However, despite his dislike of the punter pulling chit chats, Askew is an open book and chats freely and in a friendly manner, in what transcends into a quasi-counselling session – just without the extortionate fees. To say Askew is unhappy in the music industry would be unfair, but it is clear that he is currently somewhat disillusioned – particularly with the touring side of his routine. “I now tour a hell of a lot less, I got to the stage where I was pretty burnt out and the novelty wore off.” Rather candidly he confesses, “I am not ashamed to say that I had quite a few gigs where I was just going through the motions.” Realising that he needed a change of pace and a new lease of life. As a result, he took matters into his own hands as he explains, “I needed to take a substantial period of time off, so I took about four or five months only doing the occasional gig but just really taking time off to see if I missed it, with the potential idea of giving up all together. Not completely announcing a retirement or anything, but giving up extensive touring.”
With his time away having provided him with enough space to breathe and collect his thoughts, Askew fortunately concluded that as opposed to walking away from the live forum, he would alter his approach to it. He continues, “Now what I do, I do ten gigs in the space of six weeks then I take two months off, then come back. I am not interested in hammering it on the road, I have too much other stuff to do with my radio company and everything I do with Paul Oakenfold as well. My time is pretty taken up.” With far less time on the road, Askew has bought himself to focus his energies fully on his other work, but also to improve his own musical output. Part of his unhappiness stems for the generic approach to electronic music that, in his eyes, currently dominates the scene, so in his reconfiguration he has also found a solution to his issue, “what it does allow me to do, in the downtime between those sections of touring is really really spend a lot of time creating customised music and specific new tracks that are only ever going to be played at those gigs. I am trying to get to the stage where my gigs are more of a live PA than a DJ set because there aren’t that many people making the kind of music I like to play anymore. A lot of the ones that were making that style of music are now making more the pop-trance end of thing, the commercial type thing.”
With an apology for turning the interview into a heart to heart, Askew’s demeanour immediately changes and a satisfied optimism shines through in his words, “This new approach to touring has really reinvigorated my interest and my enthusiasm. I am really really back into it and think it was the right thing to do.”
With Australia still sat firmly on his list of places to perform, Askew is pleased he is able to be choosy about where and when he performs. When asked what tops the list, his answer is revealed without a moment’s hesitation. “I have some favourite places to go that everytime I go back to them, I get really excited to be going there. Beirut is one of them. I have a really solid relationship with the Beirut clubbers and I love going to Beirut. The title that place has been given, ‘The Paris of the Middle East’, couldn’t be more apt, it’s a stunning place to go. I’d recommend it to anyone. Not just dance music fans but as a holiday destination, it is phenomenal.” A clear advocate for Beirut, Askew would make a perfect salesman for the increasingly popular holiday destination. Probing a little further, to see if Askew is true to his word, or his heart-rendering approach is mere sales pitch, it becomes clear that he is far from the upsell. Rather than caving in to the obvious Australia upsell, he reveals, “Then I love also, probably one of my top three places, is Argentina as well. It is so wonderful as a place, the people are just fantastic, the food and I guess most of all, they are one of five crowds that are so, so into the sound that I like to play, which is fantastic.”
