Hi Andy, How’s things?

I’m great thanks getting things together for the 14th at the moment

As our resident DJ you played out first event at the Custard Factory back in August last year, what did you think?

I loved it, the venue is fantastic and the crowd were really up for it. There were a lot of faces I hadn’t seen for ages as well which was great.

Now lets get down to business, it’s not often you come across a line up which has you playing for a whole 8 hours, have you done anything like this before?

I’ve done a few six hour sets before, twice in 1995 at Subway and The Nightingale, and at Storm in 2007, but nothing like this with it being eight hours with different people back to back.

Maybe more unusual is that within these 8 hours you will doing 6 exclusive b2b sets, it’s definitely not a traditional line up or set and something that’s very unique, how are you going to approach it?

I want it to be a journey through hard house starting with some of the original hard house sounds at the beginning from the likes of Sharp Boys and Dillon & Dickens progressing through to whatever happens in the last hour!

You’ll be playing b2b with Steve Thomas, Jp & Jukesy, Pete Wardman, Paul Maddox, Jimmy Dean and JMF, are there any of these DJs you’ve not played b2b with before?

I’ve not played with any of them except Pete so am really excited as each hour will be something new.

As it’s February the 14th and we all love you and hardhouse can you tell us after countless successful years as a professional dj how much do you love the music still?

Music has always played a major part in my whether it be in my younger days when I was a mod listening to Northern Soul and 60s R&B, through disco to the music I play now. It’s what drives me, I couldn’t go out and dj if I didn’t like what I was playing which is why I’m always really fussy with tunes. They have to have a special something to make it into my cd wallet!

Now as this is a very special occasion we’ve for all the dj’s to ask you a very special question, here they are -

Steve Thomas – Hi Andy, I’ve got 2 questions for you! What has been the most memorable night of your career? And I would like to know “where can I buy the Andy Farley Fashion style”?!

I think the most memorable night would have been the first time I played at Dance Valley in 2001, playing in front of 10000 people. It was pretty nerve racking but amazing at the same time. As for the Andy Farley fashion style you can pick it up at any branch of Asda.

JP & Jukesy – Whats your favourite club? Trade or Tin Tins?

Tin Tins definitely, as it was a real turning point for me. I started going there as a clubber, and was there religiously every week only missing it once when I was on holiday. I discovered all this amazing music, met all my closest friends there and became a resident. It’s also where I began to make a name for myself and can safely say if it wasn’t for Tin Tins I probably be doing what I do today.

Paul Maddox – Your Tin Tin’s mixes haven’t been off my car stereo since you did them, if you had to pick your absolute favourite from that era what would it be?

It’s a tricky one because there is such a wealth of music. I’d probably say Marmion – Schoneberg though

Pete Wardman – Whats your over-ridding memory of Pete Wardman, where were you and what happened?

Well apart from ‘Wow you’re really tall’ the first time I met you ha ha, I’d definitely say your closing sets at Trade. I’d always expected the last set to be ridiculously hard, but you always took it from hard energy into groove and back into energy again so smoothly you had me dancing right until the lights came on at the end.

Jimmy Dean – From past experience do you thing hard house will ever be as strong as it has been before?

Hmm that’s a tricky one. I think in order for it to become big again there needs to be some big, more crossover tunes. The music has gone very underground which is great, but for new people to the scene this won’t necessarily be their first port of call. Going back to the Tin Tins era a lot of what I used to play were the harder mixes of house and pop tunes so people buying a particular chart record would get to hear the other mixes on the package and thus were exposed to hard house. The other thing is at the moment there aren’t as many harder compilation albums for people to buy and it definitely needs a few more of those to again expose people to the sound. Having said that though, with the advent of labels now doing mini cd albums of new material and being stocked in places like HMV, this can only do the scene good so who knows. It would be nice to see it like it was in 1999/2000 again!

JMF – Techno fans are extremely loyal and really passionate, do you think that hard house has that sort of following and loyalty to give it the longevity it needs to still hold its own in ten/twenty years time?

I think for any genre of dance music there is always a turnover of clubbers that move on either to other things or they stop clubbing, but there is always a loyal following that stay within the scene. I know people in the hard house scene that have been clubbing since Sundissential’s early days at Pulse in 1996, and they’re still loving it! Hard House has had a strong following since it early days in the mid 90s and is still going strong so I don’t see any reason why it still shouldn’t be here in ten or twenty years time. There’s plenty of fresh new talent coming through as well to keep it going.

Xstatic & Deprivation has put a lot of effort in bringing a very innovative and exclusive line up that hasn’t been seen before, how likely is it that this kind of line up will happen again this year?

This really is a one off event, I very much doubt you would see that line up again anywhere so this is definitely a night not to be missed!