Culture That Made Me: David Holmes on Orbital, Sinéad O'Connor and La Dolce Vita
David Holmes. Picture: Steve Gullick
David Holmes, 55, grew up in Belfast. As a young DJ, he ran a revered club night, Sugar Sweet, in war-torn Belfast. In 1995, he released , the first of several studio albums. He has produced the likes of Primal Scream and Manic Street Preachers, and remixed tracks from Orbital to U2. He’s perhaps most regarded for soundtracking films for Steven Soderbergh, Michael Winterbottom and Steve McQueen. He’s a headliner Sunday at Beyond the Pale Festival, Glendalough, Co Wicklow. See: www.itsbeyondthepale.ie.
When I was eight or nine years of age, I was listening to the Sex Pistols and The Clash, only because I had nine brothers and sisters. There was loads of music I inherited. What was my favourite band out of all that? Probably The Clash and Dexys Midnight Runners. I was a huge Dexys fan to the point where I had a Donkey jacket and a monkey hat. I thought I was a young soul rebel. I got an emotional reaction from the music, not an intellectual one. I was too young to understand it, but I wasn't too young to feel it.
I was obsessed with punk as a kid, but by the age of 14 I’d seen and my next obsession became soul music and rhythm and blues, which led me into different genres and subgenres like southern soul, New Orleans rhythm and blues, and the northern soul that came out of that mod movement. Then at 15, I started DJing at clubs.
Ireland — the North included — was not in a great place when acid house as a music culture began happening. It was the end of the Thatcher years. Things were still tricky in the North with a lot of violence and massacres. I remember going to Dublin to do parties and Dublin was like a black hole. There was no life about it. We were all coming from a bleakness within society. People found solace in acid house and going out to clubs and meeting people and taking this amazing drug, ecstasy, and listening to this incredibly fresh music. People came out to just dance. Music was their religion, and their church was the nightclub.
Iain McCready, the guy who I did Sugar Sweet with, was my partner in crime. We ran several clubs before that. Iain was that bit older than me, and a bit more savvy. He was reading every month and the and getting imports shipped in from London and Manchester. He was ahead of his time, and a brilliant DJ. He had great taste. He would play all sorts of brilliant records, perfect for the beginning of those nights. He’d always keep it interesting.
When Orbital released on vinyl, there were only like, a thousand copies. I managed to get a copy. It was a huge anthem. Every time we played it, the place would go mental so I got them over to Belfast in 1990. They were two young brothers, lovely guys, and they had the balls to come over. There were a lot of people who didn’t want to venture down that path.
They played, and they gave us a demo tape, including the track that became 'Belfast'. I remember telling them, “This track is unbelievable. We’ve driven around Belfast just playing it on repeat.” So they called it 'Belfast'.
Andrew Weatherall was an amazing DJ, the best I have seen in my lifetime, but Andrew transcended DJing. He was really curious, very bright. He devoured books and held the information. He was full of empathy and humanity, a generous man with his spirit. He was intellectual, but he didn’t beat you round the head with it. He was such an enthusiast of art, and he’d share that with you. That rubbed off. You left his company, after spending an afternoon with him, just with a cup of tea and some Jamaican woodbine, and you'd want to create something. He had that effect on people.
I'm really into audiobooks, especially if they're narrated by the author. Sinéad O’Connor’s is unbelievable because she reads it.
When the book came out, she said to me, “Get the audiobook because the funny bits are much funnier". She’s correct. It's a brilliant audiobook. Sinéad spoke the truth.
There's a book by Ilan Pappé, the number one historian in Palestine, called . If there’s anyone who doesn't understand what's going on in Gaza right now, they should read this book. It's amazing.
When by James Baldwin came out in the early 1960s, it turned the literary scene on its head in America. A genius had arrived. I love its world, the characters. He’s an incredibly colourful, interesting writer. When I'm reading it, I can see it all in my mind, the sweat and the steam. It’s beautiful. I find the way he talks in interviews very painterly, but in the most realist, on the street sort of way.
I'm working on this movie, , for Steven Soderbergh. It’s in the same world as the TV series with Alec Guinness. Even though it’s from the 1970s, it had so much style, the characters and the sets, the whole atmosphere of it. It’s brilliant.
I revisited a couple of years ago. I was in the mood to watch it. It’s nearly three hours long. It’s such a sophisticated film. When I watched it when I was a kid, I loved it, but there's no way I could have understood it. When you're young, it washes over you. You like the characters, the street kids, the music, the violence, the sex. You take all this in and think this world was incredible, but you're not really paying attention to the story. It’s so interesting how cinema can affect you whether you’re 10 years of age or 50 years of age.
is a film I let wash over me. If somebody said to me, “What’s it about?” I would say, “I don't know, but I love that film.”
I love everything about it – the way it looks. I love the characters. It's sexy. It's this amazing world.
Lyra is a documentary about Lyra McKee, the young journalist who was shot dead in the crossfire by the New IRA. It’s one of the most extraordinary documentaries I've ever seen. I scored it; I'm so proud to be a part of that film because Lyra was something else. She was on a different level. If it doesn't move you to the point of tears then you're made of something else. We need more people in the world like Lyra McKee.
