Background and career
Paul Mark Oakenfold (; born 30 August 1963), formerly known mononymously as Oakenfold, is an English record producer, remixer, and electronic music DJ. He has created over 100 remixes for over 100 artists including U2, Moby, Madonna, Britney Spears, Massive Attack, The Cure, New Order, The Rolling Stones, The Stone Roses and Michael Jackson. Oakenfold was voted the No. 1 DJ in the World twice in 1998 and 1999 by DJ Magazine.
Oakenfold was born on 30 August 1963 at Mile End Hospital. His father delivered the London Evening News. He lived in Highbury, Greenhithe, then Croydon, attending Archbishop Lanfranc School, then studied to be a chef for four years and worked at the Army and Navy Club. He was known as 'Oakey' growing up.
Oakenfold describes himself as a youthful "bedroom DJ", stating he grew up listening to the Beatles, as his father was in a skiffle band. Oakenfold's musical career began in the late 1970s, when he met British DJ Trevor Fung, who became his mentor. His first gig was in 1985, at a Covent Garden wine bar called Rumours; he filled in for a friend who was ill, and played tracks by Earth, Wind and Fire and popular British bands. In 1981, Oakenfold and his friend, club promoter Ian St Paul, moved to New York City. Oakenfold worked as a courier in West Harlem. During this time, hip-hop was overtaking dance music as the most popular sound in the area (see 1984 in music). Joined by Fung, they used fake identification to sneak into various dance clubs like Studio 54, where they met members of the band Maze; Bobby Womack; and Bob Marley, whom they also interviewed, claiming to be NME and Melody Maker journalists. Returning to London, Oakenfold began to get involved in the music industry, as an A&R man for Champion Records. Duing this period, he signed DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, as well as Salt-n-Pepa, and appeared on Blue Peter with a breakdancing crew. He became a promoter and British agent for the Beastie Boys and Run-D.M.C., and would DJ at The Project in Streatham, playing soul and jazz music.
In 1987, Oakenfold travelled to the island of Ibiza for a week to celebrate his birthday, joined by St Paul, Fung, Nicky Holloway,Danny Rampling and Johnnie Walker. Oakenfold convinced the owner of a venue in England to host an "Ibiza Reunion" party after-hours. He had previously made an attempt to organise such an event, but it had been unsuccessful as attendees were not yet familiar with the Acid house style the group had been hearing in Ibiza. By 1987, tastes had changed and the party was a success; it went on to become Spectrum, a regular acid house club night at Heaven in Charing Cross. The party was best known for the "Theatre of Madness", as more than 1,500 people were present on Monday nights, until it went down; with the financial issues it changed its name to the "Land of Oz". Artists like Alex Paterson DJ'd in the VIP chillout area known as the "White Room", which gave Oakenfold more free time, and then he began producing music under the alias "Electra" in 1988, alongside Nick Divaris, John "Johnny" Rocca and 'Micky'. As they continued releasing only four singles as the Balearic beat band Electra, in Full Frequency Range Recordings (FFRR Records) founded and run by Radio 1's Pete Tong, the duo created a new alias under the name Perfecto. Also in 1988 he decided to create a place where new artists could develop their careers. At that moment, Perfecto Records was born. He collaborated with his friend Steve Osborne on various projects. In 1990, he worked with Terry Farley, Andrew Weatherall and Osborne on two remixes for Happy Mondays. The remixes of "Rave On" and "Hallelujah" were released on the Madchester Rave On EP, as well as "Step On", a cover version adapted from John Kongos' 1971 hit "He's Gonna Step on You". The song reached the top 5 position in the UK. He was invited as a guest DJ to Spike Island, a gig with the Stone Roses. Pleased with the last single, the Happy Mondays gave Oakenfold and Osborne the opportunity to produce their third studio album, Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches. The album entered the UK charts at number one with pre-sales of 150,000. The album was named NME's 1990 Album of the Year, and both Oakenfold and Osborne won the 1991 Brit Award for Best Producer.
This is a tremendous record and a gauntlet chucked at all the other would-be legends in town... Wild, brash, corrosive funk rock, grimly northern and yet pan-cultural in a Tesco shoplifter kind of way. In 1991, they remixed Massive Attack's "Safe from Harm" as well as many others.
In 1992, when U2 released their song "Even Better Than the Real Thing", the Perfecto remix reached a higher charted position than the original song. In 1993 with the success of his last remix as Perfecto, he was hired by U2 to provide the warm-up sonics to their Zoo TV world tour, and replaced BP Fallon in the 1993 legs of Europe and Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, with more than fifty shows in Zooropa '93 and Zoomerang from 7 May to 10 December of the same year. Also in 1993, Oakenfold and Osborne's project Grace was formed as State of Grace and featuring vocals by Patti Low, though by the time Grace had charted a number of singles in the UK charts (around 1996), it had become a 'solo fronted project' with jazz singer Dominique Atkins as the lead vocalist. The project was dissolved in 1997 as Oakenfold was touring as a performance DJ more frequently and could not commit to recording, though a remixed version of "Not Over Yet" was issued under the 'Planet Perfecto featuring Grace' name in 1999.
