• Robby on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robdabank1973/
• Slomo Wellness: https://slomo.me/

Rob da Bank joins Adam in a captivating conversation that delves into his diverse journey through music, wellness, and festival culture. With over three decades of experience, Rob reflects on his early influences, from playing the trombone in a brass band to discovering the vibrant Manchester music scene. He shares insights into his significant role in launching the iconic Bestival festival and how it transformed the landscape of boutique festivals in the UK. The discussion also explores his passion for wellness, including his ventures into meditation, sound baths, and contrast therapy with the innovative sauna experiences he has created. Listeners will find inspiration in Rob's dedication to melding creativity with health, ultimately leading to a fulfilling and varied life in the music and wellness industries.

Exploring the multifaceted journey of Rob Da Bank reveals a life punctuated by musical milestones, transformative experiences, and an unwavering commitment to community wellness. Rob reminisces about his upbringing in a small village, where musical influences were ever-present through family and local bands. His early forays into playing instruments like the trombone and piano laid the groundwork for a burgeoning passion for music that shifted from classical to the vibrant pop culture of the 80s. This shift propelled him into the world of DJing during his teens, where he began to blend various genres, epitomizing the eclectic spirit that would later define his career. Rob emphasizes the value of musical education, acknowledging how it shaped his understanding of composition and rhythm, critical elements that would serve him throughout his professional life.

As his career evolved from DJing to journalism, Rob found himself at the epicenter of the UK music scene in the 90s, where he garnered invaluable experiences interviewing artists and attending legendary club nights. His work in music journalism provided a unique platform to connect with influential figures, ultimately leading to the conception of Bestival—a groundbreaking festival that combined diverse musical acts with immersive experiences. Not only did Rob share the challenges of orchestrating such a large-scale event, but he also pointed out the creative risks involved in maintaining relevance in an ever-evolving festival landscape. The conversation meanders through the festival's growth, its eventual decline, and the birth of Camp Bestival, showcasing Rob's adaptability and vision in navigating changes within the music and festival industries.

Rob's transition into wellness signifies a profound evolution of his personal and professional ethos. He delves into his latest venture, Slow Mo, which aims to revolutionize the wellness experience through contrast therapy. By blending saunas and ice baths, he seeks to create communal spaces that foster connection and healing. Rob passionately discusses the physical and mental health benefits of these practices, emphasizing their accessibility and potential to enhance everyday life. His vision for the future of wellness reflects a desire to create shared experiences that transcend traditional boundaries, inviting a wider audience to embrace the transformative power of self-care. Ultimately, this episode encapsulates Rob Da Bank's dynamic life journey—an exploration of sound, community, and wellness, all interwoven into a narrative of growth and connection.

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Bestival
• Sunday Best
• Worldwide FM
• Wall of Sound
• Music Magazine
• KISS FM
• Big Chill
• Boomtown
• Secret Garden Party
• Glastonbury
• Cream
• Gatecrasher
• Progress
• Renaissance
• Trentham Gardens
• Slo Mo
• Slow Motion
• Camp Bestival

Mentioned in this episode:

Reissued classics from Be With Records

Get 10% off at bewithrecords.com using the code ONCEADJ

Welcome back to Once A dj. We're sat here today with a man that's done a lot of different things, Mr. Rob Da Bank. How you doing today, Rob?

I'm very good, Adam. Happy New Year. And how are you?

Yeah, I'm good, thank you. I'm five nights sober, Got my chamomile tea, feeling like an absolute champion, so we'll see how long that lasts.

I'm 369 days sober, I think. So, yeah, I'm a tiny bit ahead of you, but I know the feeling.

Yeah, amazing. Well, I'm sure we'll get into a lot around wellness and that sort of thing.

So what I tend to do and, and I find a really nice sort of starting point with this is kind of going.

Going down to timeline, really, and just exploring your journey through music, where it's taking you and, you know, getting on to the other sort of subsequent opportunities. It's, it's brought your way and kind of where you're at and the projects you're working on now. So it'd be really interesting to just start with.

If you could just kind of tell me a bit about where music came into your life and what sort of music.

Yeah. So I grew up in a fairly traditional little village on the south coast.

My dad was a doctor, my mum was a midwife and we lived a little sort of villagey lifestyle with. My dad had a brass band. So musically then, you know, I was. I started playing the trombone when I was about 7 or 8 probably, and I had piano lessons.

And so it was quite a sort of middle class, kind of regular upbringing where I might. Yeah, so I wasn't like. I bought a rock and roll record when I was 7 or something. I was very much kind of what.

I was thinking I'll do because you've not got headphones.

My journey into. So that I don't start talking, probably by the age of 12 or 13, I was listening to more kind of early, early pop stuff.

I had that brass band village sort of existence. So my, my weapon of choice or weapon of my stepdad's choice was the cornet. Did you enjoy it?

Because for me, I found it kind of a chore I would never practice. But, you know, years, like in the years to come, it would prove very valuable. But at the time I wasn't really interested.

No, I mean, I think you've totally summed it up. And even now, you know, I've made my kids learn the guitar or the piano and they sort of kicked and screamed at me for Ages.

And then now they're all like, absolutely love playing the guitar and love DJing and, you know, things that I necessarily pushed them into, but I just think things like learning a language or an instrument.

It's like when you get to 30, you're like, well, I'm so glad I did that, because, you know, I know so many people that weren't pushed into that and they just have a lifelong regret of never having picked up that. That skill. And, you know, particularly if you want to have a career in music, then. I can't really play instruments, to be honest.

If you sat me in front of a piano or a guitar, I could. I could knock something out. But very, very basic. So I don't think you need to be a virtuoso musician to be a DJ or something, and. Not at all.

But it just gives you a really great grounding and it's a good practice and a good ritual.

Yeah, it just helps you understand how music works, I think, doesn't it, in terms of composition and arrangement and things?

Yeah, yeah. And it give. Yeah, it gives you, you know, the whole sort of melody aspect and timing and, you know. Cause when I start.

When I did start DJing around 15, 16, then know if I hadn't had that musical sort of grounding, I don't think I'd have picked up as quickly as I. As quickly as I did. Although I'm still. Still learning.

Yeah.

I think the nice thing with piano and guitar is that if you've got someone who's young, who's got an interest in a certain type of music, with piano and guitar, you can effectively play full songs rather than if you, you know, say you were into Michael Jackson or whatever. It's like, yeah, get your trombone and play the melody to rock with you. It's not as exciting as having, like, the chord structure and singing along.

No, totally. Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, the trompone is not really featured in my life since I was about 15, but I don't regret having that. And we traveled around Europe. We went to, like, twin towns and played concerts and stuff. So it was. It was a really great.

Really great grounding in music.

Yeah. So what was the early music then that really grabbed you when you were getting to these sort of early teens?

Well, yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people, you know, when they ask what their first record is, they come out with something uber cool.

And maybe they were listening something uber cool, but I was listening to, like, Duran Duran, Adam and the Ants, Pet Shop Boys, tears for fears, U2, you know, so 80s, you know, I was born in 73, so I was, you know, early 80s was when I started getting into music and it was my. My mate's sisters, my sister.

Yeah, we all had sisters that were a couple of years older and they were all sort of dressed up in their sort of 80s stonewashed jeans and kind of whatever girls Wore in the 80s and. And playing us. Well, they weren't playing us. We were just listening through the bedroom door like Tears of Fears and Pet Shop Boys and.

Yeah, sort of early, early 80s pop.

I think, in village life as well. It's about what you kind of get access to, isn't it?

It's something I often discuss with people on here because it's when you get people that were into something that's kind of counterculture related, it's often that they were close enough to some sort of pirate radio or something like that. But if you're in the back of beyond, you don't get the exposure, do you?

Well, I mean, you don't know that that's even out there. You've got no idea that Joy Division exists or the Cure or the Smiths, you know, how would you?

Unless you're listening to John Peel, which was then the sort of next natural step. But not many sort of 12 year olds are listening to John Peel.

So, you know, I was going down to the local sailing club disco and jigging around to the B52s or pop stuff. But then my mate Tim, who I grew up with, he started playing me New Order and Joy Division and Ritty Column and much cooler stuff.

So I then started going off.

In.

That sort of way. Then Manchester happened when I was about 15 or 16 and although we lived sort of.

Well, I went to school in Portsmouth and Manchester did hit Portsmouth weirdly. So loads of people started walking around in flares and kind of those in brown type T shirts.

And so, yeah, there was another thread and I just couldn't get enough of it, whatever it was, you know, Stone Roses, Manchester, early rave stuff, guy called Gerald, you know, Orbital, you know, all these things were just flooding in and it was like, wow, this is just like a total treasure trove. And then like, say, you know, the John Peel thing. So there was as much as I could buy with my meager funds from. From Venus Records in Farum.

But then also there was, you know, John Pill on the radio, which I could. Which I could fall back onto and. And learn even more.

Do you think? So this kind of being removed from the place where the things are happening.

Do you think there's an ad, a kind of benefit in that, that you kind of take everything equally? So say if you got into Manchester and you're there, could you have potentially overlooked other things because you're so engulfed in a scene?

Yeah, no, I see what you mean. Yeah. I think having a paucity of culture around and I love Southampton and Portsmouth, but they're not the cultural capitals of the uk.

And I was so struck with Manchester that I wanted to go to university in Manchester. I wanted to move there immediately. I just was like, that is like Mecca.

But I'm glad that I grew up where I did and I'm glad I grew up in a little village that was kind of starved of that because it made me all the more hungry for what came later. And you know, when I did eventually move to London, it was like, bam. You know, like.

Whereas if I'd grown up in London being a cool kid or lived in Manchester and been sort of sucked into that scene. Yeah, you're right. I might not have explored so widely.

Yeah. So did you go to university? Is that what took you to London?

Yeah, yeah.

So as soon as I got out of school, I went to Goldsmiths in South London and had a total baptism of fire into street culture and music in good and bad ways.

Can you expand on that at all?

Well, I was a white middle class kid from a little village on the south coast. You know, not very street wise, you know, slightly gothic, slightly, kind of slightly Manchester kind of Manchester, yeah.

And then suddenly dropped into at the age of 18.

My sister drove me up to Deptford in her mini Metro, dropped me off at the halls of residence and I was like, right, okay, I'm in South London, how the hell did this happen? And then I'm walking down the streets. I got mugged like five or six times in the first few months.

I had to stand up in front of the whole halls of residence as an example of someone who. Not in a bad way, but they were like, this guy's been mugged so many times. This is what you've got to not do. This is what you know.

And I was just totally unstreet cred. I was probably wandering around with ten pound note in my hand or something.

I didn't have a lot of money, but whatever money I did have was quickly stolen off me. I made friends with the crack dealer Mickey, who mugged me numerous times with his Rottweiler.

I mean, I got taken to a wimpy by him at gunpoint, made to buy Him a wimpy. It was actually quite a sort of looking back on it.

I never told my mum and dad, I told some sort of friends, but I was driving around in unmarked police cars trying to identify gang members. It was. It sounds like I'm making it up but. And I'm actually thinking about it now how insane it was.

But I ended up becoming mates with, with the crack dealer who sat on the streets of Deptford High street and sort of befriended me. And once he'd befriended me then everyone left me alone. So suddenly I was like I wasn't part of the gang at all.

But they just, right, they've rinsed that kid out, let him go. Now I got a bit more street wise.

I remember walking down to the end of Deptford High street, buying the Ragged Twins debut album on Shut up and Dance and just be like, you know, so.

So all of this stuff had happened but it hadn't tainted my total excitement at being at Goldsmiths Uni, being 18 years old, being surrounded by art students. And that's where I met Josie as well in the first term of, of the first year there and she was in the same hall.

So yeah, that's a lot to go through because, I mean, I, I remember. So I went to Derby for university.

I had a choice of Salford or Derby and Salford was rough, Salford at the time and being a little country kid, I was like, I don't want to go somewhere dead rough where, yeah, I'm probably going to get mugged all the time. If I'd have done it, I would have gone on a, a far better course.

I hope the University of Derby doesn't mind me saying that, but I remember even, even just living in a small city, I, I would just wander down the street and anyone that walked past I'd go, all right, yeah, that's what you do in a village. You're just so friendly to everyone and, and then people just look at you just like, why is this guy talking to me and stuff? It's.

It, it is just very different. So I'm sure I would have had a similar thing if I'd have gone there.

My son's just moved to London which I wasn't having any sort of flashbacks of my. He's living in a nicer area and, but, and by the way, I love Deptford and New Cross and it gave me a really great upbringing.

But yeah, when my son moved I had to brief him. You know, he's grown up on the Isle of Wight and we are, you know, we live in the country.

And I was like, arlo, when you get to London, you might feel tempted to just nod and wave and smile at people and say hello, just be. Just. That's. That's totally cool.

But just, you know, don't be surprised when you just get completely blank stares and some odd looks, because that's what, you know, London and probably some other cities, they just do that. You don't. You smile at someone on the tube, they'll probably phone the police and say you were harassing them or punch you in the face. So it's.

Yeah, it's kind of hard, isn't it, when that. When you're so full of. Full of beans and then it gets kind of a bit knocked out of you. But then.

But then I embrace London in all its other beautiful ways.

Yeah. So what did you go to study?

Well, I'd love to say that I was doing fine art or something like that. I mean, Damien Hirst had just left there, or he was still there. And it was very much that young British artists, you know, scene. So all the.

Damien Hurst, Tracey Emin, all those guys were just sort of knocking around there. But I actually did French and History of Art, so I. The only thing I was any good at school was French. So, you know, I was turning 18.

I was like, right, I need to get out of the village. I need to go and spread my wings. What can I do? So I was like, right, just do French and where's a cool place? I can't get into Manchester.

The grades are too high, so I can't follow my Manchester dream. So, yeah, I ended up at Goldsmiths.

So musically then, had you got any intentions to DJ at this point?

Well, I was already DJing as a sort of hobby, so I started DJing when I was about 16, saved up, bought some Technics, one of which. I've still got one. I'd love to know where it is, but someone stole it somewhere and. Yeah, so bought my beloved Technics.

And me and my mate Tim, we both learned to DJ over Sunday afternoons. And so, yeah, it was obviously only vinyl at the time, and cassettes, but you couldn't really DJ with those unless you were Greg Wilson or someone.

I was gonna say, then, speaking of like, a Greg Wilson, who was. Was he one of your big influences with DJing?

No, no. And I don't mean that in a bad way, because I love Greg, but I didn't discover Greg till a lot longer after that. I mean, you know, you. You know.

But I didn't even, I wasn't even that conscious of DJ culture.

I didn't even really know, you know, obviously knew there was, there were DJs and I knew I must have, I must have been watching someone to have picked up how to learn to dj. I'm not even sure what, what that was. It must have been something I was watching on TV or.

I mean, there wasn't any YouTube or anything, so I'm not even sure how that happened. But I just picked up and I was playing like fun console and hip hop and early kind of house and techno.

So, you know, anything from Maceo and the Max and James Brown through to Orbital and the Orb and more kind of chill outy kind of early electronica stuff.

But yeah, so that was how I was sort of learning to dj, mixing up a lot of styles, which is probably my trademark sort of style of just mashing it all up.

So that's probably where that came from, having to just do with what the records that I could afford, you know, K class, kind of early, sort of cheesy house on the one hand and then probably like Smith's remixes, Francois Kevorkin Smith's remixes and stuff and everything in between, really.

Yeah. So was the intention, or part of the intention when you got to London to really sort of immerse yourself in DJing?

No, it wasn't actually. I, I still did. I had this kind of.

I went to, well, the school I went to, the, the careers advisor, I think they gave up on me, but I sort of got it in my head I was going to be a journalist.

And so that was really the first thing I did when I, when I was in London, I was a music journalist for a long time, a really long time, like seven or eight years. And so DJing was always a kind of hobby. I'd started DJing at Winchester School of Art where a lot of my friends were.

So I was DJing at the union there. I think I DJed at Goldsmiths a little bit, but then it wasn't probably until I set up Sunday Best in the early 90s when I was 17. Or 18.

No, is that 17 or 18? Yeah, maybe even a 20. Maybe even 20. And that's when things started to solidify more as a dj.

But it was a long time until I sort of thought of myself as a dj. I worked at the music Magazine.

I worked at Wall of Sound just when it was setting up as a label and then I was DJing and working in a bar and stuff and everything was coexisting. So I had two or three different things going on.

And then eventually, years later, probably not until I was 30, my manager then sort of said, I think you should just do the DJing thing.

So can you explain a little bit about the magazine work, how you got into it, the sort of experiences that you had and any highlights?

Yeah, I mean, it was really exciting. One of the best things I ever did did. So I. I think my. My timeline is so skewed in my head, but I think it was, you know, I got out of uni.

The first thing I got was this job at Wall of Sound, the record label. So Mark Jones and Wall of Sound had just set up in Wandsworth. I was obviously massively into record labels.

Wall of Sound, Big Beat, that whole skint thing was happening. Fat Boy Slim had just started.

It was like the Wise Guys and Mecon and Derek Delarge and this sort of whole Big Beat thing was just sort of was just coming about. And so I got a job in this dusty old warehouse stamping 7 inches for Mark Jones.

So it's kind of like a rival to mixmag and DJ Magazine, when magazines were the place that you went for your information, you know, that you didn't really. Well, there was no Internet and the radio stations were sort of sparse.

So yeah, you saved up and you got your music magazine or your mix mag, and that's where you learned about all the new records. So I started there as kind of work experience. And then through the next seven years I became like the picture editor.

So I chose the photos for the magazine, then I became the club's editor, then I became the assistant editor. And so I sort of moved my way up through the ranks doing different roles. But yeah, it was absolutely incredible. You know, probably the first.

I think the first trip I got sent on was Basement Jacks in New York.

So Basement Jacks were just kind of kicking off and I was totally crapping myself because I was a young staff staff writer and I hadn't really earned my spurs as a. As a writer. And suddenly I was on a virgin flight to New York with Simon and Felix from Basement Jacks.

And PR people and, you know, you're staying in cool hotels and, you know, taking around in limos and basement jacks with djing with like DJ sneak at some cool club called Twilo or something like that. And so, yeah, it was absolutely ridiculously exciting.

And that was, yeah, you know, quite a few years of that with being the club's editor and living in Ibiza for a while. And yeah, so it was quite, quite a pacey, Pacey lifestyle.

Yeah. So was this in relation to Sunday Best then? Did Sunday Best start afterwards?

Well, that started in 91, so all of these things kind of happened at the same time. So I was doing the music magazine journalism. I started Sunday Best. The label started a couple of years after that.

But the club, you know, quickly became very well known for this kind of laid back kind of bar scene. Which now sounds daft, but back then bars, bar culture didn't exist.

It was like there were pubs and there were clubs and the clubs were mostly playing trance or techno. Never played any kind of left field, sort of wonky, Mr. Scruff, Greg Wilson style stuff. Maybe they did up north, but they didn't in London.

So we kind of helped invent that whole bar culture where you could kind of sit there and have a game of chess or backgammon or read a paper and listen to great music played by. And if I think back now, it's crazy that the resident DJs were me, Andy Weatherall and Harvey.

It's like, you know, it was pretty, pretty amazing to have those sort of residents and people DJs loved coming down there because they could play anything and get away with playing anything. Which, like I say at the time, well, now just sounds what you're talking about.

But back then you were a techno DJ or you're a house DJ or you were a funk dj. But Sunday Best kind of just broke down all those barriers and said, well, just play whatever you want and people, people will dance.

Yeah.

I think that the more people I speak to doing this podcast, particularly sort of around sort of house DJs or people that in my mind are house DJs or sort of more dance leaning, there's not really many DJs that are just one format, one genre. So it must have been really nice at that time to be able to do that with Harvey and Andy. Then.

Did you meet them through booking them or did you know them prior?

That's a really good question, which I will probably never know the answer. I'm not quite. I think probably through working@music magazine then I, you know, that was such an amazing platform for me.

And I wasn't some kind of, you know, what's the word? When you're climbing the ladder and you're trying to, you know, desperately trying to get all the contacts, it sort of happened organically. I was.

I was not that sor. That was hanging around near the DJ booth, trying to get someone's attention. It was just from what I did.

And it was quite a small world then, you know, you met all those DJs you were hanging out with Richie Horton and Sven Vath one weekend and Basement Jacks, Groover Mada. You were doing, you know, interviewing Fat Boy Slim.

And all of these guys, remember, at that time, were only just starting out, so they weren't like the big mega stars that they are now. So they were all very humble and just, you know, starting out on their little. Not little journeys, but on their journeys. So, I mean, Harvey.

Harvey was already a legendary dj. He had his Ministry residency. Weatherall was obviously in his heyday with Sabres of Paradise and all Clink street stuff.

So, yeah, they were both kind of big DJs, but they. They didn't get treated like that. And they. They played for. I mean, it was 99p to get in. It was kind of a joke. A joke. 99p to get in. And DJs, I think.

I mean, you know, I think we played paid weatherall, like 30 quid or something. We never had any money to pay anyone. It was like 200 capacity max. So he probably played for free most of the time.

Yeah, it's nice when people can do things for the love. It's not always easy to do, is it? Because it depends on the rest of your life, the rest of what's going on.

But if you can get people together, I'd love to find a way to do something like that myself, but I just don't know how to do it. Basically.

I'm not sure it exists anymore.

And I don't mean that in a negative way, but I just think that kind of rave culture, sort of bartery sort of system of like, do you want to come and play some records and we'll get you a hot dinner and some beers? You know, it's. I just not. It probably does in some places, but it's. Yeah, it was definitely a wonderful time of sort of trust.

So by that do you mean the way that the superstar DJ became a thing and then deejays as a role were viewed. Became viewed differently?

I mean, yeah, this. This was pre. Well, it Wasn't pre soup. Yeah, it was kind of probably pre superstar DJs.

I mean, you know, weirdly, I would sort of on a Sunday with whoever it was, the Herbalizer or Weatherall or Basement Jacks, you know, down at Sunday Best. And then the next weekend I would be in my role as club's editor for music. I'd be at like Cream in Liverpool or Gatecrasher in Sheffield.

At the height of kind of fluffy handbag house and trance just becoming absolutely huge. Which at the time, everyone sort of looked down their noses and thought, this is cheesy, you know, cheesy shit.

But it was like to have that, to go to those clubs was just totally bonkers. Thousands and thousands of kids queuing up around the block to get in to see their favorite DJs.

And, you know, Paul Oakenfold at Cream and, you know, the sort of Seb Fontaine and Tall Paul and all that sort of handbag house and big house sounds. It was very, very exciting. So although I was a kind of cooler, cooler journalist D.J.

writing about it, I found it, you know, I'm so glad I did that as well. Driving up and down the country, visiting all those clubs and seeing what.

What most people in the country were doing because they weren't all listening to Weatherall and Harvey for sure.

Yeah, it must have been great to have that sort of broad lens on it.

Well, yeah. Also get, you know, so many people live in.

Well think that if you live in the south, then, you know, London is the furthest north you're ever going to get.

Suddenly I was going to like Preston and Sheffield and Newcastle and Glasgow and, you know, seeing the country and like I say, seeing, you know, if you go down Newcastle High street on a Saturday night, it's very different to Clapham or Southampton or Plymouth. It's like, you know, the culture is just totally, totally different. So, yeah, it sort of gave me a much broader view of what was going on in.

In the whole of the uk.

Did you ever come to Derby? Because Derby had quite a rep, I think, in terms of Progress and Renaissance at one point.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, we actually did a thing with Phil Gifford and, and, and what was the first club you just said before Progress. Who. Yeah.

Who was the promoter of Progress?

Russell. Russell Davison.

Russell Davison. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I wrote a lot about progress. I would have come there a lot.

Renaissance and Jeff and those guys and the Trentham Gardens and all those sort of. Yeah, yeah. Spent a lot of time in the Midlands Writing about, writing about club culture. So yeah, that was my whole life for years.

Amazing. When did radio come about then for you?

Well, that. So that was. Yeah, so probably had Sunday best, early 90s music magazine and then probably.

For this music called Chill out, which became, you know, which when it started off was. Was basically ambient and experimental electronic music.

And then it became a bit tarnished after, you know, too many Chill out compilations that kind of, it became a little bit sort of wallpapery. But in its heyday it was, you know, it was what we were kind of playing down there along, along with other stuff.

And Radio 1 had this sort of graveyard shift between 4 and 7am that they, that they were looking to fill and, and so they, yeah, got a call to do a pilot. My manager said, Radio 1 want to do a pilot with you. I was like, are you crazy? I've never even been on the radio.

I think I'd been on KISS FM once as a, as a guest. And so then suddenly I was sat there doing a pilot for Radio 1.

I thought it'd gone abysmally and then got an email a few weeks later saying, yeah, well done. You and Chris Coco are gonna be presenting a new show called the Blue Room. So they couldn't decide between the two of us, I think.

So they gave us both the slot and I think we did it alternately for quite a long time. And then I sort of went off on my own on Radio 1 and I was there for 12 years, so massively proud. Part of my, part of my career.

What time were you having to get up to do that show then?

Well, this may not come as a shock to many people, but a lot of them were pre recorded. So if I did do it live, then you'd be getting up at 3, 3:30 in the morning.

I wasn't rock and roll enough to be going straight through and then falling into the seat, which I think some DJs were. But. But yeah, no, yeah, if you. I think once a month was the rule.

Yeah, Radio 1 had a kind of rule that anyone from the breakfast show through to midnight had to be live. And then anyone from midnight till 5 or 6 in the morning, you could, you could pre record it. So I don't know how it works these days.

But yeah, so most of the time I was recording on like a Wednesday afternoon or. But it was, you know, it's one of my favorite things I've ever done.

It was so magical to record a two hour, three hour show sometimes for like minded people. And it was, you know, again, pre Internet.

So this was going out Saturday morning, 4 till 7am it was people kicking out of clubs, like probably like Progress, like Gatecrasher, dancing around their cars. It wasn't necessarily all dance music at all. It was quite, quite an eclectic sort of left field show. But yeah, it got a real following.

So yeah, when it went on for.

Quite a while and when I was doing my research, I saw that. Apologies by the way, if I'm missing. If there's big gaps or anything.

I think you've just done so much that it's just hard to kind of succinctly get a kind of list of things to go at.

There's more gaps in my memory than in your, in your timelines.

It's fine, I'll send you my notes afterwards. You can remember your life. Um, so I read that when, when John Peel died, you were, you kind of went in to do the first few shows in his place.

I hope I'm not being distasteful in my wording. How was that as an experience because that's a big loss, but obviously sort of huge shoes to, to fill, as it were.

Yeah, yeah, no, I mean I always try and choose my words carefully because it was such a massive, massive blow to lose John.

And I mean, you know, casting my mind back then, you know, as a young radio dj, music journo and just music fan, you know, walking into the clipstone Street Radio 1, Radio 1 building and you know, John would be sat there with his boxes of vinyl annotating every single thing, you know, writing down lists and lists of stuff, you know, timing each record playing, you know, playing at the wrong speed. You know, just. He was just this sort of, kind of eccentric professor, sort of total music head that everyone was in awe of.

Cause you'd have, you know, Giles Peterson would be sat over there, Fabio and Grubrider would be giggling in the corner.

Judge Jules would be there, Marianne Hobbs, you know, later on you'd have Zane Lowe sat there with Annie Mac being his tea lady, kind of giving him a tea. It was totally insane.

That room, I can picture it now, you know, had about 20 or 30 desks in and you know, just the glitterati that all the best DJs in the world in there. And John was very much, everyone was in reverence to him.

You know, he'd always have a T shirt and a sort of jacket on and he was quite shy, well, very shy guy. And so he'd walk through the door and you know, he wouldn't really look up. But everyone, there's like a hushed silence when John walked in the room.

So to have this sort of bizarre double edged sword of sitting in for him was. I mean, it was already pre planned that I was going to sit in for him while he was away.

So, you know, the day that he sadly died, I was actually at Radio 1. I was always made a thing, particularly at Music magazine and everything I've always done, I tried to be there early.

I think it's a really good start to the, to whatever you're doing is to. Is to be there early, be the first person there and be the last to leave. And that was kind of definitely helped me in my career.

And so that day I was super early at Radio 1. I was sat downstairs in that same office, but I was on my own, no one else in.

And then Ian Parkinson, one of the controllers of Radio 1, came down and said, ah, Rob, could you please come upstairs with me, I need to talk to you about something. And this was the day on which I was going to be doing my first show with John on holiday in Peru.

And Ian sat me down and said, I'm really sorry to have to tell you this Rob, but John's passed away in Peru. And so it's just like the world sort of fell out from under my feet. And you know, firstly as a music fan and John Peel fan, it was just devastating.

And then secondly, the kind of realization that I was supposed to be sort of sitting in on his show, I think that night, pretty sure it was that night. So anyway, yeah, it was, you know, devastating blow for music worldwide actually at that time. Then all the DJs started congregating in Radio 1.

You know, the word was getting out and people started coming in and then everyone went down the pub, the sort of pub down the road where Steve Lemak and Marianne Hobbs and stuff were holding court and kind of having a bit of a wake, if you will, for John. Luckily, I think Radio 1 made the wise move to. I think that Joe. Sorry, not.

I think that Steve Lemak, maybe it's Steve Lemak and Joe Wiley or Steve Lemak and Marianne Hobbs actually hosted the show that night, maybe for a couple of nights. And then I did actually start and all I did really was just use the records that John had already pre planned to be played while he was away.

And I just tried to say as little as possible because, you know, John's fans were hardcore and, you know, fans from all over the sort of spectrum, but, you know, total music heads. And I just didn't want to piss them off or let John's legacy down, so. And I ended up doing that for a few months.

And then myself, Hugh Stevens, Ras Kwame, we got given a new show called One Music, which kind of was supposed to represent, you know, John's sort of love of discovering new music and. And it sort of moved on to the next chapter.

But yeah, it was a crazy, crazy few months because it was literally just sitting there trying to just pay reverence to John, really.

Yeah, it's an unenviable challenge.

Yeah, I can sort of laugh about it now, but not laugh about it, but just. I can relax about it now. But at the time it was, I remember, you know, their enemy, Enemy stories is Rob debank the.

The right person to fill John's shoes. And it was like, I'm not trying to fill his shoes.

I'm just being told I'm playing his records for the next couple of months, you know, please, like just. But yeah, it was.

Yeah, yeah, like you've not got enough pressure on yourself with that.

Yeah, no, but I, I can see, you know, it was a huge, huge loss in, in the radio world, in the music world.

I mean, on the flip side of it, being entrusted to do it, I guess, is a huge honour as well.

Yeah. And I always thought there's no way that John sanctioned this.

There's absolutely no way that Radio 1 said to John, yeah, we're going to get Rob de Bank to do it. Because there were far cooler DJs in Raider 1 with more underground taste than me.

But I suppose Raider One were looking at sort of bringing in, you know, some younger blood to the station in general. So. And at that time I was, I was young. So, yeah, you know, those 12 years at Raider 1, one of the most exciting things I've ever. I've ever done.

And I, I, you know, in true, kind of imposter syndrome, I was looking over my shoulder from day one to the day to the day I left, waiting, waiting to be told I wasn't needed anymore. So very grateful to wonderful Radio One.

So the next thing I wanted to ask about is Bestival and kind of what the genesis was, really, because putting on a festival is no mean task. I mean, starting off any sort of new night is work in itself. So putting on a festival is levels above that, you know.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was just a sort of conglomeration of accumulation of kind of quite a few years of putting on parties.

So me and Josie had been, you know, putting on Sunday Best. We had the record label going. I was working at Music magazine still.

I think this was near the time when I was leaving journalism and just doing DJing full time. Josie was running her own really cool bar in East London. You know, we were kind of at this sort of center of this very cool scene.

We were going to Glastonbury a lot, me and Josie, jumping the fence and kind of just loving, you know, just thinking Glastonbury was literally the best thing in the world, which I still think it is. And, and then, you know, me and Josie and a couple of mates sat down in a pub, had too much wine and decided that we could do it as well and put.

Put on our own. Put on our own festival. And it was the sort of. In the festival landscape when there weren't that many festivals around.

So you had, you know, reading and tribal gathering and obviously Glasgow and Womad and stuff like that, but they weren't, you know, it was literally the same year that we started, I think Boomtown and Secret Garden started or it was around, around that time when these new, new sort of school of festivals were starting up. So, yeah, and, and it was when Homelands and Cream Fields were around just as one day festival.

So we kind of had this thing that we've just put on like a one, a one day, one night festival and then suddenly it turned into a three day show and we were, we were opening the gates six months later with very little idea what we were doing.

So my only sort of frame of reference for putting on a festival is Wayne's World 2, which probably isn't a huge surprise. Can you kind of describe any of the sort of. The level of. The sort of ups and downs of planning something like that and the stresses involved?

Well, you can look at my gray hair and see the stresses involved.

I mean, yeah, on reflection, a very stressful, stressful career path to choose, which is probably why I kept going with other things at the same time. But yeah, one of the most rewarding that we've probably done, you know, the years of.

Best of all that we did, which I think again was about 12 or maybe 14 years of that, but you know, to have. Well, I mean, yeah, the first one, you know, we had, I Think Basement Jacks, Frat Boy Slim, Milo, Goggle Bordello, things like that.

So all these acts that were just breaking through and we were, you know, I think probably I have to give credit slightly to my music curation in terms of like, I sort of knew who was just about to be big or I was friends with, you know, someone who I could know, knew that I could get someone big. So, yeah, we were off to quite a good start with that. And then with Josie's kind of whole creative look, everything was hand painted.

Things were sourced from India and Thailand and there were things that were, you know, all the signs were hand painted things that nowadays if you go around Wilderness, Latitude, these festivals, it's, everyone's doing it. But we were kind of setting the scene with that and we were kind of like the first boutique festival alongside the Big Chill.

You know, that was sort of, it was much more of a sort of intimate atmosphere. It wasn't just a bar and a main stage. It was.

And, you know, we launched the whole sort of dressing up, fancy dress thing and boutique camping that Josie brought. So, you know, you could stay in a teepee or a yurt, which was very unusual.

You know, normally you'd just be crashing on the floor or sleeping in a sleeping bag with you, with your mates. But we made, we definitely picked everything up, shook it all up in the festival world.

And then, you know, to go from, you know, we had everyone from, you know, Stevie Wonder and Elton John to Massive Attack to Brian Eno to Amy Winehouse, you know, had a massive run of hip hop royalty with Outcast, Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, Wu Tang Clan, Missy Elliot, you know, some, some of the best hip hop acts I've ever seen when, when people always thought that hip hop acts would be a bit, a bit daft and a bit, you know, just like a tape playing and then performing. But all of those, all of those acts, all of those hip hop acts, Snoop Dogg, just totally incredible. So, yeah, too many amazing headliners.

But really the, the magic of Bestival for, for me and Josie and everyone that came was that was the atmosphere. You could have probably stripped away all the bands and just removed the stages in there.

The amount of creativity and fun and, you know, escapism and I think that was always our thing. It's, you know, if you look at something like Boomtown now, the escapism there is what 18 year olds want.

They want to go there, they want to forget about their lives, their jobs, their, you know, the real world and just be like, I Am in this other world. And that was what Bestival was as well.

Yeah. Festivals kind of became more of the festival experience, I think, didn't they? So through those years.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, like say the. Before that, it was, let's go and see this band on. On a stage at Reading. And Reading is amazing. I love Reading.

And it does what it does, which is put on the best bands in the world on a massive stage to a huge audience. But we were interested in something much more sort of immersive and slightly counterculture and something that people could share and feel part of.

And we always felt that the best of all, family kind of owned, bestable as much as. As much as we did. Sadly, they didn't own it when it came to the debt and the troubles and the stresses of running it, which.

Which probably almost outnumbered. Not outnumbered, but outweighed the. The sort of. The high.

So without, yeah, you know, going into detail, it was definitely a big baptism of fire getting into that. And once you.

Once you start a festival as an independent promoter, and I take my hat off to all the independent festival promoters out there, you know, you're sort of on this wheel that you can't get off because you've run up all that sort of debt putting it on, then you need to sell tickets for the next year. And then, you know, if you don't quite get there one year, you're like, oh, well, that's all right, we'll just make that back the next year.

And then you don't quite make it back and then it's like, you know. So however successful some of those festivals are, they're constantly in that sort of cycle of sort of trying to. Trying to pay the bills.

But yeah, no regrets.

I have sometimes people pleaser tendencies where I'll go and do certain things based on this thing in my head about letting people down. Obviously nothing is with the magnitude of putting on a festival.

Was there ever a point where you kind of got to a point where you thought, I kind of want to get out of this, but I don't want to disappoint all these people?

That's a good question. I think I'd probably share the people pleasing thing for sure. But it was partially that, but it was also. Yeah.

I mean, basically the point came where festivals like Boomtown and even Park Life, I'm thinking, or, you know, suddenly we weren't the only new kid on the block. There were other festivals out there. Everyone was starting to.

I think it was the point where some of the Other ones, like, started to get sort of Kanye and some big hip hop things in and art sort of. We'd just come off the back of Stevie Wonder and Elton John and some. We were up to 60,000 capacity. We started at 4,000. We were absolutely flying.

And then we probably hit that peak and we probably should have capped it maybe at 35, 40,000. And we probably grew very fast. And then the competition increased. We weren't the latest.

We weren't the trendiest festival in the, in the world anymore. But, yeah, not in any sad way, but we just, you know, it just got to that point where we lost a little bit of the sparkle.

And it wasn't so much about letting people down or the crowd down. It was more about the financial stuff, you know, that you have to keep. You've got a lot of staff, you have to keep that going.

So, yeah, it was more driven by that. But, you know, the golden lining was that. The silver lining, sorry, was that we started Camp Bestival as well, four years after Bestival.

And that was always seen as the little baby festival, the family angled festival that we'd started. But luckily that, from the word go, was a sort of financial and, you know, and cultural success. And it still is.

And so that's what me and Josie are, you know, doing alongside all our other things now, is still running camp festivals. So we're still flying that Bestival flag.

I think as. As people who enjoy festivals and things get older, it's nice that they've got these places that have that cater to that.

The next thing I wanted to ask you about was earworm with the music supervision, because I think probably for a lot of DJs, it's like a dream job, isn't it? You kind of being a selector in a very different circumstance. How's that been? And kind of how big an operation is that?

Yeah, so, I mean, that. That doesn't exist as such anymore. But so. But it was. It was a great sort of other string to the bow for a little while.

Yeah, I think probably being seen as a. At least back then as a tastemaker and having that sort of musical knowledge without blow my own trumpet.

But, you know, Obviously, through just being on the radio, I'd listen to every single thing that was coming out.

I think it's technically impossible now, in the times of Spotify to have that knowledge, but there was a time when I'd probably know every single electronic record almost, and it was coming out, I'd know a lot of other styles and genres as well. And so, yeah, you build up this musical brain. And I think an obvious way to use that was music supervision. So set that up with a couple of friends.

We did some really big projects like Big Little Lies and some films with Andrea Arnold and stuff, some BBC stuff. And then it kind of took a different path. But, yeah, I sort of got. Yeah, I think I'm definitely.

And Josie would say this, I'm probably guilty of, you know, trying to wear too many hats sometimes. And I don't get bored of things, but I just like flitting from one thing to the next and not always necessarily leaving something.

But I love the fact that we're running a sauna and contrast therapy business. Also like the fact that I can go and DJ in Ibiza in the summer.

I like the fact that I've got a record label that I can sort of do the ANR for and I like the fact that I can go and teach a group of people to meditate. So it's, you know, I do find that that's sort of nourishing for myself in terms of having a few different things to do.

But, yeah, like, things like music supervision, you know, they. Unless they're flying, then it's, it's, it's.

It's quite hard work because you sign up for something like a film and then it takes about two years to make the money that they say at the beginning that is going to pay you for six months. You know, you end up working on it for two years and then you're like, wow, that was a hell of a lot of work for no credit on the film.

Yeah. And I think there's the. It's. It's the good and the bad of liking lots of different things. Like, I wish there was more time in the day to.

I'd spend more time on the decks, I'd spend more time trying to make music because there's all these things I enjoy. There's just not. Not the time to do them.

Yes, I share that feeling. We need at least two or three lives to enjoy that.

Yeah. And the challenge that you have as well when you're doing a lot of different things is the time involved in marketing. Any one of them.

So, you know, like, you might spend the time doing all the different things, but keeping all those brands active and relevant is a real, real time suck, I think.

Yeah, and that's, yeah, that's definitely one of my, probably one of my failings if I don't really look at it as failings.

But I, Yeah, I'm possibly more interested in the project at the time and less worried about how many Instagram likes we've got or the financial aspects of it as well. So I'm quite bad at.

I very much live in the moment and I like creating things and being creative, but I don't always think it through in terms of how are we going to sort of monetize this or. So, yeah, very much not driven by that, but I think that's good for me.

I enjoy sort of being creative without necessarily worrying about the financial side of it.

Yeah, you can get bogged down, I think, especially with creativity.

It's that when, if you want to make music now, it's kind of, do you want to make music because you enjoy making music or do you want to make music because you want some numbers to quantify whether you're good at the thing? It's super difficult. The next thing I wanted to discuss was your experience of lockdown.

I've been through quite a few, discussed it with quite a few people on here, but I think you were very involved in sort of doing things for the community, weren't you? In terms of the mixes and stuff?

Yeah, I mean, lockdown, God, I. It was only a few years ago, but I. It just seems like a complete lifetime ago.

I selfishly, I really loved lockdown and I don't mean that, you know, I'm very aware of what hardships and you know, and obviously much worse that people experienced and lost people and loved ones and stuff. So I don't mean that in any glib way, but just selfishly, being on the Isle of Wight, it was a baking hot summer for part of it.

You know, I didn't have to worry about a lot of the day to day work stuff. We didn't really have the money to, you know, it's not like we were just rolling around in cash, loving, loving life.

We had to take loans like everyone else, but it was more about just the freedom to actually hang out with the kids and sort of not. Not have to do the daily grind for a while. So. But yeah, I suppose musically and you know, we wanted to keep our audiences and I don't mean.

But you know, the Festival audience and my radio kind of audience. So yeah, I was on Worldwide FM during that time with Giles Peterson. Thanks to Giles, I was on.

I was doing drum and breakfast which was like my sort of little drum and bass at breakfast time sort of turn, which, yeah, I mean, you know, get dressed up in a daft outfit and play an hour and a half of drum and bass on a stream. Doesn't sound very appetizing but seemed to seem to do something for just.

Yeah, I think it just kept people's spirits up because I was very aware that, you know, if you were stuck in a, in a high rise in, you know, wherever or you know, not in a fortunate position, then you needed some glimmers of. Glimmers of light. So yeah, I think it was partially for our own sanity and partially to try and help, you know, keep people sane.

Amazing. And let's get on to wellness now because this is a kind of huge area, isn't it?

There's sound baths, there's meditations and there's, there's the floating sauna as well, isn't there?

So really interested in what your journey into wellness was and that experience, how you've kind of learned and developed things like meditation journeys and sound baths and things like that. If you could share something around that.

Yeah, yeah. I mean me and Josie, you know, we learned to meditate together when we were about in our, in our early 20s.

So we've, we've been sort of in that world for a long time. We practice yoga also since our early 20s. So we've always had that in a parallel life alongside the sort of raving. Raving. More hedonistic activity.

Yeah. And it's always been a cornerstone of what we, what we kind of do. We've always had, you know, some sort of well being angle at our festivals.

And then, yeah, probably more recently five years ago, I learned to be a meditation teacher, Josie learned to be a yoga teacher.

So just to kind of cement some of that learning that we had and to, you know, get it out to other people, which is probably what me and Josie do best is, you know, you know, giving other people great things and happy, amazing, creative things to get hold of.

So yeah, and then fast forwarding, we had a thing called slow motion which turned into slo mo, which is now our contrast therapy angle, which is, yeah, saunas and ice baths, but done in a really cool. Josie designed very beautiful, aesthetically pleasing, amazing spaces to go into. Forget the world for a little while.

A la boom town, a la best of all, kind of but in a more healthy environment maybe where you're doing good for your body and your mind as well as, you know, chatting to strangers and people that you might not normally sit down next to in a pair of Speedos and. Yeah, so you know, our little tagline is next generation contrast therapy.

So it's about taking contrast therapy that is hot and cold, which is really good for your mind and body and taking that to a younger generation, also our generation, but a younger generation as well.

And our aim is very much to take that to the high street and to be a sort of a national, global player in that sort of field of saunas, ice baths, but with spin offs of meditation. Yoga and music plays a big part in that.

That which sort of goes full circle round to Sunday best and chill out and you know, ambient music and all of that stuff. So it all kind of ties in.

So what, how does the hot and the cold work physically? What's the kind of benefit? Is it muscular or is it your heart or like.

Yeah, I mean both, both of those things. Also, you know, neurologically it's amazing.

There's a lot of science coming out about Alzheimer's and other syndromes and diseases that can be alleviated or at least helped through it. So I'm not at all saying it's going to cure things, but even on the base level it makes you feel really good.

So it has a lot of physical and mental health benefits in terms of making you feel good.

But then if you go deeper into the science, there's a lot of cardiovascular system reducing risk of stroke, blood pressure, the mental health stuff that I was talking about. But I think most people, this sort of tagline that's been going around about sauna is the new pub or whatever.

Yeah, it's the new pub, it's the new club. It's. Yeah, you can still go out and go raving if you're in your 50s and you can still drink wine and have fun.

But then if you're going to a sauna a couple of times a week, then you're probably doing yourself some good at the same time as doing that. So I honestly feel that the sort of sauna culture in the UK will be as big as yoga, if not bigger.

I think there will be saunas on every high street and not, not sort of crappy plastic gym gym saunas that we have had, you know, like beautiful handmade wooden saunas that are just escapes for people to kind of escape from, from regular life and go and refresh and revitalize and then come back out feeling. Feeling better.

So this might be a bit of a starter pack question, but because, yeah, the gym I go to has got a sauna and I'll sit in a bit, sit in it a bit sometimes, but I don't mindfully go to have the proper sauna experience. So how should you use a sauna, if that's not too daft a question?

No, it's not a daft question at all. And to be totally honest, until a year and a half ago, I didn't actually know how to use a sauna.

And then a friend of ours said, if you buy a sauna at the same time as me, then we'll get a good discount.

And we didn't really have the money for it, but we sort of got it together and wondered what we were doing and then just saw that we thought that we'd set one up on the Isle of Wight because we could see that there was this huge sauna explosion happening around the UK with mobile saunas. So we took the plunge and bought one and then quickly learned how to sauna. In a nutshell.

You get in there, you sit in there until you start to feel like you want to get out and you just follow your instinct. That might be five minutes, might be 10 minutes. I'd say a maximum of 12 to 15 minutes. You naturally just want to get into the cold.

You then get out, and that's either if you're lucky enough to have an ice plunge or a cold plunge.

You get into the cold plunge, which instantly kind of cools you down, obviously, or you might be getting into a lake or the river or the sea, or you might just be standing outside in the fresh air and then you do that for a few minutes, then you go back into the sauna because you're naturally cooled down and you're feeling like, oh, I want to get back in the heat. And so it's this sort of cycle and you do that for two or three rounds.

So it's kind of rounding through that and after 45 minutes of that, then you're kind of done and you feel like you've just been unwrapped.

You feel fresh, you feel, like, invigorated, you've sweated out the toxins, you've kind of forgotten about what you were worrying about before you got in there. And it's. So, yeah, it's kind of two or three rounds of that. I mean, I could.

Yeah, the science behind it is really fascinating, but I think just on a base level, that's what you want to kind of be doing.

And not to denigrate what health clubs have done or municipal swimming pools, but sitting in the small plastic sweaty seats and then getting into a tepid sort of swimming pool, it doesn't really have that contrast therapy.

So it needs to be a hot sauna, it doesn't need to be blisteringly hot or uncomfortably hot, but it needs to be probably 80 degrees and then the water needs to be cold, like ideally under 15 degrees.

So that's where the magic happens and the body makes you acclimatized to the extremes and that's where the magic of this sort of contrast therapy thing happens. And the great thing is it doesn't need to be expensive. It's on most coastal beaches now.

Most of us run year round, so it's just as good in the summer as it is in the winter.

So most people can access it and for between like a tenner and 20 quid, which I know is still a lot of money to some people, but it's, it's doable for most people. So it's, it doesn't have to be a massively expensive kind of pastime.

Yeah.

And I think with that, the way like a health club sauna is often kind of perceived, it's like, right, I'll go have my workout, I'll have a quick sauna at the end. It's very different to kind of thinking about it as I'm gonna have a sauna experience. And, and that's your thing. Not. It's a bit of my gym session.

So it's kind of getting that mindset, isn't it?

Yeah, no, I mean, I don't really, I'm not really a gym bunny, as you can, as you can see. But, but I, I think people that use it as part of their gym thing is brilliant.

But also all the people that have never really been in the sauna, they're like, well, what are you doing on Saturday? Well, I'm going down the. Going down to Slow Mo with with Adam and Robbie and we're gonna, you know, have a, have a two hour session.

We're gonna have a chat about shit. We're gonna just shoot the breeze, we're going to get in some ice, which we'd never thought we'd be able to do.

We're going to sit in some temperatures which we normally would find really uncomfortable, but we're actually going to love it and we're going to just sit around, have some, have some tea afterwards and it's going to be a really healthy way to spend two hours.

Sounds good. I'm there. So is there anything else that you've got coming up that we've not covered?

Crikey. Is that not enough for you? No. Well, I mean, yeah, on the Slo mo contrast therapy thing, which we're just about to launch in King's Cross next week.

So that's our biggest kind of pop up yet.

We've got a few high street locations under review to sort of further kind of cement that we're launching Camp Festival, the Camp Festival lineup at the end of the month. So that's really exciting. We've already announced Basement Jacks for. For that. So that's off to a really good start for this year.

I'm teaching meditation most months and yeah, we just. We're just doing our. Doing our usual thing and we got four kids and four pygmy goats to look after as well.

Nah, it's keeping very busy then. That's amazing. Rob, thanks for sharing, sharing your story with me. I've really enjoyed that conversation.

Yeah, it's been really interesting.

I have to admit, I was slightly sort of unsure whether it would work for the long form that you're doing because, yeah, I always thought podcasts were good at 20 minutes, but it's been really enjoyable. So thank you for the.

Oh, brilliant. I appreciate that. Right, I'll let you get back on with your day. Thanks ever so much for your time today.

Cheers. Take care.