response to the Beatport/Soundcloud democratisation, or the ubiquity of records? 

I am just trying to make the tracks on my album stand out more so when it’s released it’s the first time you will have heard those tracks. Everything moves so fast these days that if you want to have something exclusive you need you make sure that you put the effort in and work with producers to make tracks for your projects.

As your focus seems to be on new and unreleased music do you still go crate digging for old undiscovered gems?

There is so much music out there that I can go back six months and start playing a track again and people don’t know what it is. For me it’s about trying to play an interesting set of great music that is not the top ten Beatport hits but can still rock the house. For me when listening to a DJ you want to be surprised and find out what his tracks are and not know every one.

How do you feel about listening back to some of your old mixes, are they something you can listen to and enjoy, do you find it uncomfortable?

I am happy with my releases over the years, every album – I always put 110% into them and made it the best I could. I think it’s nice to look back over the years and see a snapshot of each year and how the music changes and I changed.

What kind of music do you listen to that might surprise us? Do you ever feel the need to listen to something utterly different to what you DJ?

As I run a label I spend most of the time listening to demos from producers so not much time to listen to other music as I don't want to miss that potential big club track.

You probably spend more time in clubs than you get to at home – are there any favourite clubs that give you that the feeling of ‘being home’ in absence of the real thing? 

For me it’s all about the relationship with the promoter. When you travel a lot having a familiar face at the end of a long trip makes the time spent away from home not so bad as it’s great to catch up with people and friends in the industry that I have know for many years.

DJs and air travel: do you have to hang your head in shame when someone challenges your green credentials

Thats a tough one as I have no other option than to fly to most of the places I play outside of the UK. I try and do my bit at home with recycling and I drive a hybrid car and cycle as much as I can though.

Musika presents Bedrock Feat John Digweed and Guy J on Sat 3 Mar http://www.musikanights.com