Orla Conway speaks to Felix Buxton, one half of headline act Basement Jaxx, ahead of their performance at this yearâs Trinity Ball. Here he talks about the artificiality of fame, how dance has gone mainstream, how UFO sightings inspired his latest album and how his passion for music has endured and developed in the 21 years since the bandâs inception.
Q: Why did you call yourselves Basement Jaxx?
When we started, our first name was âUnderground Oasisâ that was the name we were thinking of naming ourselves. But there was a friend of mine who was involved in the music scene and he said that there was this rock band called âOasisâ and he reckoned they might get big so it might be a bit dodgy, people might get confused. He was right! So thatâs how we became Basement Jaxx.
Q; How would you describe Basement Jaxx?
A: Every adjective under the sun is very apt, because we all are every adjective under the sun. We all are everything and thatâs something I believe, it just depends on what aspect we decide to focus on. Our music is just music, all music is just music and melodies. Itâs how you interpret it. Music I love stems from Mozart to African music, all the pop music is great. I love all music.
Q: What was the idea behind the last album, âJuntoâ?
A: We decided we wanted to do something we could do with DJing in clubs and something that connected with new DJs. We were meeting all these young producers who were fans of our music like Rudimental and it was like âoh, we should do something for those peopleâ because for a few years weâve been off doing rock festivals and off around the world and you kind of forget about the UK scene and the house scene here. And weâve been quite a way away from that and it was just to connect back to that. It was for the people who listen to our music and what theyâd expect from Basement Jaxx. Being careful not to be pretentious.
Q:  Why and how did you decide to perform live with singers and dancers etc�
A: Weâve always done that. On our first album, the record label said that we should do some live shows but we thought âbut we donât have a bandâ. [Our music] is very rhythmical so to represent our music and all the voices it seemed to make sense that we had to bring the voices with us. Dancers and the other elements have come into the show,, thatâs just because I love theatre, I love dance. Generally I find (live bands) pretty boring. DJ shows (are) just generally a guy twiddling a knob and thatâs very uninspiring and itâs just never appealed to me at all. I mean I love going to see DJs but the whole draw of electronic music was that it wasnât going to see someone stretching their egos on stage, it was about everyone together dancing. Not about all looking up to one person. So with our live shows itâs about making a visual representation of our music.
Thereâs loads of really good club music and DJs and the whole scene that we came from is now absolutely mainstream in every single way. At the moment anything vaguely underground, Radio 1 will jump on because they want to be cool so itâs immediately not underground anymore. So Electronic music/dance music has grown but people are very commercially minded. When we started it was very true and honest and house music was about unity and breaking down boundaries and that was very appealing.
Q Over the years, what is the biggest thing youâve learnt?
All the ideas of celebrity and fame that people learn are definitely shallow and empty. I never really intended to get to know that world but Iâve gotten to see it. When I was a student, all my cynicism about celebrity culture was all absolutely bang on and Iâm right back to where I was as a student â itâs all a load of nonsense. Please, all you students: donât waste your time on it. Go and make your own things and to a certain extent just ignore the media. It leads to dissatisfaction, envy, just loads of things that donât make you happier and life can be amazing.
Q: Do you think money or class has anything to do with music?
A lot of the middle classes embrace (popular) music and itâs kind of become their thing. Pop music used to come a lot from the working class. I think thatâs just the way society works. I think anyone can make music. You donât need music. We had no money when we started out. Creativity is not about having cash.
Q: Do you prefer playing club shows or festivals?
A: Theyâre all different. I do love an absolutely huge crowd who want to be there and are interested in listening to you because thereâs so much energy, and when the weather is good⊠When all the factors come together then a festival can be amazing. I like being outside so any way that I can be outside and the weather is good is generally a massive plus. But then you can do small little intimate things in a diveâŠ. Itâs a range, you get different thrills. Itâs like everything in life thereâs not one way of being thatâs key, everything in life has something to offer and something to give you and fulfilling.
Q: What is one thing that has influenced you in particular?
When we started doing the album in April 2012 I saw a UFO at that point when we got our new studio in London and that was an amazing thing. So it ended up being a whole journey of trawling the internet looking up all these conspiracy theories and all the different ideas of life beyond and other dimensions. Thatâs been a really big journey for me. I did a talk at Oxford Union that summer and so I really had to try and work out my thoughts on existence and belief and the biggest things thatâs happened in my life is that UFO experience. And seeing how small minded people were at the idea that I had seen something that I couldnât comprehend and I couldnât say exactly what that was. A lot of people came with the reaction âyou havenât seen itâ, âyouâre lyingâ. Itâs amazing people get very angry. I thought that people minds are so small. But what was encouraging was I saw at the time when I talked to students, they were really cool and open minded. It made me realise that so many people in life get trapped in this rut and they have these close minded which means that the experience of life becomes more limited and unhappy. Musically, that is central to the album. There is a song called âWe are Not Aloneâ and itâs the idea that itâs about togetherness and  connections, with ourselves and with nature and the globe and with higher dimensions and our spiritual side and beyond.
When I hang out with students I think theyâre all really cool and they havenât been dumbed down by society. I think when youâre a student you have to remember to keep that.
