A Beautifully Poignant Chat with Bill Patrick
The photographer and DJ keeps it authentic, honest and open
Welcome back to Music Is The Answer. I’m finding my rhythm with the newsletter this year - parallel to working on my organisational skills, I’ve got the next couple of months mapped out and there’s a cadence to the work I’m doing, which feels really good.
This year is all about putting more time, energy and creativity into this newsletter. As far as journalism and that side of my work goes, this is my main focus. I have all the experience and capabilities needed to push this thing forward, so that’s what I intend to do. Medium-term, I want to introduce a paid aspect which will help massively with the plans I have. Stick around, it’s only going to get better and better here. I promise.
Which brings me on to this week’s edition. The main feature is my interview with Bill Patrick, and it’s super special. It’s rare for people in the music world to be so candid about their vulerabilites and creativity to the extent which Bill was and I am deeply appreciative of this. So please take some time to read it when you can.
This newsletter also contains my monthly techno reviews, and a mix of the tunes I reviewed… link below.
**Click here to read my monthly techno reviews. Listen to the mix below**
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Bill Patrick on Photography, Nostalgia and Appreciating The Subtlety of Life
I can’t remember when I first met Bill Patrick, but I’ve always respected him and the way he holds himself. We did an interview for my Independent blog over 10 years ago, where he spoke candidly about being what he called a working class DJ, and I still quote the interview to this day. I’ve met him several times since then and he’s always been refreshingly humble, authentic and honest. Bill doesn’t kowtow to the nicey nicey superficiality that can often influence how people in the DJ world communicate and present themselves.
I went to the launch of his brilliant book In Between at ADE last year and bought myself a copy. He did a live Q&A with Seth Troxler, hosted by Chloe Lula from RA, and it was such a heartrending experience that I reached out to him not long afterwards to ask if he’d be up for an interview for my newsletter. He kindly agreed and we did two separate interviews. We both felt the first was a little too DJ take-focused, so we did a second one, a week or two after New Year, which delved into his relationship with photography a lot more.
I have to say, this is exactly the kind of work I want to be putting out into the world. Honest, heartfelt and sincere dialogue. Editing this interview was an emotional experience. When I’m in “Interviewer Mode” I’m, of course, full of empathy but also have my professional hat on. During the edit, so many of the topics Bill spoke about really touched me. I’m not ashamed to admit that I welled up a couple of times. There’s such a beautiful, delicate poignancy about this interview.
So a big thanks to Bill for being as real as ever, and thanks to anyone who reads this. Big love.
How's the new year going so far?
Not bad, just getting over the holidays and the shift into winter. I was explaining yesterday to my therapist how January and February, January in particular, it's such a void of any colour. We have the fall and then Christmas and stuff where there’s so much colour and light and everything. Then it’s just like, “Boom!”, we're in the dead of winter. It affects me so much. It takes a lot out of me.
Grayscale times, for sure.
I'm super nostalgic too and so the fall was always my favourite time of year, especially in New York. Growing up watching the leaves change colours was just beautiful. Then you go right into the holidays; Thanksgiving, Christmas, everything, and then such a drop off in January. So I'm trying to mentally keep busy. It's also freezing cold right now, so…
This feels like a neat way to get into speaking about photography. How does this feeling of the colour being drained from the world, to a certain extent, play into your photography during these months?
Good question. Colour is such an important thing for me. Even the way I dress and, like I just said, it being so prominent during fall and the holidays… But these winter months are a really hard time to capture anything. In the past, I was away during this time. Like last year, I was away traveling a bunch, but now being home in upstate New York and trying to find any kind of creative inspiration to take photos - it's bleak. I mean, when it snows, that's another story. It's gorgeous, and it's really pretty up here, but the lack of colour, the gray scale, like you mentioned, it's tough to be inspired to take photos. If I need a creative push, I'll go down to the city, bounce around there and it's easy to find something. But up here, it's nature and it's super pretty but, from a photography standpoint, I think I need to do a better job of exploring more. I'm not so much a nature photographer, even though a lot of the photos in the book happen to be from outside and nature and stuff. When I go to the city, the creative juices are flowing more.
The word nostalgia stood out for me just there. How much does that play into your photography and your general appreciation of the visual side of life?
You know, I’m super nostalgic and it feels like, as you get older, it only gets worse. It's crazy.
I had this real sadness around nostalgia the other day, and I don't want to go into the DJ take stuff at all. I'm just talking about an experience that I had, and it was very much rooted in this thing of like, “Oh my god, things aren't the way they used to be”. I felt it so deeply. I just sat down on the sofa for about 15 minutes trying to dig myself out of this hole of sadness. I’ve felt nostalgia so prominently over the last five years and it's definitely a thing of getting older, but anyway, sorry. Let's get back to…
No, no, no. I feel it. I feel it. Man, I'm looking at my Christmas tree, which my girlfriend and I made an agreement about. She wants to take it down. And I’m like, “Can we just keep it up a couple of days longer?” The other night I was sitting here looking at it all lit up, and just having this moment of remembering childhood and all the memories of Christmas and the tree - I just started crying.
I was telling my girlfriend how I had these very distinct memories of the way the Christmas lights on the tree, particularly the green and red, would reflect off of an ornament that I remember from back then - a glass ornament that I made in school - and how through that ornament, seeing the light reflecting, brought me so much joy and warmth. There was something about the colour reflection, I can't explain it. We have this glass ornament on our tree now, and I was looking at it and seeing the light reflecting through it, and just feeling overwhelmed with nostalgia and sadness. We can go into it later, but also having cancer and struggling with that in so many ways. Once the nostalgia kicks in, and then you start thinking about your own existence and mortality, like, “How much time do I have?”. When you really start thinking, you can, I can especially, go down a hole. Some of it is beautiful, but, you know, it's sad and it's just life. I think that plays a huge role in my photography, and me as an artist, because for so many years, I struggled with accepting or calling myself an artist in any way. I felt like it was disrespectful to true artists out there, like a Gerhard Richter, or Ryan McKinley or Nan Goldin. Once I accepted that art, whether it be through music or photography, is something that is a part of me, a lot of things became more clear and a lot of my emotions and my outlook on life and where I fit in the world, became more evident.
I remember at a young age constantly just peering through windows, whether it was driving in a car, looking out of a window and taking in everything around me. Or walking around New York City and peering into apartment windows and having some kind of daydream of what that person's life must be... by looking at their art on the wall or the way that the house is decorated. I'm still constantly looking out the window and daydreaming, this plays a huge role in what I try to capture - just humanity, other people's lives, candidness. I think a lot of that comes out in the book as well.
Some guy on the internet did a little review, I guess he's a club influencer or something. He does videos, and he mentioned how the book captures all the “boring parts”of the DJ life. I just thought to myself, “What's boring about it? You can't think any deeper than a club night and a DJ set?” He didn't mean it in a bad way, I guess. He meant it as, like, you see the DJ world, it's all glitz and glamour, but you don't get to see the “boring part” of it. But to me, that so-called "boring" part is more fascinating, you know. It's real life - with an emotional depth that draws me in far more than anything I could capture inside a club.
When you were doing your interview with Chloe at ADE, you mentioned feeling a bit uncomfortable being in the booth and taking photos and stuff and being an older guy with a camera, and how that kind of gave you the heebie jeebies. That’s something that I could identify with myself, being an older guy in a club too, but also just the notion of cameras in clubs, and how that has evolved, or devolved, over the years. I thought it would be interesting to discuss the idea of cameras in a club and being the bearer of said camera.
Personally it’s still a process for me, because my whole career has been as a DJ and I've built up 25 years in the scene being known as a DJ. So, when I started taking photos there was a bit of self-consciousness and insecurity. I don't know if it's just me, but I'm sure anyone who is an “artist”, or in any creative field, you have this imposter syndrome. There was this feeling of.. not embarrassment, but, all of a sudden, I'm taking photos, and I'm a photographer, and am I a cliche? You're not DJing as much anymore, you moved out of Berlin, and now you're taking photos and you're in the DJ booth. The hard part, the part that I hated, was taking the videos. Seth and I agreed that, while I'm there, we might as well get some video content. I was using a Samsung phone, and it fucking crushed my soul. Really, really crushed my soul doing that. I hated it. As someone who has always represented underground music, music that has no commercial appeal, I've always hated the people in the DJ booth with their phones up taking video. And there I was doing it myself, and it fucking crushed me. That was something that I just don't want to do ever again. I felt a little bit better taking photos with the real camera in my hand, but it still was something that took some time to get over and stop concerning myself about what other people may think or say.
As far as walking around in the club, I think I mentioned in that interview at ADE that I've never been drawn to club photography. It's not really something I'm interested in. I feel like, if you've seen one [set of club images], you've seen them all. There are cool images that can be taken, for sure. I'd like to think that I've captured some of them in the book. All due respect to the club photographers out there - I own books on ’80s club photography - but at some point, it all starts to feel a bit repetitive. Creatively, it’s just not where my interest lies.
So it was hard. I would wander around the club trying to find something off or weird but in the end, like you said, it's really hard to just walk up to people that are in their own little safe space, just vibing, having a moment, and then to flash a camera in their face. It was something I was very, very conscious of, and I tried not to get in people's way. In general, with photography, I kind of just want to not be seen. In many ways this echoes how I felt about DJing. I just want to be in the shadows and do my thing. It's also better, for me as a photographer, [for people] to not know that the camera is there - to capture those candid moments. It’s like DJing, where I preferred the lights were off so I could just have my head down and not be a spectacle or an entertainer.
Something else I wanted to touch on - and this came through a little bit in what you were saying just now about the generic quality of club photography - is also this dynamic between social media and the way in which people behave and dress, in terms of how it's homogenised the way that people are, generally, in club culture. Obviously, there are pockets of clubs all over the world where people go and they still act in outlandish ways and dress in all kinds of different, flamboyant outfits. But generally speaking, I find when I go out, there are less “characters”. I guess it's the impact of social media. For a lot of people, especially young people, it's their access point to culture full stop. It’s almost as if they're interfacing with a template, or they think that that's how things should be because that's what they’re exposed to. Does that make sense?
Totally. But I think you know, when I grew up going to clubs, clubbing and nightlife was a counterculture. It was a place where people would go and feel free to let loose and dress however they want, and act out in there. Sometimes people that were maybe a little bit more conservative outside of the club, would come in and feel free to dance and let loose and express themselves. I don't think clubbing is a counterculture anymore. It's mainstream.
Obviously, there are still some parties that are less mainstream. One that comes to mind was when I was in Kyiv a few years ago, and went to K41. We went to the Pornceptual party and it was just incredible, really beautiful vibes. People feeling comfortable letting loose and expressing themselves with no judgment. Most of those parties now are queer parties. The thing is that everything's become a bit dissected. When I think about the nineties and when I started clubbing, everyone was together in one club - now it's a little bit more sectioned off into scenes. I think that impacts what you're talking about. There's definitely that homogenised crowd that goes out, and it seems to be the majority now.
It’s so funny that you said that about looking out of windows and looking into windows, because, and I'm sure it's quite a common thing for people, but it really resonates with me, I'll give you an example. When I was at the height of my journalism career, 10 years or so ago, I was going to loads of different places and, whenever I would land and get a taxi from the airport to wherever I was staying, I would just be silent. I would never really talk to the taxi driver, and not because I was rude or socially awkward, I'd just be looking out the window, getting my bearings and soaking in this new place that I've never been to before. I'm actually getting a bit of a tingly feeling now, even talking about it, because it's such a powerful thing for me. This idea of being in a new place and taking it in through a window. Or train journeys. When I'm on a train, I'm always staring out of the window, watching the world go by, and also, similar to you, daydreaming about what lives people have through looking through their windows, it's such a thing for me. My mind goes off on these mad adventures, trying to figure out, “What is this person's life about?”.
It's fascinating. It gets to just the whole essence of life and living and everyone having their own perspective. But I also think it's an appreciation for every individual, and what we're going through, our own existence, and just trying to understand it all. Looking out of a window on a train going through the English countryside, I would Astral Plane into the fields, and imagine myself in this weird little English countryside house and lighting up the fireplace. Maybe some people would take that as not being present in your own life. To me, it's just an appreciation for life and everything. Without getting too deep and existential, there have been moments recently where I'm just like, “What the fuck are we doing?” We are on a rock traveling through space, a vast emptiness…how insignificant is all of this? really questioning everything. Proper mid-life crisis shit, ya know. Photography came about in a time where those questions started to become more regular. In the DJ world, when I was touring, there was always an appreciation every time I went to a new city. I was always like, “I don't know when I'm gonna come back here. So take everything in”. Once I started taking photos, that was even more relevant - just to be able to get out of my hotel room and be like, “Hey, when's the next time you're gonna be in Japan? It may never happen, so get out there and capture as much as possible”. It really changed everything for me, even from a mental health standpoint, it really helped.
I think there's such a self gratifying quality to just appreciating the everyday. You know, this guy talks about the boring side of the DJ life - obviously he didn't mean it in a vindictive way. But you can get so much fulfillment from just observing and appreciating, not even the mundanity of life, but just the fact that there are so many aspects to life that aren't just being in the intense environment of a club, for example. I think the more you can appreciate the subtle elements of life, then the more inner peace you can find.
Completely. I mean, I think appreciating and noticing the details and the subtle details of life also helped me as a DJ and as a photographer. With DJing paying attention to the detail of everything helps to make the experience better; whether it be adjusting your EQs, keeping an eye on all your levels, or your mixing. All of that stuff is a craft. If you're heavy handed in life, then you're probably a heavy handed DJ or photographer, it all comes into play. If you can pay attention to those details, if you have the time to actually look around and see what's around you, it becomes part of your creative output. I'm not saying I was ever the best DJ, by far, and not the best photographer either, but there are subtle things that I like to include in both that I think are a representation of how I go about looking at life.
Yeah, for sure. There's this aspect to the meditation practice that I engage in, which is observing the subtle sensations in your body. When you're first getting into the practice, it's so difficult because you're so used to heavy, obvious sensations on the body. You're not accustomed to focusing on, and feeling, the breeze against your skin on a really obscure part of your body and all of this kind of stuff. I think if you're forever living a life that is the opposite of subtle, then you end up desensitized to life, and needing more extreme experiences just to feel something. Social media is such an obvious place to go, but it bombards us with high impact stuff over and over again. Your mind and your body are conditioned and you can end up disconnected from the more subtle aspects of yourself, mentally and physically.
Going back to this glass ornament, and the colours reflecting off it, how old would you have been when that memory formed?
I remember that ornament was made in kindergarten. So five to seven or eight was when I had those formative years of being with my mom. My mother passed away 11 years ago. I think about her every day and the impact she had on me as an artist, and how I view life. Whether it was me going out and chopping down a Christmas tree, putting the lights on and decorating for the holidays, or gardening, and all these sort of things that I used to do with my mom. The Christmas holiday was always a big one. She was always calling on me to help decorate the house. I was young, and I felt safe, you know.
As a child, I was afraid of the dark, and I remember thinking, I can't wait to be an adult, then I won’t be scared anymore. Then I got to early 40s, (I'm 47 now), thinking to myself about that, and just being like, “Fuck, life is even scarier now!”... The weight of responsibility, the struggle to succeed as an artist, the uncertainty of what’s ahead-it all hits hard. That sensitivity plays a huge role in my work.
Spending Christmas with my mom and family always brought a sense of safety and comfort. I think that’s why, when I see the lights on the tree reflecting off the ornaments, it takes me right back to that feeling.
Aw, that’s super special. Tell me how, especially as on the visual side of things with photography, your creative output connects back into some of those themes that you just touched on? Safety, fear, emotional stability, sensitivity…
To be honest, fear plays a big role, because I'm still a bit timid when I'm shooting street photography. First of all, I feel like a huge introvert. And I know people who’ve said, “How can you be introverted and be a DJ and be on stage?!” It's been terrifying at times. I couldn't get off that stage faster, especially if there are lights, and nowadays, with the huge LEDs and stuff. I have it in my contract, in my rider to make sure that there's no spotlight or anything in the DJ booth when I’m playing. But with my timidness, this is something that I'm working on with photography. It helped last year, with this project with Seth, to just get in there and take the photo and worry about it later, because I knew that there was a bigger goal at hand with the book. I knew that it was an incredible opportunity to just photograph and forget about being scared or timid, or fearful of the response, and just get the photo.
And it's something that has helped me a lot in that respect. It's still always a work in progress, and working on myself and trying to get over things like that, but it's also respecting and understanding people's space. For instance, there was a moment on the tour where there was a really cool photo opportunity, but it involved some homeless people. I forget where it was, but I have a rule not to take photos of people in any kind of vulnerable or compromising position.
What they call poverty porn. I hear that. Besides contributing to helping you get out of your timidness, what other benefits have you felt, creatively and personally, from this project?
I never put out any records in my DJ career, but I've always wanted to put something tangible out into the world, and something I was proud of. Having the book out there, and in people's hands, is a little proud moment for myself, because it's something I struggled with for so many years, as a DJ and still as a photographer - the imposter syndrome is very real, you know. I still have that feeling, but it gave me more confidence, definitely. And the response has been really sweet, and it's always nice to get recognised by peers and stuff. So it helped my confidence a lot. It's giving me a push to keep it going and it also helped me immensely, because of the timing. The actual design of the book happened during my diagnosis and getting treatment and stuff. The timing of these things really fucking blew my mind and made me start to question… I mean, I've always questioned our reality, but just the timing of it just seemed so incredibly meaningful. Just to be able to have this project a year ago and then one year later get diagnosed with cancer, and then have the book being designed during this most intense moment of my life, and actually being able to distract me from a lot of that and keep my mind busy, it was priceless.
Creating this book was incredible, really. It was a bit bittersweet when it was finished, because I had such a beautiful time doing it. Working with Bergini Studios in London - every day, going back and forth, sending layouts, and the whole creative process was so much fun. So once it was out and it was over, there was a feeling of bittersweet, kind of sadness, like, “Oh, it's over. It's out in the world”. But it makes me want to do it again. You know, do another one,
Have you had any ideas about what you might do next?
I'm kind of still living in this moment. I want to keep this going with the book. It's weird because I've had it now for a couple months, and, in November, it was finally shipped out to the public so people are just starting to respond to it. I had forgotten that it was taking a over a month to ship. I’m just focused on keeping the momentum going. We’re considering another book launch, possibly in London and another in upstate New York, where I live.
How's that coming along?
The holidays slowed things down a bit, but in March, I’m heading to London to meet with some venues about hosting an event. But yeah, I’d love to do another book, it would be amazing. I have older photos that I’d really like to showcase at some point. I’m not sure about the theme yet, but we’ll see where it goes.
I saw you just got your first album cover! [For DaRand Land’s Wander Being LP]
Yeah, that was really nice from Francis Harris and everyone. That's on his label Scissor & Thread. So it was quite wild to see the book come out, and then my photo on a vinyl record, too! I have it right next to me. It looks great. I'm happy with that, and hopefully we can do more work with Francis and the label.
And where are you up to with the cancer process at the moment? I guess the emotions are very much up and down?
Yeah, it's an up and down thing. Like I said, I'm feeling extra nostalgic and very existential and thinking about my mortality. I guess it's something that I would imagine people who have this disease go through quite often. Even if you've gone through treatment and everything is okay, there's always this feeling that it is still inside me somewhere, and I know from too many stories about how it comes back, and it's just scary. I'm doing good though. My treatment went well, and I had my first post surgery checkup. I did an ultrasound a couple of weeks ago, and the results came back good.
When you get cancer, after treatment there's a real rush for people around you to be like, “Are you cancer free? Did you beat cancer?”. There’s a very healthy respect I have for the disease that I don't think I would ever go around claiming I “beat cancer”. I just know that I feel good right now. I feel confident, but there's also moments of doubt and fear, and I think that's something I'm gonna have to deal with for the rest of my life. I'm gonna continue to do checkups and stay on top of it, and continue to do my part, whether it's through diet and staying sober and not putting anything harmful in my body. I had a good run for half of my life being a DJ and being in nightlife, and everything that comes with that lifestyle. I think this was a much needed reset. If there is any silver lining or positive spin on getting cancer, it’s that it gave me a much-needed wake-up call, a reminder that my body wasn’t happy with me and that I needed to treat it with more care and respect.
My approach is to do what the doctors tell me, but also do my own part. For me, that means eliminating any kind of substances, eliminating sugar, trying to not eat any red meat or dairy, and deciding, “Hey, why don't you put some good shit in your body instead of a life of debauchery?!” It's fun in your 20s and early 30s, but going on benders in your late 40s and 50s is not cute, it's time to grow up a bit. You could still have fun, and you can still have your moments and do whatever you know, not telling anyone in their late 40s and 50s that you shouldn't take drugs or drink, but there’s a lifestyle thing where it’s just sad when you’re past a certain age to still doing it and being messy. I needed to have a word with myself over the years but this really put things in perspective.
Also, talking about DJing and mental health and how photography helped me with that... I was reading something today, I think FaltyDL did an interview talking about how parenthood, as a DJ, causes you to lose your edge, and I was thinking about how sobriety causes you to potentially lose your edge. Seeing everything that goes into touring and the expectation of people wanting to party with you - people want you to do a shot with them, do a line with them - and it's really important to these people. But they're not jumping on a plane straight after the gig and playing another gig the next day, or two days in a row, three days in a row. As I got older and I started to decide I wanted to go back to the hotel to get some sleep, instead of the after party, I felt like it sabotaged my career in a lot of ways. Because I was that guy that used to hang out with the promoter and hang out with the people at the club and go to after hours and do a line, take shots and get fucked up. As I got older, it was like, “Fuck, I feel like, shit”. Then there was a point that really snapped where I was like, “I don't give a fuck about anyone. I need to go home. I don't care about any after party anymore. I just need to take care of myself”. Because the feeling I had for the week after? That wasn't worth it.
Hell yeah. My entire non-sober career, I was always sick, and I almost always had the worst comedowns and the worst hangovers. You can soldier on when you're young. If I'd have had any kind of wellness savvy about me I would have thought, “My body's trying to tell me something, because I feel like shit every fucking time, and worse than most people”. I'm glad that I got to a point in my life where I was like, “You know what? I just don't want to do this anymore. I just do not want to do it. And whatever the outcome is, whether the relationships that I have are impacted by this decision, I don't care, because my health and happiness are more important than that”.
I remember saying to someone, “Relevance is a hell of a drug”. I've seen it happen to so many people. I've seen it happen to myself. Once you lose a bit of relevance, and your career starts to go down a bit - whether you're not getting on the same festival lineup, or being booked for the same clubs - that fear is something a lot of people struggle with. They end up pushing it a little too far, where they're just continuing to try to be out and be seen, and have their face out there. If that requires going to the after party and pushing your body, they’ll do it. I've seen it go horribly bad, you know. Now this is coming from someone who actually has a potentially deadly disease. I'm not saying that came from partying or whatnot. This could have been genetic. It could have been from whatever. But at the end of the day, I think that fear of losing friends or losing gigs, it's real. I think it's like, “Fuck, if I'm losing gigs, what am I supposed to do?” I struggled with this so much. But I got so fucking lucky. I remember telling someone that having any sort of career as a photographer, for me, was like winning the lottery twice. I truly felt that, because, as a DJ, I got to live this incredible life of travel and success and making and doing something creative for a living, that so many people don't get a chance to do. Then to transition into photography, to be able to make a book, and get paid to do photography as another creative outlet, that, to me, is incredible luck and fortune. I'm very, very grateful to have that opportunity. I don't take it for granted at all, because that to me, as I said, is like winning the lotto twice,
So the last thing I wanted to touch on with you is there's a magic to photography. Obviously when photography first came into being, there was very much a magic to it, because there's the alchemy of the processing of the photos. That's slightly lost with digital photography. But even so, there's still a magic to it. The reason why I'm particularly keen to talk about this is that my daughter now has a camera, and seeing how enchanted she is by the fact that she can just have this thing in her hands and capture what's in front of her, and how excited she gets by doing that.
How old is she?
She's five and a half.
Oh yeah, great age.
It's so special. She's just really keen to snap everything, and she can film on it as well. So I wanted to close up by talking about the magic of photography, what that means to you and when you first connected with photography in a way that felt like it was going to be something that you really wanted to pursue…
For sure, this is something that I remember clearly. I shoot mainly with analog film, and I recently was gifted a really beautiful digital camera, but I still find myself obviously more drawn to film photography. When I first started, I was using a film camera that a friend lent to me, just because she knew that I was struggling on the road, and feeling a bit disenchanted. She was like, “I think you should start taking photos, but use a film camera”. I remember developing it for the first time, the first couple times, and the feeling I got with film, really resonated with me. There are so many things, but the warmth that you get with film and how it captures life around you, and these happy mistakes, little errors, the grain or a light leak, something that comes through on the film that wasn't there in real life, that just adds so much to it. The ratio of “good” photos to bad… It felt so relatable to when I first started DJing and searching for vinyl at the record shop and spending sometimes eight hours looking and looking and looking and maybe finding something that I heard Sasha and Digweed play at Twilio, Or Danny Tenaglia or Carl Cox. That feeling is so tangible, because sometimes it took a year to find these records, due to there being no internet. Sometimes you would just stumble upon this record. You were like, “Oh my God, holy shit! I found it!” And I felt that way with film, because every roll you have 36 shots, and the percentage of good to bad was pretty low. It was like, “Oh my God, I got and incredible one! That photo came out stunning!”.
It’s very humbling as well, because there were photos that I thought I nailed, and moments I thought, “Oh, this is gonna be incredible” and then it came out awful. So I really liked that kind of feeling of not knowing what you're gonna get. That's what resonated with me. That brought me another level of creative fulfillment and feeling like, “Okay, I can't wait to get out there again. I can't wait to go to my next gig and get out of the hotel room and try and capture something on the streets”. It helped me so much.
Seth's son, he's three now or maybe four, I brought my camera around him, and he was like your daughter. It was a film camera and he was snapping away, so into it. I bought him a little digital camera for Christmas and Seth says he loves it. He's been on it non stop.
So, yeah, to wrap it up, the way I DJ has always been shaped by the influences I've drawn from world around me. I always felt like it was a way to express whatever I was going through - if I was sad or sick or happy, whatever, I could always channel those emotions through the music I played. It's an incredibly therapeutic way to express myself. But, with photography, having people come up to me at an exhibition, or message me about the book, and having them tell me they connect with photos… for some reason, for me personally, this meant more than anyone complimenting a DJ set. There’s something deeply emotional about capturing life and humanity in a photo - and someone seeing it and feeling a real connection. Because this is the way I see the world, what I find beautiful, strange, or unusual, and to have someone resonate with that is really special.
Man, that's a really lovely way to end. Thank you for expressing it in that way.
Bill’s book In Between is out now, and you can buy it here.