Interview: Neil Barnes, Leftfield

Neil Barnes, DJ and mix master of Leftfield fame, resurrected the electronic duo as a solo project back in 2010. Since then, he’s been touring the festival circuits and underground clubs across the UK, playing epic sets of deep house, bass, techno, reggae at two times the tempo and electronic tunes from across Africa which descend into big messy parties.

This summer, he brings the party vibe to Valley Fest 2019. We caught up with him ahead of his DJ set to talk all things records, labels and festivals.

Valley Fest 2018 // Image by Louis Smith

You have a DJ set coming up at Valley Fest. What can we expect from you?

I don’t play much Leftfield in my set whatsoever. I only play Leftfield that’s new. I’m only interested really playing new records, and, you know, stuff that reflects what’s going on at the moment and I’ve been I’ve been doing that for five years.

In fact, the history of Leftfield as far as DJing is concerned is that, when Paul was in the band as well, he saw DJing as an opportunity to play other people’s music. I think that’s really what it’s about. I mean, I’m excited by music on here at the moment by very young people.

I mean, when you say what can people expect to hear at the festival…I mean, they can expect to pay to hear people like DJ House, Addison Groove, Dense & Pika, they can expect to hear Joshua James on Scream’s new label, Paranoid London, Ejeca and SRVD, things on Rec Records. I’m not averse to playing a little bit of Alan Fitzpatrick from last year but think I’m probably more into the dryer, dirty house type of vibe at the moment.

Yeah, that’s me. I’m actually more into labels. It’s labels I get attracted to.

I suppose once you’re into a label, it’s an easy way to find more music and artists of the same genre, and theme.

That’s right. I mean, Pet Sounds is a brilliant label. I’ll always check out Fantasy, you know, because there’s often really interesting remixes. I always check out Central Processing Unit. Arts for Techno, Analog Africa, Numbers, Optimo, Acid Wax. God I could go on all year about the stuff or people that I like.

How would you define your DJ set?

I go down a sort of skanking type of route. I play reggae at the wrong speed. Basically, the set is a journey, much like Leftfield. That’s why it’s Leftfield, because I don’t just play techno and I don’t just play house music. I vary the BPMs, I will play vocal tracks. I go on a little bit of a strangely dub journey and then come back around again, onto something a bit more powerful.

What are your favourite events to DJ at?

I tend to like playing clubs and I like to turn what I do into acid house parties, in a way. Get back to what DJing really started out as which was a bit of an adventure. And attract all age groups.  I love those gigs when you get two generations, sometimes three generations, coming along. You know, that for me is the true spirit of Ibiza. That’s really the bit of DJing that really excites me, when you get a mixed dance floor.

Festival crowd / Image by veldmusicfestival

Have you seen a change in your audiences since you started making music as Leftfield?

What you do tend to get when the music is young and exciting and new on the scene is young people. I remember going to early festivals when I was watching Richie Hawtin DJ, and literally, the first 50 rows were young blokes with their tops off. Because it was new and exciting!

You still get festivals that just attract a younger crowd, and the bad side of what’s happening at the moment is the generic type of thing where the younger people are being encouraged to expect a drop or a radical change in the record every two minutes. I don’t like that. They’re not impressed by grooves, they will just go onto their telephones. They’re the type of sides to DJing that sometimes we all have we face at festivals and, you know, none of us like that.

I think actually, I’d say that the older generation are still around and that’s the difference. There is a generation of 40+ people who still want to be able to party. Yeah, that doesn’t mean that they’re going to go to every techno rave because they don’t want to, but they want to be able to fit into an environment.

You must get quite a mix at your shows.

Maybe it’s just me because I’m older, I do attract a range of people. I played in York recently and the dancefloor was, you know, there was older people there, but there was lots of people in their 20s. Maybe they came out of interest thinking ‘What’s he going to play?’

I really want people to expect the unexpected when I play. I mean, if people just expected me to be able to change BPMs and do things radical, I love it, but I haven’t reached that point yet. I can’t do that. I still feel that I’ve got a pressure on me to keep certain sort of thing going.

It’s very rare, but sometimes when I play somewhere, I just wonder what would happen if I played a rock track. If I could find something that would fit in that was just a rock track. How would people react to it? If I did that at a festival I think they’d just sort of turn their back. But maybe I just haven’t found the right track to play yet.

Lost Village 2017 / Image by Lost Village/FANATIC

Has there been a festival yet that you thought, yeah I could drop a rock track here.

There was one in Lincolnshire…Lost Village. It was absolutely amazing. It was in the woods and I just felt that the crowd loved it.

I also played Azora in Hungary, this famous psytrance festival, and they’ve got this incredible room that looks like an Arabic tent but it’s actually made out of wood and it’s got sand on the floor, and they just want to create a totally different vibe in that space. It’s almost an Ibizan type of vibe. You can get that even in the bigger festivals too, you get these tiny spaces that allow you to, well they allow someone like me, to do something that’s more clubby.

I may be biased, but I think Bristol’s club scene is pretty special. Do you enjoy playing here?

Yeah, Bristol’s great. And you know, I’m so excited to play [Valley Fest] because I think I’ll really be able to let fly on this one.

What are you working on at the moment?

I’m in the studio at the moment working on a new record, and its early days, it’s early days. I’m just interested in trying to do something that’s relevant and feels right to me. Something that’s relevant and that goes in a direction that doesn’t sound like I’ve been there before. I’ve done three albums already that have featured vocalists, so I’m looking for new pastures. But I don’t know yet, it’s early and I’m just experimenting.

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