Music > Interviews

Interview with Jaguar Skills

28/02/12

Some say that Jaguar Skills was born into a panda family, abandoned by humans and came to learn his turntable dexterity through the intricate stripping of bamboo. Some say he channels the spirit of Mr Miyagi directly when he DJs, waxing on and waxing off with his collection of wax vinyl. The real origins of this mixmaster DJ are unknown, but he hides in plain sight, with hugely popular spots on Radio 1 and live shows around the world. The man behind the mask need only be known for his music, but our intrigue has piqued – Mr Skills knows an awful lot about East Anglia, as our interview with him came to show…

You’re coming to Norwich again in March, which is awesome, ‘cause we were treated to you just last October. Yes, I’m coming again. It was wicked, it was a really good gig. 

It’s really good that you’re committed to coming back… Yes, I’m fully committed to the East of England, 100%, you know! Like the Norfolk / Suffolk region, Ipswich and Diss… where else? Thetford, Bury St Edmunds… 

Haha, that’s very good knowledge! Thankyou. Yeah man, where else…? Watton.

Bloody hell, have you got Google Maps open? Ha, where else…? Carbrooke. I’m big and massive in Carbrooke at the moment, it’s really interesting. So yeah, Norwich was fantastic; everyone was saying ‘yeah, fucking Norwich, man’ and yeah, it was the spot. Plus I love Alan Partridge as well - isn’t he the best? So yeah, it’s all about Radio Norwich for me.

I think that would be your perfect home actually… Yeah, or North Norfolk internet radio. I’d kill it.

Maybe when things are quietening down for you in 20 years or so, you could consider it? Yeah man, I’d be like the Alan Partridge of DJing. Don’t upset me.

Do you still like getting out on the live circuit as much as ever? Yeah I do, yeah. That’s the job; I think if I complained too much, everyone would be like, ‘shut up!’ Man, I’ve had like a million jobs, and I’ve had some really shitty ones and I always think at least I’m not doing that, so shut up! It is exhausting sometimes, but it’s fun as well, and I’m doing something that I love as well, so no matter how bad it gets, I’m still fucking thankful for it, so going on tours – like I just did an Asia tour and I did 11 countries in 14 days; it was pretty much a flight to each country, and each one was like a five hour flight. I was leaving the gig at like 4, 5am and going straight to the airport and getting a flight, then sleeping on the plane, getting out and going to the hotel, then going to the gig, doing that like 11 times in a row. That’s fucking nuts! But it’s amazing that can do it, and the funny thing is that the gig isn’t the tiring bit – that’s like the pudding at the end. Really, travelling is the whole thing and if you can get used to that… If I had a travelling machine, like a ‘Beam me up, Scotty’ type of thing, I would buy that!

Well we might not be far away from that, I mean, just before I spoke to you I watched a video of the human slinky… And what’s that?

Erm, it’s a man, inside a slinky suit, and he can do pretty much anything a slinky can, so if we’ve made that advancement, we can’t be far off perfecting a teleportation device. Wow, so I can just chill out now. It’s almost there… So yeah, I still like playing gigs and DJing, and I’ve got used to my earplugs now; I haven’t been wearing ear plugs for years, and now I’ve got used to them –

- For sleeping? Yeah… no, just so my ears don’t explode. It also drowns out all the music as well, which helps.

Haha, you don’t have a clue what’s going on, do you? No, no, I never know. The music as well, it just pumps in from Radio 4. I listen to all the good Radio 4 shit!

Just a Minute? I love Nicholas Parsons and I think Paul Merton is a wizard; it’s basically just Paul Merton talking in my earphones when I’m DJing and it gives me a kind of relaxed state, you know.

Well I don’t think Nicholas Parsons is sampled nearly enough, really. He’s not really, is he? Haha… I could do a whole Nicholas Parsons mix!

It’s a bit niche, but I think people would be really in to it. I need to look at where my career’s going, and I think I need to make my way into Just a Minute somehow. If I can make it on to Just a Minute basically, then that’s it.

It’s something to make the parents proud as well. Yeah, definitely; maybe I could get on the Archers or something, I dunno yet.

Although your Dad must already be hugely proud of you; your Dad was a DJ, which is a seriously cool Dad thing to do – cooler than any other dad. What sounds were you used to hearing when you were growing up? Well my Dad was like a radio DJ and producer – this was like in the 70s/80s, and he would DJ and produce stuff for this guy called David Rodigan, who was this reggae guy – he’s still DJing, you know – so I was round a lot of reggae, a lot of disco, a lot of electro pop stuff, you know and he had loads of TV theme tunes, loads of stuff and yeah, I remember that even though I don’t really check for reggae, like I don’t really check for the stuff that my dad used to play, but it’s great inheriting a big collection, ‘cause you know, he passed away last year and he was like my best buddy man, like dude, oh…

But you’re carrying the mantle forward in an incredible way – - Yeah, he was proud, really proud of me and you know, I learnt loads of stuff from him, like a tonne of stuff, so I guess it was never really a big step for me to make, I guess, ‘cause I was around it all the time.

That’s an awesome gift to get from both parents – disco, my Mum gave me Boogie Oogie Oogie… Just one record?

Well no, she gave me lots, but I definitely remember that one! My Dad had like 100,000 or something.

Oh… you win. Hahaha, yeah, a little bit more!

You pick up so much from your parents, but do you remember when you first started picking up music that was definitely your taste? Well I guess you listen to stuff as a kid, and you pick things up; I was in to soundtracks and I had a Star Wars album and then a Muppets one and a bunch of different story albums which had a load of tunes on them, like Muppet tunes that I really loved. Then I guess when you get to being a teenager, you’re picking up stuff and getting in to a scene, I guess, like I was really in to hip hop for years, then you know, you get a little bit older and you think, ‘oh shit, there’s actually a whole lot of music out there and I don’t have to listen to just one thing’. Plus, I just kinda got bored of hip hop after a while and I found myself listening to drum ‘n’ bass and stuff after a while, more clubby stuff I guess. The more I went to clubs, the more I got into stuff like that, all the electronic music, and now I pretty much play what I like. When I DJ out, I’m very aware of very commercial hooks and stuff, that you play as crowd pleasers, so sometimes I do that just to ramp it up a little bit more – I try not to play the whole song, just play a bit so that everyone goes, ‘oh shit, it’s that!’ The thing is, if you wanna manipulate records and do stuff with them, edit them and re-edit them, it helps with everybody knowing the tune that you’re doing it with. I could do something with an unknown song, and then play them both together, or mix it up somehow and you wouldn’t know which one it was; you’ve got no bits, no famous bits that everybody knows. Sometimes the best way to show people what you’re doing is to do it with something massively famous, then you twist it up so that people are like, ‘woah, look what he’s done!’

Yeah like, ‘I see what you did there…’ Yeah, exactly like ‘I see what you did there. That was clever…’, or ‘That was shit!’ If I got a vocal of somebody that they don’t know, they might just think that’s the song, but then I’m also aware that you could then turn into some sort of horrible, jive bunny-esque DJ, like ‘Hey, remember this…!’, then you find you’re doing some kind of edgy wedding set!

There’s nothing wrong with that, haha! I know, I know, but you can do an edgy wedding set and then you have to be serious sometimes. I don’t want to be that guy either, I mean, I could do a great wedding set, like an amazing wedding set, but it’s not all about that, haha! And you know what, a wedding set here would be different to a wedding set in Bangkok, you know, so travelling around the world, I’ve actually realised that I’m very English as a DJ, like, the things I play, or the bits that I choose, or whatever, the way I do it seems very English –

- That must be quite nerve racking… Yeah, yeah, it is because you’re going to a country and you’re there, you’ve never been there like, for instance, Singapore; you get there, you get out, then you’ve got to put a mask on, you know what I mean! I’ve got that to contend with, and get my mind around, then I have to get on stage and do something; the thing is, as well, is that they’re not paying you peanuts these guys, so if someone’s paying you a lot of money, and they’re really nice and everyone’s really nice and they’re looking after you, and whizzing around and have made sure everything’s perfect for you, the least you can do is fucking rock the place! That’s your part of the bargain and if you fuck up, it’s just awful; it’s awful, it’s the worst thing in the world!

Yeah, I guess different countries have different sonic triggers, like the programmes they’ve watched – - And just their music and stuff, and pretty much round the world on a club level, it’s the house beat that’s the one; you can play anything as long as it’s in that tempo and people get it. That’s your safe option, I could play it in Asia, or wherever and people would get it; if I was to play dubstep or drum ‘n’ bass or anything else electronic that people like here, there’d be a very small audience for it. It’s a different type of person and there’s also loads of things to think about, you know, like what time you’re on, what’s the weather like, what’s the culture like, what sort of drugs are they on, are they drinking, you know?! All of these things – what was the guy on before you playing, what’s the guy afterwards doing? You should do a little bit of research, but even then, you’re gonna go in there blind, so what I found was that the first gig I’d done was on this beach in Khao Tao in Thailand and there were a lot of backpackers, and a lot of British guys, like when I went to Australia, they got it, Japan, they got it, but America, I think I was a little too leftfield for them, so I left it. They’re really into dubstep out there, and slower tempo stuff; they haven’t really got dance music out there yet… well they have, but it’s all new to them, they’re into their hip hop out there and that’s the base line for all of it, so dubstep they really embraced. You go in there, first tour, and if you fuck it up you think, ‘right, now I know – I’m not gonna play any of this again’, so then your 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th gigs you’re getting better and you’re starting to understand the crowd, and in America I think that’s what happened. It’s funny, I don’t know how it happened, but suddenly I’m this dubstep DJ out there! This is what they like so I’m gonna play it, but I’m gonna play it in my style. In Asia, I turned into like an electro DJ, so my last bunch of gigs, it was electro, it was all I was playing, which was really cool for me because I don’t get to do that, and it was a cool thing to do. It’s nice to be able to go ‘I can switch it up’; I feel like I can switch it up and be on a level, like be a good electro DJ, but at the same time, a good drum ‘n’ bass DJ, and a really good hip hop DJ, and dubstep one too, so that’s what I’m trying to be. I’m trying to have different bullets that I can use and different styles I can throw in, but at the same time if you come and see me, you’ll understand that I can play anything as well. In England, I feel that people expect something of me, so I have to deliver it, whereas in the rest of the world where people don’t know me, I’m kinda free to be whoever I want; I can just turn up and no-one’s gonna have a problem.

So there’s kind of freedom in both respects then, isn’t there; back at home you know what people like and we are able to explore different genres, and then you know that when you go abroad, you’ve got to be someone else… Yeah, ‘cause you know what, I played one drum ‘n’ bass record at the end of this gig in Korea, which I smashed, then I played this one drum ‘n’ bass record and people just didn’t have a fucking clue what it was and I thought, ‘thank Christ I didn’t play any more!’, ‘cause I was going to, do you know what I mean, like this one gig in Singapore, the guy on before me was playing like straight pop / R’n’B, and I thought yeah, fuck it and I just played some dubstep. I understand that sometimes you need to follow, he’s got the whole crowd here and they want pop / R’n’B – I can see it, they’re all pop / R’n’B people dancing in this club, but either you go, ‘OK, I’m gonna play pop / R’n’B now and slit my wrists behind the decks and shoot myself in the face’, but know that everyone’s gonna dance to it and have a great time, or you’re just gonna go in and be me, and if you don’t like it, I won’t ever be booked here again and whatever!

But we need DJs to push it forward for us, because in the club environment, it’s where anthems of my youth were discovered, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, like some people get really upset though; you can flip it up, but I’ve learnt to keep it still on a tip sometimes, because say some guy’s twatted at four in the morning; they don’t want to hear some guy changing the tune all the time, you want someone to maintain the groove sometime, do you know what I mean? But then if there’s a guy who’s on at midnight and it’s a bit of a performance and he’s changing it up, then that’s cool, because then we think, ‘cool, we’re gonna get some serious music afterwards’. It’s more like a performance, like a beatboxer or something, ‘cause you can’t have a beatboxer for three hours straight, it’d just do your head in, wouldn’t it? I think that’s the same for the style of mine; it can be a little bit too much for people and I’ve been learning to kind of calm it down sometimes. I saw a set, like somebody videoed a set when I was DJing and it seemed like fuck me man, I’m changing the record too many times! When I’m playing the records, they seem like three times the length that they actually are, and I’ve got like five tunes ahead in my head, and I’ve got like three changes from that in my head, then the fourth one changes to something else, and I’m working and working it out, and I’ve got it in my headphones and the speed of my brain seems to be working much faster than what’s actually going on! I think I’m learning to play even just one minute of that song, ‘cause that’s still like better than when I play 30 seconds of it – sometimes you can’t even get into a song ‘til it’s 3 minutes in! I’m just leaning to calm down, like less is more sometimes, you know.

You’re ten years in now, and it sounds like you’re still learning. Your career is not waning in the slightest – can you see this DJ’s life continuing to grow stronger? Well as long as I can keep paying the rent, or paying the bills and doing what I love, I can’t ever see it stopping, because the cool thing about DJing is that you can be quite old and still be doing it. It’s quite new in a way; you’ve got guys who are still top of their game in their 50s, you know. You’ve got Westwood, you’ve got Pete Tong, you know; I was DJing with this guy in Thailand called Graham Gold, and he’s this old house DJ man, and this guy’s like 68! And all DJs I’ve ever met always seem in great shape, compared to other 50 year olds, or 68  year olds, like Graham Gold is just amazing; he’s an amazing, fully of energy kind of guy and I think that probably keeps you young and fresh, DJing all the time. People never think that I’m like 49, do you know what I mean? I’m not… haha, but I think I still look quite young – you’ll never know, but that’s the great thing with the mask as well, I can actually DJ ‘til I’m a million years old and I’ll still look the same.

Yeah, you’ll just have jowls hanging out the bottom though… Yeah, but you’ll never know, ‘cause they’ll have little masks on them; they’ll be in little bags!

Jowl bags… Yeah, it’d be cool man, then everyone would be wearing them in Watton, it would really take off.

Emma Garwood

Jaguar Skills brings his amazing live DJ set to The Waterfront on March 23rd. For tickets, go to www.ueaticketbookings.co.uk.