All you have to do is check out David Holmes' body of work to know he's got the fire not the fear. His lack of preoccupation with a fixed idea of himself continues to propel him in to new realms of music and film. He's a rarity, processing the insight and grains of salt that come with decades of experience yet completely free of fatigue or decay. He seems to only be accelerating, holding tight only to his mantra of never repeating himself. He talked to us about producing music, producing film, producing music for film and being strong armed into his newly released retrospective, 'The Dogs Are Parading'.

Dazed Digital: Do you ever feel like you're working?
David Holmes: Sometimes, especially working in films. The thing about working in film is every job presents completely different personalities on a completely different project. You've got to be very careful if you're taking on films that you're doing it for the right reasons because if you're not, it could be the worst job ever. I'd rather be getting up at some ungodly hour and working in a fucking kitchen than working on music that I didn't like. It's almost impossible. It's something you got to enjoy to get to the next stage of development of a piece of music. You can't move along, "okay the drums and the base sound like shit let's move on to the next...' you know what I mean? You have to be in a place where, 'the drums and the base sound brilliant, I know exactly what I want to do now.'

DD: Is it hard to work with total freedom, without something to push up against?
David Holmes: It depends on how many ideas you've got. Making music in general is just challenging. The first person you have to please is yourself and if you can do that it doesn't really matter what anyone else thinks. I just try and keep it interesting. I'm always trying to listen to new things and collect older music, lots of primitive electronic music and esoteric one off pieces that are pretty unclassifiable in a way.

DD: You seem to be super comfortable with evolving, do you know where that comes from?
David Holmes: I just try and reinvent myself. To me there is a freshness to finding a new sound and mixing up different genres, experimenting and finding different ways of processing instruments, that excites me. I inherited so much music as a boy. I have nine brother and sisters and I was at the bottom. I was number ten, so when I was not even in my teens I discovered punk rock, this was during the 70s and then around 1980 Quadrophenia completely blew my mind. The 80s for me was a real tribal time; you had mods, rockers, skinheads, and punk. Growing up in Belfast I used to go to clubs that played everything. I just got this really extraordinary musical education without even thinking about it. I was just embracing lots of stuff. You know, for me music comes first as a fan, it came before the career, and it came before DJing.

DD: When did you start DJing?
David Holmes: When I was fifteen, playing in soul clubs, playing rhythm and blues, weird jazz, lots of undiscovered music that never really had a voice in the 60s. In the 60s aside from that the big labels like Atlantic and Motown churning out the hits, you had all these little tiny labels where people would just get enough money together to go and make a record. Maybe they would press only 500 copies then you'd never hear from them again. Those were the records I was listening to when I was fifteen. So when I started producing I had a wealth of music that I had been into, then I started marrying that with electronic music, which was my new obsession. I decided early on in my career that I didn't ever really want to repeat myself; I just don't see the point. The whole fun for me is actually coming up with new ideas and trying new things and I think I will always be like that.

DD: It seem perfect that you've worked with Steven Soderbergh a lot. He appears similar in his approach to things, following his inspiration whether it's a large or tiny film.
David Holmes: He's just an amazing guy to work with on every level, he just gives you so much confidence and lets you try things, experiment. When he makes these big budget movies he does it with this independent head. He will do things that other directors will never have the balls to do. I’m working on a movie for him at the moment (Knockout), he cast this non-actor Gina Carano the world’s number one Mixed Martial Arts champion and her supporting cast is Michael Fassbender, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas and Ewan McGregor. This is a much darker thriller you know, so it's great to be working on something that's a lot deeper with him.  Last year I also had the privilege to work with Steve McQueen on Hunger, which is the most outrageous film I've ever worked on. It's just stunning; it's a piece of art that film. That's what keeps me buoyant and fresh and keeps me excited about work.

Movies are fantastic because they come in all shapes and sizes, but if you do a big movie Hollywood will put you in that box. That can be a bit tricky. Even though I've done movies like Hunger and Code 46 and all these great indie films, they're never really seen in America. They will always know you for the stuff that they have seen which is Out of Sight and Ocean's Eleven. The challenge for me in the film industry is to try and get people to realize I do all this other stuff that I'm really excited about. It's not a bad problem to have.

DD: Why a greatest hits now?
David Holmes: You know what? I'll tell you right now, because Universal basically said, "we want to do a retrospective of your tracks you've put out on Universal."  I said, 'I didn't want to do it', they said, "Well if you don't want to do it, we are going to go ahead and do it anyway." So I had no choice. I thought it was a bit weird myself. I'm still quite young and I don't really see the point. This album just represents the work that I've done for them (Universal) it doesn't represent me totally. It doesn't take in to consideration the soundtrack work I’ve done, collaborations, remixes, that would be a proper retrospective. But you know, it's fine, you just deal with it. What can you do? They have the right to do it, so if I don't get involved it can potentially be an album that I wouldn't have liked.

DD: Did you find it hard to choose the tracks?
David Holmes: It was a simple kind of decision, it was, 'oh, that's awful, oh that still sounds good.' There was some stuff where I was just shaking my head in despair. I just laughed; I didn't take it too seriously. I was really curious to listen back to all the remixes that have been done because there were some by some really good people, like Mogwai, Arab Strap and Kevin Shields who are my fuckin' heroes you know?

DD: If you were to do another one in 20 years what would be the biggest difference between the two?
David Holmes: I don't know? I'm kind of fascinated by people that make a lot of great music in their youth then turn around and start making complete rubbish. I feel like my music is getting better, it's just sounding better and I'm more happy with it, so I'm just going to try to keep on making better music and keep on trying to come up with better ideas.

DD: Going back did you discover and similar themes or a through line in your work?
David Holmes: Probably the influence of psychedelics. I like things that are a bit more fucked up, a bit more psychedelic. It inspires me working in the studio, when things are just a bit weirder and off center. The emotive, simpler stuff is a small section of what I do but I feel like there is a bigger picture where the music is a bit more fucked up. It still has emotion, it's just more interesting in terms of how the instruments actually sound and the addition of electronic influences.

DD: What are you most excited about right now?
David Holmes: I've got a production company in Belfast called Canderblinks I started with two friends who are directors and writers. We're just about to make our first feature film called Good Vibrations. It's the true story about a guy called Terri Hooley who started up a record shop and label in Belfast in 1976 on the most murderous mile.  I'm really excited about a band I just produced called Cashier No. 9. They're a young Belfast band, making music in their bedrooms. I heard some demos, brought them in to my studio and rerecorded everything, did a bunch of overdubs and made it sound really good. I love them and I think they're too talented to not make it out of their bedroom studios. I think I'm most excited about what I don't know. I love going record shopping knowing that I'm going to be turned on to something that I've never heard about, that I never knew existed, that really excites me.

'The Dogs Are Parading' is out now on Universal Music