Rob da Bank: Ready for takeoff

There's a certain irony in the fact that one of the DJs who invented the chilled out soundtrack of bar culture in the Nineties - a shift from the high energy club culture that preceded it - today leads quite a hectic life.

Rob da Bank is founder of one of the UK's best-known festivals, owner of the record label Sunday Best and the BBC Radio 1 DJ who was chosen to fill the late John Peel's Thursday night slot for 18 months. These days he has two weekly shows of his own on Radio 1, and has just re-scored the music to the film King Kong for the BBC too. With his wife Josie, he's produced two young children, as well as a new book out in May. Phew.

He's as relaxed as you'd expect from the man whose label unleashed the cool sounds of Groove Armada, Bent and Lemon Jelly into the world, but don't let his laidback persona, long hair or easy-going radio commentary fool you - hidden beneath is a man who is addicted to work.

Born Robert Gorham, he grafted as a dinner lady, hoovered graveyards and cleaned boats - "a lot of daft little things to make ends meet" - before becoming a music journalist and, in 1995, launching his weekly leftfield club night.

"We started Sunday Best at the Tearooms Des Artistes on the Wandsworth Road, a little bar. Five men and a dog kind of turned up to the first one," he says of the fixture that would eventually make him famous. "We've always had that south London crowd that have come to our events. Even now that things have spread to much bigger parties and festivals, I still feel that it all started in south London."

Over time Rob developed the Sunday Best Recordings label as a means to release some of the music that was filling his club. Meanwhile, he and Josie were gradually migrating operations eastward, starting out in Clapham, then relocating to Brixton and finally settling in East Dulwich.

"When we were shown around this house, my wife just marched straight through the kitchen, which normally would be the first place she'd check, and went to the window," he remembers.

"There was a silver spaceship in the garden that the guy who used to live here built. That was sort of love at first sight for Josie with her eccentric leanings."

The unusual garden outbuilding (which is in fact the nose-cone of a plane fully fitted out inside with flashing lights and sound effects) is a suitable symbol for the new adventures that coincided with the East Dulwich move. For around this time not only did the couple introduce their first child into the world, they also gave birth to Bestival.

Maintaining the same blueprint as the Sunday Best club nights, Bestival annually attracts 40,000 for a final summer fling. It's the three-time winner of Best Medium Sized Festival, and its spin-off event, the family-friendly mid-summer bash Camp Bestival, was awarded Best New Festival last year.

As a radio DJ, music publisher and label owner, Rob is known for celebrating off-trend old-school brilliance while also discovering future stars. Combine these endeavours with the organisational and creative challenges of masterminding two festivals, and you have a very busy schedule indeed.

This year his DJing will take him from Ibiza to the South by Southwest Festival in Texas, as well as points in between, and he's also set to check out the festival competition like Exit in Serbia and Sziget in Hungary.

It turns out that in addition to Austin, Novi Sad and Budapest, his itinerary will feature many hours in Peckham Rye Park too. "I think yesterday I agreed to run the London Marathon in April, which is probably slightly daft. I just like new challenges - I don't know what's wrong with me!" he despairs.

"I'm a bit of a workaholic as my wife would probably tell you. I do like relaxing, but all the things that we do - from the radio show to the label to the festivals - they're non-stop things."

With the demanding nature of his round-the-clock, round-the-world work, the neighbourhood seems a welcome anchor point. "I love East Dulwich. Obviously it's getting more and more busy with shops and people moving into the area but I think that's good. It's still an undiscovered gem. People living maybe in Notting Hill or Highgate look down their noses at south London, but I think if they came to East Dulwich they'd be really surprised."

The working class roots of the area in particular seem to resonate with Rob's own work ethic. "What I like about East Dulwich is it's not posh - it still feels like real London. You've got everyone living side by side and I really love the community around here."

He may have a spaceship and a seriously high-flying career, but you have to admit - Rob da Bank is as down to earth as they come.

Rob da Bank's compilation for Soma Records, Sci-Fi Lo-Fi Vol. 3, is out in March; his A-Z of Festivals: My Life of Music, Mud and Mayhem in 26 Letters is published in hardback by Boxtree in May, £9.99; Camp Bestival takes place 24-26 July and Bestival is 11-13 September, see www.bestival.net

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