Page 29 - Zone Magazine Issue 011

" I’m DJ'ing a long time, 25 years. I’ve been professionally DJ'ing since I was 18, every night of my Leaving Certificate I had a gig, didn’t impress my folks as you can imagine! It’s been very good to me, it’s been a great career, it’s been a great experience. It’s been a part of me as much as anything in my life, it’s a huge part of me. "
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Who is your personal number one artist and why?
That’s a tough question, it would change , I have to say on a weekly basis, who I think is brilliant, like what happens to me is I fall in love with music for a while, I fall in love with a particular piece of music, or a particular DJ or sound, and then after, it’s like anything, you get used to it, you’ve listened to it too many times, you get bored of it, so you push it on and move on to the next thing, so I don’t think I have an all time number one or an all time favourite, there’s certain djs that I love. I love Erick Morillo, LOVE Erick Morillo!!! Because when I was 20, he was the God at the time, he was playing Ministry of Sound, love Danny Tenagli, love Carl Cox, some of the newer guys, so big fan of Matador, big champion of Matador, so for me there isn’t a number one, there’s just lots of them!
You’re stranded on a dessert island. The only possessions you have are a DC player and a one track CD. You don’t know how long you’re going to be stranded for so you’re going to need a tune that you never get tired of hearing. What would be your one tune and why?
Probably Sasha – Xpander. I love Sasha – Xpander. I used to play it in the Redbox, in the glory days of Redbox on a Thursday night and we were doing maybe 1,800 people on a Thursday night, they were just coming for the music, it wasn’t like they were just going for a student night or turning up for cheap drink, they were
coming just for the music. When I played that record, the place used to just erupt. It was a different kind, they weren’t punching the air, you could just tell that they loved it, they had love for this song, and he re-mastered it a couple of years ago and so I play it all the time, it’s just a great record, it’s really easy to listen to.
When it comes to your preference in music, have you any guilty pleasures?
Yes I do, I’m probably going to regret saying this but I actually really like listening to Justin Beiber (I ask him if he’s a Belieber, to which he replied no I’m not at all, he’s a little prick to be honest!!!!) I just think the production of his stuff is really good , it’s all Diplo and all the lads... Major Lazer. Yeah it’s just well produced music, when it comes on the radio, it does get turned up a little bit, but that’s my only guilty pleasure!
Have you a shower anthem?
A shower anthem...do you know what I don’t really listen to music in the shower. I suppose now that I’m that bit older, music has a sort of space in my life, where it used to be my whole life, I sort have that space because I’ve kids and wife, and a normal life outside of dance music. I go home and I still have to be a dad and still have to make dinner so no I don’t sing in the shower, I don’t really listen to music as much at home as I used to. I listen to music all day, I listen to it in my car all the time and when I’m away, but once I’m at home in the evening time, unless I’m producing music, I’m not really
listening to music, honest answer!
You’ve achieved so much to date, symbolic in so many respects to the nation. What’s in store for the future. Have you any further hopes and dreams?
Emmm!, yeah I suppose I do, I’m producing a lot more than I was, I stopped producing because there was just so much music coming out, like I think Beatport uploads 20,000 songs a week, trying to get through or bash through that amount of music, I just went, there’s no point, the music isn’t even going to be heard, so I stopped producing for a while and now I’m back doing more. We’ve a song actually called ‘Ask me to dance’, it’s basically a monologue of old Dublin stories.
We asked people to send in stuff, it’s a slow song, it’s not a club track, it’s a slow piece of, I don’t know what it is, people are having a word, kind of like their memories of Dublin, it’s really just for whatever reason taken off and everybody is asking for it, so that gives me hope that there is a way to get the music out to people. I just signed a record with Steve O to Toolrooms, that comes out in October, it’s called ‘Congestion’, it’s a techno track, I’ve never made techno before. So yeah, we went in and locked ourselves in a room and produced 10 tracks. This is the first one, it’s coming out on the Amsterdam compilation and then a full release later on in the year.
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