Arguably one of the most powerful and well respected men in music, Zane Lowe is much more than the ‘BBC Radio 1 DJ with a funny accent’.
Thanks are owed to my own mother for that somewhat naive quote, even if I originally thought she was talking about Chris Moyles. However while my mum remains blissfully unaware that this funny speaking DJ is much more than just that, Crack in the Road were lucky enough to have a brief interview with the man who has helped kick start the careers of the Arctic Monkeys, The Wombats, and The Kaiser Chiefs, amongst many others.
Feeling somewhat nervous, this man had saved lives before (namely Ryan Jarman‘s at the NME 2006 Awards), I approached in a cautious yet determined manner that must have looked like a baby giraffe walking for the first time, only to discover they were born with only three legs. However such nerves quickly dissipated once the interview began with Zane expressing an element of jealousy over the voice recording facility on my iPhone, though something tells me he was taking the piss somewhat .. Authentic jealousy or not, I was talking to a pioneer of new music. We discussed how he had found the Dot To Dot Festival, with Zane immediately mentioning that ‘seeing Blood Red Shoes was a real highlight for me’. This answer was somewhat unsurprising, especially as Blood Red Shoes were immediately next to us during the interview. Therefore I asked how the festival had varied over its habitation in the different cities, hoping to find some authentic opinions on a young urban festival.
In response to the festival’s first stopping point, Bristol, Zane talked about a lagging in energy when it came to his 1 am set, and while ‘Nottingham was insane from start to finish’, he hoped that the settings of FAC251 would provide a fantastic night. By this point I had realised that while I was listening to honest answers, his levels of professionalism were making it hard for me to gain any real insights into the mind of music impresario. Therefore I asked him about any new bands that the festival may have thrown onto his radar, Zane immediately responded with Doorly. For those of you not familiar with Doorly, he is an electro/dubstep DJ who started his career as a barman and took to the decks one night after a regular DJ failed to turn up. Now one of the hottest DJ’s around, it is no surprise that Zane Lowe is a huge fan. Zane commented on how ‘our styles are quite cohesive, we both play similar records in a similar style’.
After a few final remarks on his past Manchester gigs, with him describing his Warehouse Project gig as ‘absolutely amazing’, my short time with Zane came to a swift end as a steadily growing group of fans began to congregate around us. However in those four minutes I had talked to a man who is one of the biggest names in promoting and discovering new music, a well respected and hugely popular DJ, and the sole reason why The Cribs could continue to release albums. Not too bad for a ‘BBC Radio 1 DJ with a funny accent’.