Ministry of sound tutor day 21st August 2009 ( Video 16) Chad Jackson Interview

0:00 We're in Ellaskins Castle Pub, isn't it?

Right, here we go folks. We're in Ellaskins Castle Pub, isn't it? Yes. Something like that. And, right, what I've just done, I've got about four o'clock and got to London. I've done a Ministry of Sound tutorial kind of thing, which was very good fun, a lot of good people, but it's exceedingly tiring. Now, next to me, right, this guy. First of all, so, what's your name? Zola. Zola, and where are you from? From Liverpool. From here, okay. And this gentleman has, basically I'm going to kick the night at his place, probably sleep on the couch or something like that and after a few more of these with Chad, God knows. But yeah, alright, so can I just shake your hand and say thank you very much? Thank you sir. Alright, nice one. And we've got this guy here. Now, I just want to first of all talk to you about the DMC Championships. As you know...

The DMC Championships is all about cutting and scratching, and basically it's like three minutes to see who can do the most in that amount of time. And it's got to the extreme whereby you can't physically see what they were doing. But if we go back say to the early 80s, it was more into mixing And not necessarily an art, but the art of scratching had only just started to begin. People started to find out about it and knew about what was going on. So the element of scratching in the early 80s, with someone just moving the record backwards and forwards quite slowly, was still groundbreaking. Now this guy here behind me is known as Mr. Chad Jackson. He is a legend, without a doubt, 100%. Google Chad Jackson. He was the first person to ever win the DMC Championships. So, Mr. Chad Jackson, tell us about that first DMC Championships. What was going through your mind?

2:43 What kind of, you know, taken aback with what was going on

Basically at that time what I prepared for my set was, in those days it was totally different. It wasn't just about the scratching and this that and the other. It was about the whole all-round performance. So when I was preparing that... I basically wanted to include a bit of everything, you know, and that's kind of how it ended up when I did my set. I spent a year preparing it and what I wanted to do was I wanted to make it quite visual, quite interesting to people who'd never seen it before. In those days, excuse me, in those days people had never seen scratching before so there was a lot of people who, it was such a new thing that they were... What kind of, you know, taken aback with what was going on. They couldn't quite understand what was going on. And it was also, it was a transition period between mixing, which people have been doing for a couple of years by then at least, and also the scratching thing, which was really new at that time. So what I wanted to do was incorporate all that and more and just mix it all up and try and... I mean, as I said to you earlier on, I'm...

I spent a year preparing my set and I wanted to basically include every kind of technique at that time that you might kind of do as a DJ, including mixing, scratching, visuals being visually interesting and everything else, you know, music selection. I mean even the music selection, I mean it wasn't so strict and regimented as it is now in the turntabler scene. It was very, a little bit whiny. You could throw The DJ Tutor, the DJ Tutor. The DJ tutorial by Ellaskins, Emphasis, more emphasis on the showmanship. You know like you said, visual. And that's what you did. So again, in the second one we had DJ Cheese. Do you think maybe he probably looked at you and thought, I could do that but take it to the next level? No, no, no. The championship that I won was the third world championship that ever happened. First one, a guy called Roger Johnson won, and that was basically just mixing. And then the next year, scratching had kind of appeared.

5:13 It was in those days where it was so new

I mean, some of us were doing it already but it's almost like we didn't have the We didn't have the balls, if you like, to actually start doing it live in a set. Because it was this kind of real personal underground type thing that you did at home and it was always like, well, if I do that at a gig or in a set, it's just going to freak people out. They're not going to really know what you're doing. So it was in those days where it was so new. And so, the second year that the DMC Championships were on, I won the... I got a free ticket into the world final the following year because DJ Cheese declined to defend his championship. So, as per the rules of the championship, he'd run her up The DJ Tutor is the best guitar player in the world. The DJ Tutor is the best guitar player in the world.

And because DJ Cheese have kind of broken this barrier of like the scratching thing, and kind of brought it out to everybody, I basically was like, right, I've got to incorporate that, you know, I've got to also incorporate a bit of visual stuff, because I've always thought DJs should be visual. You can't just stand there and do this. No, no, totally, yeah. You've got to put on a bit of a show, you know? So, I've tried to incorporate bits of a show, you know, that's why I came up with the sneaker cue and this. That's right. You took a sneaker off, didn't you? A shoe off and you started scratching. Yeah, yeah. The year before, I mean, I'd already started scratching a long time before that. And the year before I was actually kind of, part of my set the year before was scratching with my nose. That's it. But, you know, that was purely to try and...

7:56 DJ tutorial by Ellaskins, The DJ Tutor

The DJ Tutor is a great way to ease people in who have never seen it before by doing some crazy visual thing that they immediately got interested in and they wanted to hear more. So the following year, obviously I used a sneaker here and things like that and that was basically because the main reason was because I knew that the final was going to be at the Royal Albert Hall. DJ tutorial by Ellaskins, The DJ Tutor. So basically that's where I was kind of coming from with those thought processes. So what is your thought on let's say modern day winners of DMC? Because for me, I watch them and I think I can't... To a certain degree, I can't physically comprehend what's going on. It's so fast, isn't it? Well, you know, some of the time, neither can I. I mean, it's reached such an apex and such a level now. Yeah. But it's become very much a kind of specialist kind of scene. Yeah. And also, when... And again, this is not having a dig, but hopefully we'll get a lot of comments on this. When the DMC Mix Championships started, it was mixing.

Now, to me, it's just got into cutting and scratching. I must admit, I'm from the old school, so... And also, I'm not just a scratch mix DJ, you know. I'm a, for better term, ordinary DJ who plays ordinary clubs, mixes music together, kicks the dance floor going, you know? And the way I've always been brought up to kind of, you know, see DJing and the The art of DJing is, at the end of the day, the crowd and the dance floor is the important thing. If you want to show off with loads of your tricks, then fine, but the dance floor's probably going to disappear or people are just going to crowd up to the decks and watch what you're doing and there's not going to be much of an atmosphere. The problem is it's become very performance-orientated and it's very much showmanship.

10:48 DMC Mixed Championships has started off as a mix, a flow

And the thing that really kind of, the thing that really freaked me out right was one year, I think the year afterwards, after I won it, it suddenly started to become more about your actual tricks and technique and stuff rather than actually doing a set of say six minutes which flowed in a certain way. I mean people suddenly started to scratch up some tricks The DJ Tutor shows you the track and then the next track they've got on, they just whack it in. Maybe it was a completely different tempo, but it was almost like, well I just want to show you my tricks and it doesn't matter about keeping some kind of flow. DMC Mixed Championships has started off as a mix, a flow. Now, it's more so, and again, I'm not picking, I'm sort of trying to explain. Now, it's, like you said earlier, it's visual look and watch as opposed to originally when it was mix and dance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I like a balance between the two. I mean, you know, for me, if let's say the next world championship somebody goes on and does an amazing mix which flows perfectly but includes some amazing scratching and tricks

And beat juggling and all that. That to me will be the perfect set. It's not just about... You know, right, I'll just show you all these really cool tricks that I can do and all these really cool scratches, but actually, I mean, I have met DJs who can, you know, they can scratch and beat juggle like you wouldn't believe, but actually they can't even mix a record in and keep a flow going on a dance floor, you know? They're too used to just chopping and changing like this. And it's so, you know, to me, you've got to have the whole shebang, you know, you've It's difficult. Again, like I've said so many times, people think DJing is easy. It is, to a certain degree, but I tell you what, it's a nightmare out there. It is a very difficult industry to keep above and keep sort of some form of continuity. We've got to finish this, Chad, but can you give some sort of details how people can see you, Facebook, MySpace? Give some sort of websites. What have we got out there? I'm on MySpace, MySpace forward slash DJ Chad Jackson. I'm on Facebook, Chad Jackson.

Don't ask me the address or whatever. I'm a complete Facebook mentalist and I haven't got a clue when it comes to Facebook. It's all too much for me. And my website, chadjackson.co.uk. That's about it, I think, really. Alright, I'll put clickable links in the description. And I'm going to finish off with practice and... Enjoy. Thank you. Chad, I love you, mate. Nice one.

This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.