20 Questions: Cloonee

Cloonee has become one of the biggest names in house music by trusting a simple instinct: he knows what works in a club.

The British DJ and producer, born David Bissett, has spent the past several years turning that instinct into an increasingly large operation. His records have become fixtures of clubs and festivals (“Free Your Mind,” released in March, is his biggest hit yet); his Hellbent label has grown into its own live and visual world; and his shows now come with the kind of production—cages, dancers, flames, the occasional car suspended above the DJ booth—once associated with rock concerts. After moving from Sheffield, England, to Los Angeles during the pandemic, Bissett plunged into the booming American dance-music circuit, where crowds were bigger, brasher, and considerably more bonkers.

Bissett isn’t especially interested in dressing his music up as high art. He makes it to play out, for people who want to dance, and talks about his work with the pragmatism of someone who spent years watching crowds closely enough to learn what moves them. But there’s real craft in knowing what to leave in, what to strip away, and how to make thousands of people feel the same thing at once. His knack is especially apparent in his use of samples and vocals: tracks like “Stephanie,” built around Young M.A’s “OOOUUU,” have helped turn a palette of tight grooves, sticky hooks, and heavy low end into something recognizably his own.

Offstage, the vibe is considerably quieter. Bissett boxes at 9 a.m., goes to yoga with Chris Lake, and sends unfinished tracks to the same friends who were critiquing his music when he was 17. “I’m very much a homebody even though I’m nowhere near home,” he says.

Now, after more than a decade of releasing club records, he’s made his first full-length album, Are You Still You?, which comes out this week. The record moves through the different strains that have shaped his catalog—tech house, Latin house, ’90s samples—while winking at complaints from fans asking for the “old Cloonee.” “I haven’t changed,” Bissett says. “I’m just inspired by new things.”

Playboy spoke with Cloonee from his home studio in Los Angeles about moving to America with very little money, his enduring love of metal, and what happens when you buy a G-Wagon and immediately drive it into your own gate.

Your album is called Are You Still You? How has success changed you, for better or worse?

I like that I’ve been able to hire a lot of my friends, to look after them and give them job security. It feels like a family behind the scenes, an ecosystem of friends along for the journey. I don’t like the lack of free time to go see family—missing birthdays, all that stuff. Most people work Monday to Friday, nine to five, and I tour on the weekends. That means I miss out on a lot, but it’s the price you pay.

When fans ask for the “old Cloonee” back, which Cloonee do they mean?

I’ve been releasing music for 12 years, and every time I put out a new single people are like, “Ohh, Cloonee’s back!” But they’re often talking about different iterations. I have hit records from different periods, and people get caught up. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing; people romanticize different eras. I still listen to albums that my favorite bands released when I was a kid. But I haven’t changed. I’m just inspired by new things. Growing’s a good word for it. Staying fresh. If you stay in the same pocket for too long, you get shelved into a certain category. I want to explore different sounds and picking up new fans.  

You say you’re not musically talented. What are you exceptionally good at?

My roommate is always like, “Man, you’ve gotta stop saying that.” He says I am musically talented. And I’m like, “Yeah, but I can’t sit there and play the piano or tell you what key is being played. I don’t know music theory. I have a degree in journalism and played sports my whole life.” I think my biggest skill is my ear—identifying what samples are going to work, and how to structure a song.

When did something you thought was a limitation start to feel like an advantage?

I taught myself the very strict basics of making house music on a laptop, and simplification became my key style. When you’re learning, the natural thing is add more more more—more layers, more this, more that. But whenever I’m in the studio with other artists, they’ll say, ‘Can you redo the song we’ve done? Deconstruct it and make it simpler like you always do.’ Because of my lack of traditional music training, I’ve always been left with the bare essentials to figure out my own way. And it’s kind of turned into a superpower. 

The LP does feel very you. Did you play with different versions or concepts?

Honestly, I don’t like it when artists release an album and you can tell they’re overproducing it to make something edgy. Albums are supposed to tell a story and be this journey, but I come from making club singles. If I went off and made these really curveball, highly musical pieces just to impress people, I think my core fan base would switch off. It would seem inauthentic. I wanted to make an unapologetic Cloonee album—songs I would listen to and DJ.

Your childhood soundtrack was more rock than house music. How much of Cloonee still comes from that metal kid?

We spent a lot of time driving around Ireland when I was a kid, and my parents had one of those cars where you could put six CDs in at once. We’d rotate the same six discs—a mix of Limp Bizkit, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Arctic Monkeys, Queen, The Clash, and The Jam. My dad was a huge rock and metal fan, and he’d been in a punk band when he was a kid. He took me to see Killswitch Engage when I was 10 or 11, which is a somewhat obscene thing, and I loved it. Metal is still my most listened-to genre. I love the metal fan base; they’re kind of outcasts, so they’ve got their own world. And they’re the most polite and respectful, even though people think they’re scary.

At 17, you were already doing A&R for someone in the London music industry, and wanted to move there to work full-time. Your parents made you go to university. Did you think they were ruining your life?

Yes, but going to university was the right decision because I grew more as a person. I’m from a town of 9,000 people so going to a city was important and eye-opening. Sheffield has a great history of club culture. I still worked for the [record label] woman in my spare time; I used to go sleep on her couch. We still speak pretty regularly and neither of us can believe where things have ended up.

Back then, what did “making it” look like to you?

After university, I got a job offer to DJ and run club nights in Sheffield. My wage was less than 250 pounds a week. My parents were like, ‘What are you on about, 250?!’ At that time, I don’t think anyone understood where DJing could go. I didn’t. I just wanted to buy an apartment in Sheffield. That was my end goal.

What was the moment you decided to move to America?

Chris Lake booked me to play Petco Park, the Shrine, and the Brooklyn Mirage—my first-ever shows in America. Boris Johnson kept extending lockdown but America was opening up. My agent got me a COVID exemption so I could travel, and when I got to America and saw the size of the crowd Chris was playing to, I was like, “What the fuck is happening over here?” People were going ballistic. I went back to fucking rainy Sheffield, to my little shitty apartment, and was like, fuck this, I’m out. Like, bro, I’m not waiting anymore. I’ve seen it. Let’s go.

What were those first few months like?

I moved in with my agent, had no money, and was living paycheck-to-paycheck. We were actually out to dinner just last night saying, “Man, what a difference it is now.”    

What did American crowds understand about partying that British crowds didn’t?

England is a lot more underground. It’s cliquey, harder to break in and get progression in your career. In America, everyone’s happy to see you. The DJs are welcoming, they want to work on music. And the fans jump up and down and throw their hands in the air and go nuts. It’s over-the-top, but it was a really refreshing environment.

What do you miss about home?

English people just have a different sense of humor. The word “banter” always cringes them out, but that’s what it is. Whenever I meet an English person over here, you just start chatting for hours, and you both say, ‘Man, I miss this back-and-forth.

For someone whose job revolves around nightlife, you sound pretty lowkey. How domesticated are we talking?

Super domesticated. Overly neat. Type A. Apparently a textbook Virgo, I hit all the marks. You’ll rarely get me out on a weekday. When I was looking at houses, the [realtor] was showing me all these cribs in Venice and I was like, “I kind of want to go somewhere quieter.” She’s like, “You don’t want more of a bachelor pad?” I’m like, no, I’m trying to not do that. If I’m partying on the weekends, I don’t want to party during the week as well. When I moved into this house, the neighbors and their three daughters brought around freshly baked cookies, it was straight out of a movie. That’s my speed.

Where is the most unexpectedly great place in America to play?

El Paso. They are fucking rowdy. It’s the place I always ask to go back to. It always feels like the whole town is at the one show. Every time I’m there, I’ll finish DJing and we hang around the club until it shuts.

Do you ever look out at a crowd filming you and think: You guys are doing this wrong?

You know, everyone talks about the phone stuff, but it’s just as annoying that people keep complaining about it because you’re not going to stop it. The no-phone policies at gigs are cool, but at some point I just feel like it’s a battle we’re not going to win. I started clubbing in a different era. Everyone else is clubbing in their era… who am I to judge? It’d be nice if they all put the phones down, but if they paid money and want to take a video, fire away.

Latin music has become an important part of your sound. What separates genuine musical exchange from simply borrowing something because it sounds good?

I think if I’d been making that style of music for a couple years and then just sacked it off, that would’ve been me riding a bandwagon. But the fact that I went deeper and started working with established artists, collaborating with up-and-coming artists and DJs, signing them, giving them a platform—to me, that’s showing a greater appreciation and willingness to learn more about what they’re doing.

I understand the hate. In the beginning it was warranted, and people were right to question my intentions. But now that I’ve been continuously supporting it and working in that scene for the last five or six years, people are more accepting and can see the genuine intention behind it.

I really do love the music. I listen to Spanish music daily. I was listening today on the way back from boxing, just bumping reggaeton all day.

Your label Hellbent’s slogan is “Good Music for Bad People.” Define bad.

“Bad people” were people who’d come to the club and weren’t afraid to get down. The early shows had a lot of raunchiness, and we leaned into that. Now that we’ve done so much charity work, everyone says we should change it to “Good Music for Good People.” But we’re staying bad.

You know when you’d watch movies as a kid and you’d see a nightclub in a movie and it just looked like the craziest, raunchy nightclub? You’d be like “Sick, this is what clubbing’s going to be like when I’m an adult.” The label leans into that. That aspect of clubbing looks really fun, so we play into that as much as we can whilst keeping it tasteful.

You’re apparently a run-at-dawn person. Is that still true? 

I started boxing this year—I one-upped myself. So now I’m out at 9 a.m. getting punched in the head, which is why I have a fresh black eye today. The older I get, the earlier I want to go to bed and the earlier I want to wake up. Even if I stay up until 5 a.m. on tour, I’m still up at 9. That’s kind of my circle, too. Chris Lake and I do yoga twice a week.

Who can actually get you to stay out late?

If I asked Ranger Trucco to stay out and have a nightcap, he’d always say yes, and if he asked me, I’d always say yes. We’re both bad influences on each other. Same with Chris Lorenzo. There are probably 10 people in my friend group who could get me out.

Your job looks fairly glamorous from the outside. What has happened recently to remind you that you remain a normal idiot like everybody else?

Getting punched in the face today brought me back down to earth. I also just got a new car—a G63 G-Wagon—and on the third day I had it, the gate at my house closed into it and tore a hole in the side of it. I was really excited and thought I was this little success story, and then I was like, “Fuck me, man.”