20 Questions With DJ Harvey: ‘Once My Rent’s Paid & I Can Eat Sushi, I Stop Working’

DJ Harvey has long been considered one of the best to ever do it, so when he claims the dance scene has never been better, one’s ear perks up. That said, he’d also like you to know that he doesn’t really go to clubs — except when he’s playing them.

At 65, the English selector born Harvey Bassett has been elevating dancefloors for decades, and is as dexterous with disco as he is with house as he is with funk and techno and so on, equally at home at Berghain as he is at Coachella. Often seen behind the decks shirtless and chain smoking, sunglasses on with a smile, there’s serious realness, or — in industry parlance — absolute authenticity to Harvey and his work, a track record he’s established while playing many of the world’s coolest parties for the last 40 years, all while remaining, as he puts it, not a paycheck-obsessed “zero collector.”

This Saturday (Aug. 22), DJ Harvey plays his only U.K. show of the year, a one-night-only revival of Ministry of Sound’s early ’90s event Rulin, a party where he made his name. He’ll play open to close in the club’s revered space The Box (“It might be slightly nostalgic,” he says, “but it’s not going to be a ’90s house tribute night”), with the lineup also including DJ Paulette, Don Letts, Heidi Lawden, Lovefingers and more. Performances at New York’s Knockdown Center, Ocean Way Festival in Santa Monica, the new Goldenvoice SoCal dance fest Head Trip and Miami’s III Points fill out the rest of his fall schedule.

When we reach DJ Harvey, he’s at home on the Westside of Los Angeles, chatty, friendly, funny, leaving town soon to go play in Ibiza during the solar eclipse, which he advises “should be pretty damn epic, for people that enjoy such things.”

Here, he talks about the English stiff upper lip and the advice from his mom that’s long guided his life.

1. Where are you in the world right now, and what’s the setting like?

I’m in sunny Southern California, laying on my bed with an oversized fan blowing cool air upon me as I look out of the window at the monstrosity of a Marriott hotel that was built right in the way of my view of the Pacific Ocean. It actually looks like a prison toilet.

But let’s concentrate on the sunny Southern California bit, because it’s absolutely wonderfully gorgeous — and I could live anywhere in the world, and I choose to live here because it’s the best place in the whole world. It just so happens that someone without an ounce of architectural training was given the opportunity to build a a hotel in front of my house. It just annoys the s–t out of me, because otherwise it’d just be blue skies and palm trees instead of this sort of institutional sort of car park-looking arrangement that’s going on in between me and the beautiful Marina del Rey.

2. What did your parents do for a living when you were a kid, and what do or did they think of what you do for a living now?

My Dad worked for Philips, the electronics company, and he installed the new solid state sound system in the Lyceum Theatre in London for the 1968 Miss World. The old sound system, which for you hi-fi people was a Western Electric, ended up back in my house, which was fun to fool around with. My mum held down all sorts of jobs, really. She was busy raising me from when I can remember, me and my brother and sister, but then all sorts of things in between. She did some sort of secretarial work and… I’m trying to think really of what my mum did. Kind of mystical, really. Maybe she just conjured up my breakfast.

3. What’s the first non-equipment thing you bought for yourself when you started making money as an artist?

Probably an item of clothing. I’m a dedicated follower of fashion. Usually an investment would be some sort of jacket, and I love a good leather jacket.

4. You’re often referred to as a cult hero, a legend, an icon. Do you feel iconic?

I don’t know what feeling iconic is, but I’ll just say yes. All that s–t is in other people’s brains, not mine. I consider myself an entertainer, and if you are entertained, mission accomplished. All the sort of like “legendary, iconic, blah blah blah,” you can be legendary for doing awful things. So that’s all in the ear and eye of the beholder. But I’m happy to be thought of like that, I suppose, because it sells tickets, doesn’t it? [Laughs.]

5. What’s kept your job interesting to you for all these years?

I suppose with music, it is completely never ending, so it’s always inspiring. You can never have or hear all the music. My medium is infinite, so it doesn’t get old. And then as kind of an egoist, as it were, I enjoy the roar of the crowd. There’s nothing quite like it. So that combination of fresh inspiration or input combined with this just… free joy. It’s great.

6. Was there ever a time when you thought about doing something else?

Every morning when I wake up. But it doesn’t matter what it was, I’m just not a morning person. [Laughs.] It’s my dream job in many respects, so I don’t have to think about it too much. It’s a vocation.

7. We’re doing this interview ahead of your Ministry of Sound set later this month. What makes a U.K. audience special?

How s–tty the U.K. is. It’s like: adversity breeds happiness.

8. Are you saying the richness of dance music culture in the U.K. is a function of that adversity?

I think in some respects. One of the reasons I think England has been such a seat of creativity for youth culture and all kinds of stuff in the last 60 years is that it’s a s–thole. Especially when I was a kid. It was like, “The weather’s bad, the food’s bad, the education’s bad. There’s no jobs. There’s no prospects. Americans are putting nuclear weapons on British soil. You’ve got four minutes to live when the warning goes off.” So what are you going to do? Lock yourself in a room, make clothes and music. That sort of rising above adversity through celebrating life is a great British talent.

9. You did an interview with Rolling Stone recently where you said something about avoiding the “things in the scene used to be better attitude back in the day,” which is a really persistent attitude in dance music. So I guess my question is, what’s great right now?

Everything. I mean, what’s wrong with it? For me, there’s more money, more people, more parties, more everything, and it’s generally very, very healthy.

10. Why do you think so many people in dance music complain about the present moment?

Because they’re losing a– b–ches. Show me a successful DJ moaning about how bad it is.

You’re right, it’s probably a function of bitterness.

It totally is, and I’m bitter and twisted, and I love to moan all day. But I think it’s actually embarrassing, these moaning, nodding heads of the “not like it used to be when I was a f–king DJ.” Just give up already. It’s like “It wasn’t for you, mate, was it?” [Laughs.]

11. Do you think it’s also an annoyance with the way young people now present and experience the music?

Young people don’t complain. I don’t see your average 23-year-old going, “Oh, acid house is is s–t now, and it was great then.” But I see a bunch of old f–king bitter old DJs just f–king moaning away, and that’s the only way they can get [visibility.] They can’t get a gig, but they can get an interview about how s–t it is.