Friday 24th October sees Birmingham’s newest Hard Dance venture, CRAFTY, hit back for its second instalment of Hard House mayhem at Birmingham’s legendary Sanctuary venue. October’s instalment sees some of the scenes most prominent force at present, Defective Audio, alongside one of new faces progressing very fast, 'Adam M' and one of the most talented up and coming producers, 'Tom Parr'. These three hard hitters team up for Steve-NRG’s Birthday Celebrations.

Ahead of CRAFTY, we caught up with Dom Sweeton (Defective Audio) to find out about his DJing Production and general goings on!

Dom you've have been on the scene for a while now, but over the last year, your progression has escalated formidably. What do you think is the reason for this?

Possibly due to the extra effort on my part to progress things further. I am not currently with a major agency and never have been so this will be the reason I am not billed to play all the large events but I have however just gone on Precision Artists rosta with Dave Curtis at the helm who is a great guy to work with. This has brought in a nice level of gigs without putting myself back to the position of dj’ing every weekend, something I have done in the past and do not wish to go back to.
I have also been working with Tidy on the recently released Producer Series and Inspirations albums, both of which have helped to push my name in to the limelight I guess.
Since moving over to the west of the UK I have opened up the studio to engineering and tutoring which has resulted in a string of collaborations too, great for the scene and also another reason why the Defective Audio / Base Graffiti name will be more prominent than usual.

What was it that you were into first, production or djing?

I drifted into dj’ing in the early 90’s off the back of playing in a psychedelic dub band. So I guess both, but my dance music production only took off in the latter part of the 90’s.

What was it that inspired you into this and who has been your biggest inspiration to date?

Initially, it was the free party scene which inspired me and the clubs I went to in my late teens. I guess because I spent my time around this scene then, it has shaped the way I do things now. I will always have wicked memories of the people I met, the sounds I heard and the parties I went to, I have been influenced by too many to list but some key ones would be FSOL, Prodigy, Joey Beltram, 808 State, Underworld, Easygroove, Sasha, maybe obvious choices but these seem to form a large part of my early days.

You’re working with a lot of different producers at present, for those who don’t know as much about you as we do, what other guises do you produce under?

I currently produce hard house / dance under Defective Audio, Base Graffiti, Tomcat, El Durangoz and of course OD404.
I have other aliases for my funkier stuff, electro and breaks: Freeflow45, Dominguez Funk are the main two.

OD404 was one of your first production guises, what made you decide to branch off and create new characters to your production story?

I was producing more material on my own so needed aliases to cover this. There is also only so much you can push through one name before someone requests an exclusive name to a release unfortunately. I also wanted to produce more than one style of music and not be limited.

What is your favourite production name and how would you describe the difference in styles between each guise?

My guises are now becoming closer to each other but initially Defective Audio covered the harder side of things, Base Graffiti took care of all things funky and Tomcat was the trancier edge. I now produce electro and breaks so Dominguez Funk and Freeflow45 are the guises I use for this.

Is it just Hard House you produce or is there other styles that we don’t know about or are you keeping them secret?

As stated already, I am now producing electro and breaks. This is not a new found sound, more of a goi9ng back to my roots kinda thing. Early breakbeat is a real love of mine and thought it was about time I put more effort in to writing some of my own.
I have dabbled in disco tinted vocal house along the way too although nothing in particular has taken off properly, I love it all, it’s just sometimes it is all to easy to stick to what you are known for I guess.

Out of all the people you have worked with, who has been hardest and easiest to work with?

I am the hardest to work with as I am often too critical when working on my own. I am also the easiest to work with too as I can often see the funny side of tracks and find it easy to let tracks write themselves.

Is there anyone that you haven’t worked with that you would like to?

I would like to hook up with some names in the breaks scene as this is something I have not done yet.

You also run some well established record labels, what are your plans for your babies in the future?

Stick at it, hope that things don’t force me to close things up I guess. Sales are so low now, it is almost not worth keeping things going but as long as I am producing, dj’ing or doing live sets in hard house then I will hope to continue with releases.

From each of your labels, which has been your favourite release on each?

TBH, I don’t really have firm favourites, just a pleasure in seeing the labels progress and the fact they have benn enjoyed by others.
I am really on my current sound at the moment of introducing a bit of the TDV edge back in to things. DomDeVit and Loganberry are two tracks that really make me smile.

You’ve just got back from yet another Tidy Weekender, how was it and did you feel a different reaction to when you last played?

I only did the after party this time and was greeted by just 30-40 people so not the best. That aside, the weekenders are usually a great atmosphere with a fantastic vibe, everyone there has gone to have a good time.

Well thank you for your time Dom and we hope to see you at many more Weekenders in the future! In the meantime you can catch Mr Defective Audio himself this Friday @ Crafty, The Sanctuary in Birmingham!

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