The Meditating DJ: An Interview with Rob Da Bank

By: James Rayner

We didn’t really need much of an excuse to interview DJ, radio show host and festival curator Rob da Bank. However, with his latest Camp Bestival in Dorset set to be the greenest show yet and with Style of Wight’s Issue 82 conveniently coalescing around an environmental theme, it seemed the perfect opportunity to snatch a few minutes from Rob’s busy schedule to chat. From cold-water swimming to biodegradable glitter and the satisfaction of feeding your own pygmy goats, we find out more about Rob’s nature-loving side and how he and wife Josie have made their festivals as low-impact as possible.

When did you first decide to make the Isle of Wight your home? And what is it that you love about the place?

I’ve been coming since I was a kid, so it wasn’t totally new to me, but when I came with my wife Josie to do Bestival we fell in love with it more and more. It also made us increasingly realise that we’d outgrown our house in London with its postage-stamp-sized garden, so we made the move to the Island and have been here for about ten years now. I love everything about it really and I’m sure there must be some ley lines or something running through it. I get the same feeling of peace and calmness that I get at Glastonbury or Ibiza. That might sound a bit hippydippy but there seems to be some sort of connection, even visitors here seem to notice it. Also, an amazing thing for me has been to see the changing demographic in the past five years, as more people in their thirties choose to settle or move back here, it’s definitely brought more diversity and some different characters to the Island too. You first lived in a former beekeeper’s cottage in West Wight, before moving to a quiet coastal home on the edge of Bouldnor Forest. That must feel a million miles away from your DJ sets at festivals across the world. Do you enjoy the contrast?

Yes, it’s a brilliant place to live, with its dark skies and country walks through to Newtown Creek or Cowes. The contrast from the day job is great but saying that, I’m more of a stay-at-home dad these days. Less rock-and-roll guy whizzing around the world on private jets, more someone who mows the lawn and feeds the chickens and six pygmy goats we’ve got living in the garden.

From 2004 to 2016, the Isle of Wight was lucky enough to host Bestival in the wooded parkland of Robin Hill. During that time, you invested a lot back into local musical talent. Are you seeing the results now with the increasing prominence of Isle of Wight bands?

100%. When we started Bestival I was a music journalist and already aware of the Isle of Wight music scene; the raves at Golden Hill Fort and bands like The Bees from Ventnor were starting to come through. Actually, we got The Bees to headline our first festival, which was just the start, our way of helping to support them. Then we began Rob da Bank’s Music Club, and I became a patron of the Platform One College of Music in Newport. I got the sense from a lot of young Islanders that they weren’t getting heard or given the opportunities to help them grow but I think that’s starting to change now. Obviously, Wet Leg are amazing and to see the members of Coach Party serving at Peach Vegan Kitchen during the day and performing their songs at night is fantastic. It’s great to have some world-class acts here.

You grew up over the Solent, in the Hampshire village of Warsash. Do you think your upbringing influenced the way you see nature and the environment?

I loved the freedom of growing up in the country, I was always going out with mates on our BMXs, cycling out to disused quarries and I spent a lot of time out on the water too as part of the England Sailing Team. It was quite a village-y upbringing; we were surrounded by strawberry fields, and I played in my dad’s brass band — quite different from being a Radio One DJ in later life! I moved away as soon as I could, then realised in later years that it was actually quite nice. Now I have such a strong yearning for the sea if I’m ever far away from it, even just for a day.

Festivals can create a huge amount of waste, from single-use cups to disposable plastic ponchos, but we’ve seen that you’ve been working very hard to make Camp Bestival as green as possible. Tell us more.

When we started out in the beautiful countryside at Robin Hill we felt really strongly that we shouldn’t be leaving a trace, so we’ve been working on our environmental impact since day one. We’ve been really hot on reducing waste and last year’s festival in Dorset sent nothing to landfill at all. 62% of waste was recycled or composted, whilst the rest was used to create energy. We were also a pioneer in banning single-use plastics at our events, our generators now run on biofuel, and our glitter is completely biodegradable. Something else I’m really proud of is that any surplus food from our traders is donated to charities like the Trussell Trust to give to those who really need it — and at the 2022 Camp Bestival that saved 1.3 tonnes of food from being wasted. Every year we try to step it up a notch further, not as a box-ticking exercise but because it feels like the right thing to do. I can definitely see a green future for festivals in this country.

This summer, Camp Bestival Dorset has an ‘Animal Snap’ theme and has partnered up with the World Wildlife Fund as its chosen charity. How did that come about and what will it involve?

We chose an ‘Animal Snap’ theme this year, so you can come dressed as a wild animal and find your pairing when you arrive. All the zebras or rhinos can get together and do some yoga or enjoy some music for example. Once the theme was chosen, I have some friends who work with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), so a partnership with them just made sense. We’ll be helping to raise awareness of their work and supporting them with donations too. On top of that, we support fifty local charities per festival, including the Isle of Wight-based Ellen McArthur Foundation which works to reduce waste and promote a circular economy.

We’ve noticed a bit of a running theme around meditation and ice baths in your festivals — are these personal passions too?

My favourite things in the world are saunas, meditating, and jumping into ice. I’ve been doing meditation on and off for thirty years and started cold water swimming just before lockdown. Since doing my daily cold showers or cold-water swims, my patience levels and mental wellbeing have improved a lot. It’s not a posh, elitist thing to do at all; anyone can have a cold shower, no need to find an unspoilt lake or anything like that. Start by trying ten to fifteen seconds of cold water at the end of a warm shower, soon you’ll be up to a minute or two and within a few weeks and you’ll notice the rush of endorphins. I also do retreats from home with ice baths and it’s so interesting to see people arrive tense and petrified, but by 4pm, after six hours of breath coaching, they take the plunge and come out of the ice bath with the biggest smiles on their faces. You can’t beat it.

What are you most looking forward to at this year’s Camp Bestival Dorset? Are there any acts you can’t wait to see or any interesting outfits you’ll be wearing for your set on the HMS Camp Bestival stage?

We’ve got a few surprises up our sleeve for the 15th birthday party which will be really exciting. I’m also DJing backto-back with Gok Wan which could be quite interesting because he’s quite high energy and I’m not. The circus finale will certainly be something to see and of course the bands, too. I always like to watch the families enjoying themselves as well, some coming for the first time, some as seasoned professionals. Sometimes the parents tell me I’ve ruined the summer because it’s in July and for the rest of the school holidays nothing will be able to beat the experience of Camp Bestival.

Finally, have you got any exciting projects or plans for the future that you might be able to divulge?

Well, obviously we’ve got Camp Bestival Shropshire in August and we’re soon to launch a new sauna experience on wheels, here on the Isle of Wight. It’ll be called the Slow Motion Sauna, made from stunning Lithuanian wood. It fits up to eight people and will be moving around the Island, setting up in different locations. Of course, we’ve still got the record label too, our retreats, and Josie is teaching lots of yoga. It might sound a bit square maybe but wellness is our biggest passion now and we absolutely love it!

Coming Soon: Camp Bestival Dorset 2023

27th - 30th July

Set in the grounds of Lulworth Castle, on the magnificent Jurassic Coast, Rob’s latest family-friendly festival — Camp Bestival Dorset — returns this July to celebrate 15 years of the Bestival brand with a spectacular birthday weekender. Headline acts including Ella Henderson, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Grace Jones, and The Kooks will be hitting the stage, whilst award-winning street food traders set up their stalls and all manner of immersive activities kick off, from ice baths and roller disco, to drag storytime and African drumming.

This year, the castle’s grounds will be transformed into a magical menagerie for the whole family to let their inner animals shine with an all-new ‘Animal Snap’ theme. To tie in with this, Camp Bestival has partnered up with the campbestival.net

World Wildlife Fund (WWF) as their chosen charity, to raise awareness of the rapid decline in global wildlife and support their valuable work with donations.

The nautical-themed HMS Camp Bestival stage will also be docking at Lulworth this year, hosting back-to-back DJ sets with Gok Wan and Rob da Bank himself. As if that wasn’t enough, there will be circus spectacles, immersive theatre journeys and a firework finale — as well as a dedicated wellness area too. Taking place in the summer holidays, mixing camping and an unbeatable festival line-up to create a unique ‘festi–holiday’, it’s no wonder Camp Bestival has been voted the UK’s Best Family Friendly Festival.