Artist Spotlight: Paul Oakenfold
Mission Underground brings together new productions, collaborations and reinterpretations including records you were playing back in the day. What was the starting point for this project?
Well Mission Underground is kind of the part 2 to the Trance Mission album I did with perfecto Armada 12 years ago. On Trance Mission I took a loads of my favourite, iconic hits from the 90s and early 00s and either made new covers or remixes in a contemporary trance style. That album was a bit hit with my fans and so I wanted to do a new interpretation of another collections of big records but this time inviting a bunch of my current favourite producers to join me in reinterpreting them into a modern sound that reflects the best of trance, techno and that middle ground that exists between the two genres.
“Metaverse” with Ferry Corsten feels like two legends from the same era finally making music together. How did this collaboration come about?
Yeah I wish I could tell you an interesting story about how it came about but it was really as simple as I wanted to do something with Ferry and so I asked and he said yes. Nothing more to it. I guess the interesting point to note about Metervrse though is that it’s one of the only tracks on the album that isn’t an old classic. Yes Mission Underground is a celebration of some seriously big records from back in the day but the whole ethos of our scene should always celebrate the music of tomorrow as much as yesterday so I wanted to do something forward facing and that was always going to be the one to do with Ferry.
You’ve performed at Stonehenge, the Great Wall of China, the base camp of Mount Everest and many festivals all over the world. After a career like that, what still drives you into the studio?
The music. It’s the music that drives everything I do.