Deepgroove are Grayson Shipley and Lee Pattison - the DJ/production duo behind monster tracks like Jus Love Piano and Break of Dawn; plus big remixes including Dylan Rhymes’ Salty, Ill Experience by the Trophy Twins and Armand Van Helden’s newie, When the Lights Go Down. They host their own Play parties in Bristol and are headlining the launch of Illicit Audio at Studio 33 this Saturday. So, despite Grayson suffering after a big weekend and Lee’s sobriety-induced shyness, they’ve agreed to submit to a Sister Midnight Q&A.

Describe the Deepgroove sound
GS: Chunky, full-frequency, dirty house, big room productions. Head in the smoke machine… No! Head in the bass bin, thumb attached permanently to the smoke machine. Lots of phat grooves, a cappellas for the ladies, big chunky basslines to get the ravers moving.

What’s this about you liking to party?
GS: That’s not true. It’s patently unfair.
LP: Drug whores basically, ha ha!

Grayson, you’re based in Bristol AND London, how do the scenes compare?
The strength of the Bristol scene is we have loads of amazing friends here who wanna stay up forever and cover each other with mayonnaise while rolling around fields, cocking around. We haven’t found enough people in London who like to dress up in women’s clothes, but we’re accumulating them rapidly [he’s referring to Mixmag’s Gavin Herlihy!]. Everyone’s a bit disparate in London.
LP: Desperate?!
GS: Far apart! Ha ha!

Do you feel like you rep for Bristol?
LP: Kind of. We put on our first Play night at Turnmills in July and that felt like bringing our Bristol night to London.
GS: We show the best of Bristol, when people come to DJ for us, it’s always an amazing party and they go away really buzzed up about it.

What’s the idea behind Play? How do you feel about the copyists?
GS: Be a happy twat, cock around. Create an environment where people can do whatever they want.
LP: It’s all good, the more parties the better.
GS: Yeah, the more daftness the better.

You’ve been involved for years now, how’s the scene changed?
GS: It’s very different. When we first started, house was everything musically in the country. You know, every clothes shop played house music and everybody went out and bought records. Now, obviously other sorts of music have taken that role. Years ago, before breakbeat and drum’n’bass, everyone went to big raves together, there wasn’t really another music scene to be involved in. Especially in Bristol, EVERYBODY went to Lakota and tried to get in, and the ones that did, they were in for that night, and it was one large family. And obviously as music’s progressed and branched out into different subgenres, you only really tend to see people who are part of your scene. But it looks like it’s all turning round, a kind of common ground of house music - which is undeniably, pulse-racingly exciting. Anybody who likes any kind of music, if you played them the right sort of house, they can’t help but get energised by it.

What’s the best thing about being a DJ?
GS: Playing music to people on drugs!
LP: Playing records we make – and seeing people’s reaction to them, people getting as excited as we are.

And the worst?
LP: Possibly travelling, but it’s what you make it really.
GS: I like travelling!
LP: It can be fun, especially when he’s sick!
GS: Yeah, puking on train platforms. I try not to, but can’t help myself. [both giggle]

What are you up to at the moment?
LP: Play on the third Friday of the month…
GS: We’re coming up for a big re-launch when the students get back and Bristol takes off again.
LP: …Rebekah in September, Trophy Twins in November, someone very special in October – it’s a big secret!
GS: We’ve got singles signed for the next few months for Whoop! and UMM. We’ve got a big record out on Toolroom at the moment, Break of Dawn, which is going really well. Pete Tong’s on that a lot.
LP: He played it in his Essential Mix at Global Gathering, which is a big thing.

How important is Tong airplay? Does it help sales?
GS: People don’t buy records at all anymore. The music industry’s totally changed, it’s not really about sales, so for that reason no. But Pete Tong playing your record is everything really it’s kinda like, the benchmark. I mean, hundreds of records come out every week and he’s only gonna play 10 or 15 of them. So, it’s the one that everyone looks to.
LP: Also, he’s hopefully gonna put together his favourite or best records in a set of his.
GS: Yeah, DJing’s different to a radio show definitely.

What about being Mixmag Future Heroes – is that helpful or more kudos?
GS: It’s really useful, it’s a good external benchmark.
LP: There’s a lot of cool people who’re Future Heroes and it’s possibly useful for promoters, when people don’t know our name but they know the Mixmag brand. I guess it gives you an advantage over other DJs, the main benefit for us is the link to continuous press on the Future Heroes page where people can find out what we’re up to. Possibly we wouldn’t get that exposure.
GS: Yeah, but making records is what moves you up the ladder, and something like that becomes more useful the higher up the ladder you are. Like for the Trophy Twins, it’s really useful for them cos they’re several steps ahead in the game. Cos on its own, it’s not something people are gonna book you as a result of.

What are your feelings about the Illicit Audio ethos? [To give a platform to good up-and-coming DJs without pressure of filling a ‘guestlist’]
GS: It’s a strange one, definitely a London thing cos you don’t really get that in Bristol. There’s not that many different groups of people, so in Bristol, people are either coming to your party or they’re not!
LP: It’s interesting a promoter saying that, cos for years we’ve sent CDs to people, but a lot are frightened to book DJs on the strength of a mix they’ve got. I think a lot of the time they need a ‘name’.
GS: Yeah, I think what’s good about it, it shows they’ve got the capacity to promote their party, they’ve got enough friends. Being a promoter, you should be going out and partying and making lots of mates, and have people wanting to come to your parties.
LP: We do that with Play, we try to put on people that we think will be exciting, and possibly they’ve never been seen in Bristol before or a lot of people that come to our night won’t know who they are - but they’re getting to trust us and our musical judgement. So we’ve booked quite a lot of underground DJs that we know are amazing but aren’t given the chance to play.
GS: We’re looking forward to playing Illicit - a good room and a good group of people who’ll appreciate what we play.

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