In advance of unleashing his fury on the crowds of Resonate at The Old Firestation in Bournemouth whereby he graces the headline of their upcoming November event, Dark By Design, aka Gaz West is busy cooling his heels after opening up a can of whoop ass in Belfast. He’s been busy you see, promoting something very special indeed, particularly if you’re a Hard Dance fan.

Somewhere in the deepest, darkest dungeon of Hell that is Dark By Design’s studio lurks a creation that can only be described as ‘devilishly dark’ Hard Dance that has been feverishly compiled with the sharpest instruments of torture. I do of course, refer to the disc entitled ‘Hell’ on the soon to be released ‘Heaven & Hell’ CD album that joins Gaz with the brilliant Phil York on an eagerly awaited studio collaboration.

As both a DJ and Producer he’s been keeping an even balance between both studio and main stage with gigs keeping him occupied in various parts of the UK including appearances at events from big time promoters Tidy and Slammin Vinyl on the festival tip alone, not least forgetting regular turns at the infamous Goodgreef events either. Not content at ripping the roof off of his home turf though, Gaz has also been busy with keeping his Air Miles topped up by taking bookings at Defqon 1, Dance Valley in Amsterdam, Ministry Of Sound in Singapore, Insomnia in Vancouver and a string of dates in Australia.

In the studio, he continues to keep a steady flow of Hardstyle and Shranz creations moving, delivering unadulterated brilliance to the masses whom he now affectionately calls his ‘darklings’. Add to this his celebrated collaboration with Dr Willis and a remix of Masif DJ’s still doing big things Worldwide with a number of releases and collaborations due over the next few months and it’s no wonder he’s been labelled by many as ‘a no nonsense DJ for a no nonsense scene’.

I caught up with Gaz to discuss the album, his work, DJ lifestyle and his forthcoming headlining appearance at Resonate on Saturday the 15th November at The Old Firestation in Bournemouth to celebrate the launch of the album.

Hello Gaz, hope you are well, we’d like to make this as close to a ‘live interview’ with you as is possible (over e-mail anyway!). Can you start by telling us the day, where you are, what’s happening and what you were doing before we disturbed you…?

It's 19th of October, I'm in the Park Plaza hotel in Belfast getting ready to fly back to Manchester, listening to ‘My Curse’ by Killswitch Engage and before I started this, I was
watching Chris Leben get beautifully out pointed by our very own Michael Bisping.

Right now, it’s all about your forthcoming album ‘Heaven & Hell’; tell us all about it, how it came together and what inspired the initial idea?

Me and Phil (York) have been talking about this idea for a year or so. We feel now is the time to unleash the fury.

How did you two meet and were you always an admirer of his work prior to meeting him – is this your first collaborative project and if so; what was it about his particular style that inspired this project together?

Phil was the first DJ I engineered for, he did a mix CD for M8 Mag and took some of my tracks for it. He then contacted me to sort some studio time, I wasn't an admirer of his work then and I'm still not, if I'm honest, I'll probably kill him some time this year. Obviously because I like him.

As we discussed earlier, its entitled ‘Heaven & Hell’, give us your idea of ‘Heaven’ and in turn, your idea of ‘Hell’?

Heaven... eternity with my son and my partner and my new baby in Feb. Hell... eternity with Barry Almond talking about money or some shit.

You produce the album with Phil as a duo, however we’ve noticed you work with a whole host of artists on your disc, many of which original productions too, how it was working with them on each individual production? Do each of these guys have different working methods and the way they approach things – what went into that, artistically?

All artists have different personalities and ways of doing shit, so it differs with each person. All are great guys though.

To some it’s all dance music, to the more dedicated, it has to have a ‘label’, does it matter to pigeon hole, is it vital to band up certain styles in certain sections?

I don't know man, to me it's just music, I like aggressive music and hatred and all these other fucked up extreme feelings so I just write and play hard and dark, fuck, I could be writing evil jazz for all I care. I just like noise.

You have quite famously won the Hard Dance Awards ‘Best Remixer’ trophy four times over – what do you think it is about what you do as a remixer that has kept you miles ahead of your competition year in, year out?

I like the fact that people vote for me and I win these things, it's nice to have fans.
As for why I win it? I don't know, maybe its luck or maybe my darklings just know their shit.

You continue to remix, produce and collaborate with various artists on a string of healthy, upfront Hard Dance labels, who are you working with presently and how are things coming with your very own label – DBD Recordings?

The label is going from strength to strength - again my darklings have my fucking thanks for that, I love the whole fucking lot of the crazy bastards. As for who I'm working with, same motley crew man, been talking to the Donors about some collabs, BK and Savage too... we'll see.

Moving on to DJ’ing and live performance – you’ve travelled quite a bit haven’t you?

I fucking despise travelling. I like seeing all the crazy places, but teleportation is where it's at, I'm sick of travelling. Still, I feel very lucky to do these things and visit these places.

From your perspective, and as an artist that travels regularly to different countries – how is the Hard Dance scene looking through your eyes and how is it different in different locations that you visit?

It varies a lot man, some places dig it and others don't. I like England, Ireland, Scotland and further out, Tokyo, Melbourne, Vancouver - all those places have REAL rowdy fans. I love it.

Resonate’s coming up for which the boys have you got booked on the headline and it’s marked an official tour date for the album – touch on what sort of tour you and Phil have got planned for the coming months to push the album?

I don't know about Phil and his lovely uplifting heavenly harp induced music, but I'm bring the fucking ruckus, this is not a game to me anymore, it's a fucking war.

And in-between the touring, remixing and producing – what do you do then? What’s your preferred activity so far as downtime is concerned?

My son, 4 years old and just a fucking magical little man, he's awesome man. 4 years old and walks round the house screaming Slipknot songs! (Laughs) Obviously, the ones with no profanities (laughs again).

Is it nice to be important – or is it more important to be nice? You have a massive following of fans now, do you spend much time chatting at gigs, do you get involved with responding to your supporters on a regular basis, you know the fans of your forums and your web groups and so forth?

I owe all my limited success to my fans, they are the ones who make me want to do this shit and put up with all the bullshit politics and such. God bless the lot of 'em. I've got all the time in the World for my minions.

The Internet is such a vast and endless chasm now of social networking groups isn’t it? Do you have the full compliment of Facebook, Bebo, My Space, etc groups? (Feel free to list them!)

Any publicity is good publicity. Check out darkbydesign.co.uk for all mine.

Well, we’re out of time and we’ve certainly asked you enough questions! Thanks for your time today man, we wish the best of luck with the album, the label and the tour and we’ll close by asking you if there’s anything else you want to add, push, promote or any messages you want to pass on to anybody?

Buy the fucking album. Please.

Thanks again and we’ll be seeing you at Resonate!

Interview composed by Jon Brown for Resonate HQ, with thanks to Dark By Design, Barry Almond and SL-DJ.