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Dave Clarke.
 I
had heard Dave Clarke was a horror to interview, perhaps because
he's a complex individual and the press in general finds complexity
discomforting and unwieldy. I found him to be quite personable,
if a little brisk, but it was rather early in the morning in
the UK, and most people are grumpy in the mornings...
Initially I thought the title of new album 'The Devil's Advocate' was a reference to the mash of styles over the album. "It's more to do with my personality," Clarke assures me. "I like to make people think a different way and play devil's advocate." Through the course of the conversation I began to get a sense of what he meant.
'The Devil's Advocate' is the first album Clarke has released after contractual wrangling with his previous label. He's not jaded, though. Well... "I was already jaded. I came to planet Earth a jaded person," he jokes. "I wasn't the only one who was screwed by them, there was Felix the House Cat, Thomas Schumaker, Timo Maas and others. But you deal with it and you move on and hopefully you put it behind you as best you can."
However, from bad things come good, and Clarke's first single after this episode was an Internet-only download. "That worked out really well," he says. "I was just a little nervous to see if people were still interested and I just wanted to do something fun with it."
The single went on to be so popular a run of about 12,000 was released on vinyl. "But," says Clarke, playing (ahem) devil's advocate, "this was a long time ago. Now you've got to take Moore's Law into account - computer power doubles every 18 months, and this was six computer generations back. People's download speeds are much faster now. If it was released now who knows? Maybe we wouldn't have to come out on vinyl," he muses.
On the subject of downloading, Clarke has some very definite views. "I think it sort of was inevitable. I think it shows that record companies weren't thinking when a) they were charging so much for CDs when it was a relatively old technology by the time it appeared and b) when they didn't realise they could actually sell them online, it had to take a couple of teenagers to prove it. I think it's a shame because I like the tangible evidence, but then again, I've just bought a trigabyte of hard drive space to store all my CDs on and then download them into my iPod; and use it as an archive.
"I don't know," he pauses. "You can't always hark for the old days all the time but I think it's a shame people don't go into record shops as much and have that 'High Fidelity' moment that we all hope for."
His latest album has collaboration with Def Jux's Mr Lif in a tune that can only be described as hip-hop, which is odd for someone best known as a techno DJ and producer.
"I was thinking about wanting to do hip-hop, and I didn't want to go down the usual route of using someone who's famous in a big commercial way," Clarke shrugs. "Someone suggested Lif, and I went to see him live and I liked what he had to say, I liked his presence, attitude and lyrics. After a lot of talking we got together in the studio a few months later and found it very easy to work with one another."
Similarly, his collaboration with Chicks On Speed was an enjoyable experience. "I recalled them from years ago in Munich, just hanging out and getting drunk with them, and there again we worked well together and it was a lot of fun."
I wondered if the diversity of the album wsa reflected in Clark's DJ sets. "When I DJ I specifically play techno, and electro is some other stuff thrown in, but when it comes to making music I'm a lot wider; I couldn't survive just making one style of music, I just couldn't do it," he sighs. "I don't really concentrate on any of my own stuff when I DJ, I'm actually kind of embarrassed by playing my own music; I'll play one or two of my own tunes in a set, but generally I get a great kick out of other people's music. I always feel a responsibility as a DJ not just to promote your own music. I don't know if that's just me being silly, because a lot of other people do it, but it just doesn't feel right. To go and play 6 or 7 of your own tracks and raise your hands in the air when you're playing off vinyl or CD just doesn't look or feel right, I dunno, it just leaves a bad taste."
I mention how PWEI's Clint Mansell once said in an interview that listening to his own music felt a bit like masturbation. Clarke smiles. "Maybe I just like to masturbate in private."
Julian Cram
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Dave Clarke plays a DJ set at Black Cat White Cat on Sun 11 April.
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