Paul Oakenfold took some time to chat with Billboard Dance’s Matt Medved during Miami Music Week at SiriusXM’s “House of Chill,” opening up about his latest single, his charity project at Mount Everest and his graphic novel.
Speaking of “Love Escape,” the track which dropped last month and featured Amba Shepherd, Oakenfold explains that he ran into his previous collaborator Shepherd at a show in Sydney, Australia. They decided to work together once again and went to the studio to try out some of her ideas. “It’s doing really well, so I’m really happy with it,” he says.
Oakenfold also discusses the Soundtrek Everest charity compilation he recently worked on. “It took us a few years to put together,” he explains. “We set off to do an event at Base Camp Mount Everest — I’ve never trekked, I’ve never slept in a tent. Growing up in London, you don’t usually do that, so long story short, we pulled it off. We did an evet at Base Camp, we raised for four children’s charities — two in the UK and two local in Nepal, and we shot a documentary about it.”
“We went to some of the oldest monasteries in the world and recorded some of the local sounds and made a song and from this, we released a compilation album which has just come out where it’s my set at Base Camp and the film comes out later this year,” he continues. “It was a really exciting project and it was just a really worthwhile cause to do it for children and to get fit, believe it or not! I would train three hours a day, every day for six months.”
In the video, which you can watch in full above, Oakenfold also talks about his graphic novel The Wonderful World of Perfecto and how it came to be.