Steven Richards Interviews Storm Resident DALEY - Ahead of Xstatic presents Deprivations 5th Birthday Bash @ The Custard Factory - 13th December...

Daley, your headling the legendary pool side @ Xstatic, you have been quite a few house sets for us in the past! are you looking forward to this one!???

Yeah the Custard Factory is bad ass, the pool is immense and Xstatic is one of my favourite nights to play. 3 of my favourite things all at once – it’s like wanking into a porn mag on Christmas morning.

I hear you’ve been busy in the studio with Xstatic’s Jimmy dean! Care to tell us a little bit about it??

Yeah, Jimmy drew my attention to the Tidy competition. We were talking over an Orangina or two at the second Xstatic summer Garden Party – waxing lyrical about tunes around at the moment – and the fact we’re both digging the house influenced sound. Jimmy suggested we enter the Tidy remix competition for Another man’s Language so we did. He came over to “da ghetto”, and we throw down some crazy beats. Well to be honest, we spent a load of time on the percussion – using just house percussion to create a housey groove but with the enegy of Hard House. We also had kebab meat and chips, and the guy in the kebab house mistook Jimmy was his best-regular even though it was the first time he’d ever set foot in the place.... We later went on to win the Tidy comp.

What other tracks are doing it for you at the moment?

To be honest not a lot. I generally don’t like a lot of new tunes I get sent. Tracks I like stay in my CD wallet for a couple of years, I’d rather play tunes that I feel work for me and that I like – rather than just play a tune because it’s new or from a particular producer. Defective Audio – “Psychomp” is certainly up there at the moment on the hard side, but generally for me – everything that Mike “Amp Attack” and Tom Parr touch turn to gold.

Your label Generation X Recordings has had some outstanding releases since the beginning. With your ‘Caveman’ having had widespread plays by the likes of Lashes and Glazby, and both Farley’s ‘hit’ em with this’ and Shaun Cartwrights ‘trigger finger’ making it on to 2 Tidy Weekender compilations, things got off to a pretty amazing start would you say?

Yes it was a great start for the label. The third release Daley vs Tik Tok “Posers” was also featured on a couple of compilations as well. For a new Digital Label to have the first three releases signed to a load of compilations was a pleasing and rare feat – one that I’m not sure’s been repeated since.

Any new releases lined-up and what does 2009 hold for Generation X?

I can’t see any new releases for Generation X to be honest – unless something drastically changes in the MP3 market. Even on the back of firm DJ support, and some great compilation contracts, the sales were abysmal. I think the original mix of “Posers” did like 12 units. This was a couple of years ago, and things may have improved slightly now, but for all the promotion and administration it takes to get tunes uploaded, managed, and in the public eye it wasn’t worth the time. I decided to generally make tunes for myself to play out in my DJ sets, to help keep them unique and use them as a tool to help differentiate me from other DJs. Once I’d got bored of playing them, I’d get them out there – but on a different label or put them for free download.

Everything I do in Hard Dance, I do because I enjoy it. DJing, making tunes, I’ve always done it because it’s pretty fucking cool you know? It feels good to lay a tune out, it feels amazing to get behind the decks. I don’t have a lot of spare time to spend on the things I like doing – so sitting for a few hours a week administrating a label that 12 people can legitimately enjoy and earn a few pennies for the MP3 stores didn’t seem to sensible to me.

You’ve been made editor of the hard house section of Core mag, tell us how this came around and did you have any issues with writing in a predomently ‘Hardcore’ magazine?

Basically, Doug Rascal who is the most underrated DJ in the UK and a good mate of mine, was appointed to the Hardstyle section. He knew that Joey Riot was looking to expand the spread of the magazine from being just hardcore/gabber etc to incorporate other forms of Hard Dance – so put in a good word for me. It was an exciting opportunity for me. Core was set up to address the fact that Hard Dance is criminally overlooked in the other mainstream dance mags and I don’t think any of us can argue with that sentiment.

I don’t have any problem with the hardcore element of it. The very first record I bought was on Dutch Hardcore Label Bzrk Records (discogs.com

You started mixing at the tender age of just 13, who were your biggest influences to start djing back then and are they still the same today?

Hardcore, particularly the bouncy Scottish “Rez” sound (Evolution/Jolly Roger etc) of the mid nineties was my first love. Growing up in Mansfield, home of the infamous Venue 44 and Vibealite, in the early to mid nineties hardcore was what the kids lived on. I’d sit in the back of Maths with my mate Craig listening to the Dougals and the Brisks tearing up the pleasuredome, uprising etc. We used to smash “decks nights” every Friday night, with two litre bottles of “Carbon Shite”, “Scumega”, “Wild and Wank”or whatever other terrible cider was cheaper than White Lightning. My hardcore DJ name believe it or not was X-Static. For both of us to get the opportunity many years later at a Storm event to play alongside Hixxy, Sharkey, MC Storm etc, with me on the decks and him on the Mic was a very surreal experience. I used to go to raves and see Marc Smith, Clarkee and the likes – and I just wanted to be up there.

In terms of what influences me today, I really couldn’t tell you. I very rarely listen to hard house during the week – in fact after a heavy Storm or Tidy Weekender etc the sound of Hard House actually makes me feel physically sick. I like everything, from rare 70’s groove to hip hop and I’m a firm believer that the great thing about music is that different styles can change your mood so easily.

In 2006, you were crowned the UK’s ‘best resident’ at the Hard Dance Awards. How did it feel to be number 1? And now after Storm winning ‘best large club’ 2 years running, do find keeping your feet on the ground knowing you, garbo and now Jimmy Dean are running things pretty darn well?

To be honest it felt fucking amazing. I hadn’t deserved it before then, and I haven’t deserved it since then – but I think I deserved it that year. It was a great year for me production wise, DJing wise – everything came together. It was certainly a high point for me. Being up against Ben Stevens, Andy Whitby and Alex Kidd – I didn’t think I had a chance. They were all top DJs with the support of big agencies behind them but Storm is the best club in the world, and they all got behind me that year. The great thing about Storm and Xstatic is that hey’re built on those old skool principles – its around a core of regulars who aren’t necessarily sluts to the line ups. You get people coming from all over the country, but the regulars are always there and that’s what makes the atmosphere in those two clubs unique.

In terms of the best large club award, its good to be able to celebrate it for one night – but when we won it the first time – myself and Garbo were just completely focused on winning it the 2nd time. There was a belief that we just had to win it again, and that if anyone else won it it wouldn’t be right. I’m really looking forward to working with Jimmy in the same way, as I know that he can continue the great work that Garbo did with Storm.

I think you’ll agree that scene is changing rapidly with the ever growing number of DJs, producers and Club nights! Where do you see yourself and storm with it all in 5 years time?

Hopefully I’ll still be at Storm. It’s approaching my 6th year as resident now. I just treat every year as if it is my last – and make sure I enjoy every set. Nick Lunn once said to me “enjoy it, residencies don’t last forever” and that’s always stayed with me – meaning I always go out with the intention of having the best time possible and hoping my mates and the clubbers with me have a top one too.

I would actually disagree that there’s an ever growing number of nights and DJs, I think there’s actually a smaller pool, but with generally more quality than there used to be. At the end of the day, a lot of the kids are going down the Indie/rock route or the RnB route now so I don’t think there’s as many kids coming through the “youth system” as there used to be.

Your ‘House Classix’ sets are becoming pretty infamous up and down the country, how did these alternative sets come about and do you enjoy playing away from the main room sets that your normally used to?

To be honest, I was into House and buying House records a good 12/18 months before I got bitten by the Hard House bug. I probably started buying House in ’97, which was a great time as every summer meant a barrage of massive Ibiza tunes. I was pretty weird – I went from Gabber/hardcore to House, then finally settled on to Hard House early ’99.

I stated getting into House when I started going to proper nightclubs, and if I’m being completely honest the fitter older girls that went with it for me at the time! House was the soundtrack to what used to be the Friday night (now the Saturday night) – so I completely loved involving myself in that scene for that particular period in my life.

I didn’t playe a House set for probably about 5 years, then the opportunity presented itself and since then it’s been something that I really enjoy. A lot of the house/fidget or electro these days is actually built on dark elements which I’m not keen on – so playing my house sets give me the chance to get stuck in with the funkier, happier style of uplifting/piano house of the mid to late nineties. They always seem to go down well I think, as it gives some of the older folks a chance to relive some of that misspent youth, and the younger cats a chance to dig some real happy tunes the likes of which they’ve probably not heard much of.

Have you any words of wisdom for the kids out there wanting to be a superstar dj?

Dreams can come true! DJing is something I wanted to do since I was 13 years old. When you start playing in your bedroom you just dream of playing in front of people, at a birthday party or a youth club – anywhere – you just want people to hear your beats. Then when you’ve done that, you just wanna play in a club, then a bigger club, and as the aspirations and achievements get bigger – they become more normal. I often purposefully make myself think back to the times when you’re in your bedroom and you’re happy if a couple of ASBO teens walk past your window bobbing their heads. It’s what makes me happy to just be playing tunes I like – whether it’s to 30 people in Ilkeston or 3000 people in Ibiza.

Practically, I would say make sure you’re technically competent before you start getting too over ambitious and bugging big promoters for sets. Go for broke before you’re ready and that’s your opportunity gone. Start in the smaller clubs, build a small reputation and let it grow organically. It will all be a lot more natural.

Failing that, get the promoter wankered. Identify the club you want to go, get to know the promoter, find out his tipple and offer him plenty of what he likes ; - )

A couple of years ago it was all about getting hot in the studio, now that in itself is not enough. To make it these days, I think you not only have to be hot in the studio, but have to offer a little bit of something different as a DJ – in addition to promoting yourself to nauseating levels on social networking sites etc.

I really wasn’t sure all on this last 1, but here goes!! You, Lashes, a rubber chicken and a lot of Vaseline, what really happened on that faithful night at storm??

I had a rubber chicken, laced it with Vaseline, and tried to put it up her bumhole. ONLY JOKING LISA DON’T HURT ME. Seriously though, I was a regular on a message board for a Nottingham night called Hotdog– where Lisa was a long standing resident at the time (I went on to be a resident for a couple of years later). On the goodgreef forums, I saw somebody post a porn video featuring a lady that that looked a little bit like Lisa (in as much as she had the same hair colour at the time), but was obviously a poor lookalike at best with the headline “Lisa Lashes in Porn Shocker”. I thought this was funny, and that I would share it with my friends on the Hotdog message board under the same headline. There was a little bit of trouble causing on part of a couple of third parties and a distorted view of the truth was presented to Lisa. As a result, she thought I’d been passing this video off myself as being a true likeness of Lisa Lashes PLC, which was not the case. Anyway, a couple of months later she was playing at Storm and demanded an apology and due to being a little worse for wear I was a little bit cheekier than I perhaps needed to be and it all got a little out of hand.

We actually got over it pretty quickly, but these things tend to stick and It provided the message boards with something to talk about for a while, Its all “fish and chip wrapper” news now though as far as I’m concerned. We are fine these days , it’s all water under the bridge and it’s not done either of us any harm…execpt maybe the Rubber chicken?! It’s just part of an amazing and often strange set of events that have made up my DJ career so far – none of which I would change for the world.

Maybe next time Stigmeister we can talk about the Sundissential DJ legend that didn’t like the cut of my gib, or the female DJ that walked into the lockless Emporium office toilets while I was mid-shit with my keks round my ankles.

Peace out x

Thanks Daley ! See you on the 13th @ The Custard Factory.

Stiggy x