Q+A: DJ Judge Jules on equipment, lockdown DJing & MOS Classical's 30th Birthday party!
Globally successful British dance DJ, record producer and entertainment lawyer Judge Jules, is just one of the incredible DJ’s lined-up for this weekend’s Ministry Of Sound Classical Presents Three Decades of Dance event at The O2 in London.
Taking place on Saturday 13th November 2021, the world-renowned London DJ, Judge Jules joins special guests Paul Oakenfold, Brandon Block, Alex P, plus esteemed vocalist Kelli-Leigh, Ministry of Sound founder Justin Berkmann and the 50 piece London Concert Orchestra.
The DJs and special guests on the line-up reflect the legendary history of Ministry of Sound, showcasing the longstanding innovative DJs and artists that have been imperative to the brand’s three decades of domination from the club’s opening in 1991 to sold out arena tours and topping charts around the world.
Ministry of Sound Classical builds on the success of its previous incarnation and offers an even broader reflection of Ministry of Sound, recreating classical forms of the music that has defined the brand he London Concert Orchestra.
We caught up with DJ Judge Jules ahead of this Saturday’s event, read more about his favourite pieces of kit, how he spent his lockdown, and what fans can expect from the MOS Classical 30th Birthday party below.
Firstly, how did you get started in DJing?
I was a promoter for a number of years, until I started getting booked by third party promoters, initially putting on things when I was 16 in a very big function room above a local pub. Function room makes it sound smaller than it is, but it really held about 1000 people. Then I got into promoting illegal raves for about five or six years, and did lots of those and started building up my name in the process, I guess.
If you were putting on these shows, how much of the evening were you spending actually DJing? Or were you taking care of everything else?
Well there was a bunch of us working in cahoots with one another - some of whom were DJs and others weren't. Basically, there was me and another guy, Norman Jay, who were the two principal DJs and then the other guys didn't really DJ - they were just sort of promoters - but we all did everything together. We were quite entrepreneurial. We had a huge mailing list of people in and around the London area that we soon realized, you know, in a very early way that data capture was an important part of building a brand.
You said you started off at 16, what kind of equipment did you have when you first started?
We were just about technics turntables then. I initially had sort of a DJ console type thing, but I got technics quite quickly. When I went to university at 18, I moved in with a flat mate who had wealthier parents than me, who bought him a set of decks and a mixer - a set of technics - and I basically monopolized them. I was a bit naughty in retrospect, I couldn't be taken off them.
Do you still play with technics now?
No – There are now two schools of DJs - there are those that kind of use laptops, using software that basically does the mixing for you, but to be fair, a lot of those laptop programs have got some interesting effects and stuff so it's not devoid of creativity. And then there are those DJs who sort of use the modern-day equivalent of the technics, which is Pioneer CDJs. Pioneer CDJs originally – well the clue is in the name - were invented to kind of enable one to mix with CDs. But now they work off memory sticks, the principle being that you can actually put as many of them as you want in tandem with one another - you can have four decks. But basically one memory stick can play multiple different tracks simultaneously, with which you mix. So I've kind of evolved into that. I would say that the majority of the world's DJs use pioneer kits.
Would you say that's your favourite?
I like it. One of the reasons I like digital compared to vinyl is because you can basically make your own edits of things and you can make your own tracks and play them very easily. Vinyl, you were very much restricted to the way the producer wanted it to be. Ever since I've played digitally, which is probably the best part of 20 years, I've always liked to do my own versions of things - my own edits, my own mashups. In the vinyl era you could have gone away and got them burnt off onto a one-off acetate at a great expense and it was quite time consuming and wasn't something you could do spontaneously when you came out of the studio. So digital was great for those who like to do their own thing and play stuff that's really new.
Obviously technology's changed throughout the years since you've been involved in it, but how do you feel about how dance music has evolved?
Yeah, I think music as a whole is about reinvention but reinvention with a modern twist, so there have been certain trends in dance music that have come around cyclically, a lot of them, in fact - especially in House. But it’s still a reinvention with a much more modern twist. Records that come out now might have a nod to 10, 15, 20 years ago, but they don't sound like records from that era. They sound much cleaner and more digital and more “now”.
You've been involved with some of these classical events for the past few years. Do you think that’s a good progression that dance music’s gone into?
I think it's just very magical and very interesting and if set in the right locations - like the one I'm doing with the forthcoming Ministry show – or I did a Ministry show at the Royal Festival Hall before and I've done some marvellous venues that I’d never imagined. If you add the right records to an orchestration, and the magic of an orchestra to iconic venues, I think it's a really magical combination.
You’ve had quite a career – you’ve played everywhere. Are there any kind of big standout moments that sometimes you think back on like “I can’t believe I was there”?
Yeah there’s a lot really. I mean I played in front of the pyramids in Egypt; played open air at the Sydney Cricket Ground before The Ashes; played in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. I mean, there are many more iconic moments than that and just huge Ibiza memories as well. I've done 500 gigs or there abouts in Ibiza, none of which have ever been anything other than excellent so yeah, there’s a lot of history.
Were you able to do anything over the past couple years? Or were you just kind of locked down like the rest of us?
Since July 19th - so called “Freedom Day” - I've done probably 40 gigs, I've done a lot. In the 18 months of lockdown between March 2020 and July 2021, there was a little window in the middle when certain socially distanced events were allowed, so I did do a small number of gigs. But it was very restricted and that was in August and September 2020, and then it all kicked off again. So I had a little bit of a window. But importantly, as well, I've been doing live streaming every Saturday night between 9 and 11pm. I started at the beginning of the pandemic and I've been doing it to the present day.
Fantastic. And has the reaction been good?
Really, really good. It’s a good way to connect with fans. For some strange reason … because I have a day job as well - I've got my own legal practice specialising in music - when I decided to do that, I never said as much, but some people got in their heads that I was retiring from DJing which I personally never said but people thought it was such an odd career progression that they assumed I wasn’t DJing. And one of the great things about the live streaming is that it's reminded people that I'm very much out there. Even though I've been gigging for a long time, it just opens you up to a broader audience, especially in the first six months of lockdown when people were crying out for some moment of joy albeit through their TV or through their headphones.
If I can just go back to the show at the O2 - they’re playing a lot of the classic Ministry tracks and more from the dance era of the 90s and the early 2000s. What are you going to do for your set? What can we expect?
I haven't necessarily thought about it yet, because for me, every gig’s different. Every gig is about feeling the chemistry of the crowd and if you arrive with a band-like mentality and have like a setlist that you tape to the floor and slavishly play, it's not as much fun. I'm obviously respectful of the age of the people there, and some gigs I do for younger people, some are for an older crowd -clearly you tailor what you do in accordance with that, and many other factors like what time of day it is, how big the venue is and where you are in the world. I mean, there are many, many factors. But yeah, I’m quietly confident that I'll play the right records, but I don't necessarily have that setlist in my hands.
So would that just be something that comes to you on the night?
I don't think about what I'm going to play at any gig until I get there. But once I am there, and I can hear what the DJ before me is playing, feel the vibe of the gig, then very soon after I get there then I'll start to know what I'm gonna play.
And that's where it's gonna be handy, I guess having everything digital?
Well it's interesting, because digital is good and bad in equal measures when it comes to choosing and having a sort of a catalogue of everything you carry with you. I take a 64gb memory stick with me which carries 1000s of tracks, whereas in the vinyl era you had maybe one or two record boxes which were labelled up, you can flick through them very quickly, you could see the full panorama visually of what it was you're going to play, whereas the vast quantities of digital files, one needs to be organized and it’s slightly less user friendly running through what you might play.
One of the key things for me about doing all the live streaming during lockdown was staying match-fit if you like. It was very bizarre being locked down for me. I've been Djing - I'm in my 50s - I've been DJing since I was 16. I have not had more than three Saturday nights off per year since I was 16. So to have the best part of 18 months off… I've stayed quite “match fit”. Some people might disagree, but I feel I've stayed relatively fit for the majority of that. Because you do need to kind of stay on top of the vibe of the crowd and what's working, whether it's new records, or even old records. But I think having done all these live streams has kept me very match-fit for moments like this, because obviously it's a very big gig, and big gigs are your biggest shop window if you like.
We're getting into the end of 2021. Any big plans for 2022?
I mean, just more of the same really. The year comes in distinct bits - at summer season, probably of the 40 gigs I've done since “Freedom Day” about 30 have been festivals. I've really got back into the festival market doing a really interesting range of festivals from the more dancey things, to family festivals and kind of food festivals. So that's the Summer. Then of course I would like to think after two years of closure Ibiza will probably be back in Summer 2022, and probably the early part of the year I’ll be focusing on my band and doing shows with the band.
So are you going to go out on the road again?
Oh, definitely. Well, yeah, that's a given.
