FAMILY
I got to about 14 and realised that I enjoyed dancing I started listening to early soul stuff, Motown, that kind of thing. I actually got into a bit of rock when I was 15. That was my brother’s influence really his room was next to mine and I had to listen to it every day. I wasn’t into school really. I wasn’t really very good at school but I went. I was better at art and crafts than the academic stuff.
Later on my Mum and Dad thought I was wasting my time. All they could hear was ‘BANG-BANG-BANG’ coming from my room, they thought I was just wasting my money on records and staying up all night when it would never go anywhere. They are really proud of me now. It’s the same for any walk of life that’s not the norm I suppose. When I was eight my mum made me take Cha-Cha lessons. The neighbour’s kid went so I had to go. I got my bronze medal actually. I remember getting booted off the course for not paying attention. But it was definitely the start of my rhythm!”

MUSICAL ROOTS
“I’ve always collected music. I never bought pop stuff really, even the rock I was into was stuff like Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. Dub reggae was the next thing, listening to David Roddigan on Radio London on a Sunday while I was outside fixing my moped. I met this guy when I was 16 that got me into more black-orientated music. I got heavily into funk and soul, was going round buying old disco records. The same guy gave me some early house records: ‘Can You Feel It?’ was one of them I think, some really early Blaze stuff too. I got into it that through him. I progressed into 80’s funk; Aleam, Get Loose, Soul II Soul a little later and then the house stuff.”

FIRST PROJECTS
“When I was about 15 I wired two tape decks together into one, trying to blend the music so that I could do a tape. I got my first decks when I was 19/20 and I had no idea what the pitch controls were for. I taught myself, totally. I started doing my mate’s bar in Leatherhead. It was this rockers’ place I knew they wanted music and my mate knew I had decks so it made sense to run a night in there. The first couple of weeks we did it the rockers were like ‘what the fuck’s this shit? This is terrible.’ They was all ‘avin it about three weeks later. I’m well known for working at Swag Records [a shop in Croydon, South London] too. That just fizzled out really, although I still go in and rob records off them. I was working there for 7 years. Winning the ‘Best Newcomer’ title at the Muzik Awards was a help to me around that time too.”

LABELS & PRODUCTION
“We started Housey Doingz, which was myself, Nathan Coles, Justin, Dave Coker and Laurent Webb. The studio, Strangeweather Studios, became synonamous with “tech house” over the years. As well as Housey Doingz Ive produced on lots of labels. The key ones would probably be Pagan, Eye 4 Sound, Swag and Eukahouse. I also did two compilations through Pagan called “Architecture” 1 and 2. I didn’t do anything for about two years, I think I burnt myself out a bit and its been really nice to have a break but I’ve been getting back into it lately. I’m gonna do an artist album for fabric – we’ll have different people working on it with me. Its not a dancefloor album either, it’ll be funk or reggae, anything goes really. We’re gonna get some percussionists in so it should be quite entertaining. It’ll be more of a concept album than a club album, it’ll be a nice little project to work on rather than straight club music. No master plan with it really, just seeing what happens.

FABRIC
I love the people at fabric and the music really suits the place – it’s industrial, it’s dark but it’s clean at the same time. Everything seems to suit each other so well and the soundsystem is just so good; when you play records on it they just really come alive. When you play them somewhere else, it just isn’t the same.”

THE FUTURE
“Hopefully a lot of DJing this year, tours and such.”