Hard South has built a reputation as the South Coast’s premier hard dance night. It’s the place the punters want to come from all over, and where top DJs are begging to play. Hard dance has supposedly become less fashionable, but Hard South has remained a regular monthly fixture, and is now approaching its sixth birthday. The oldies remain lurking in ‘Honey corner’, and a new generation of youngsters are discovering the dancefloor pleasures of going mental with a crowd of like-minded others to a barrage of mad, hard, blaring, music.

While it is rightly said that the crowd makes the night, responsibility for that night – for booking the DJs, promotion, and the identity and ambience of the club – lies with one man: Nick Hardsouth. On the eve of the birthday bash, I cornered him to ask him how, when and why Hard South - and all the other questions you punters want to know the answers to…

Nick, you started Hard South back in September 2003. Tell us why you decided to promote a new hard dance night in Brighton.

Basically it was because loads of my friends were complaining that the only large venue hard dance nights in town were on Sundays, which meant they couldn’t enjoy them to the full, due to pressures of work / uni / families. I happened to be in a position where I had a chance of changing that. I’d been sharing a London office with Tidy for a while. My friend and original partner in Hard South Russell Gibson was already talking to the Honey via their Saturday resident DJ Adam H, and all the pieces fell into place. It was dumb luck really, coming out of a desire to help my mates out if I possibly could. Russ left to join the police force after a few months – the best case of poacher turned gamekeeper I’ve ever come across!

You have a wide taste in dance (and other) music and a history in the music industry, so presumably you could have promoted any kind of night you wanted. What was it about the hard dance scene that inspired you in that direction?

I’d always had the best of times at hard dance events – the music was great, and the crowds were always extremely enthusiastic, equally as friendly and totally welcoming. If I’m honest I was also attracted by the genre’s “outsider” status – we’ve never been fashionable, we’re always the butt of attacks from the likes of MixMag etc. – and that appealed to my essentially punk nature I guess.

Tell us a bit about your Hard South pre-history. A lot of people who know you probably don’t realise you’ve been in the charts…

I’ve done a few things! I don’t really bother much with what’s gone on in the past, because it is what it is, and it’s not where I am / what I do now. However - it is true that Paul Oakenfold used to work for me, and I did help create a techno re-mix of Motorhead’s “Ace Of Spades”, which had Lemmy threatening to kill me (in jest and just for PR purposes - I hope). I should say that my remix of Freddie Mercury’s “Living On My Own” was a bit less controversial, and sold a few more copies…..

There’s loads more stuff I could mention, but all I’ll say is I’ve been involved with acts from KLF to DJ Luck & MC Neat, and I’m old enough to have seen Madonna perform one of her first PAs on the roof of Danceteria in New York, thanks to being friends with her then boyfriend Jellybean Benitez. Oh, and I told Tom Watkins that I really didn’t like his act’s new slower version of a song that Bobby Orlando had previously recorded with them, and I thought it was a huge mistake.

The act was the Pet Shop Boys and the song was “West End Girls”.

So what was that first Hard South night like? Who did you book, how did you promote it, how did it go?

Someone will have to remind me, because I really can’t remember! I do remember Russ’s girlfriend organised a huge march through Brighton with banners saying “Follow Me To Hard South” – mostly girls as I recall, and that worked pretty well!

(Editor’s reminder note: The first ever Hard South featured BK and… Andy Farley!)

Tell us about the kind of people that come to Hard South? What kind of lunatics dance till 5 in the morning to that insane music?

My favourite kind of lunatics; friendly, happy, up for it people with no axe to grind and no desire to prove they’re superior to anyone else. People who are just out to have a bloody good time, and are going to make sure they have it!

What’s the Hard South musical policy?

I try to keep it as wide as possible really. As long as it’s great hard dance I’ll try to find a place for it – which is why we have guests such as Proteus and Adam Lab 4 on the really tough side, through the more party styles of and Ed Real or Rob Tissera to the pure hard house (or filth if you like!) from Karim, OD404 etc. The music policy is probably best described as Proper Quality Hard Dance - or something! I also try to give all the DJs as much time as possible – I’ve never been a fan of nights with 14 guests playing 35 minutes each.

Your resident DJs, Krunchie, Salerno and DJ Drummer, have been with you since the start. Tell us a bit about how you found them and why they have worked so well as residents.

Krunchie was already playing at The Honey, and his style and commitment worked right from the off; I’ve never met anyone who’s as passionate about their music as he is! Salerno and Drummer were both Honey Club techs; they’re both incredibly adaptable DJs so were able to play successfully in the original trance room, and to make the transition to main room residents with no trouble at all. All three of them are great blokes too, and they’re as committed to the cause as I am – that’s quite important.

This year, you also secured the services of two of the world’s leading hard house DJs, Karim and Andy Farley, as bi-monthly residents. That’s quite a coup and must have helped put the club on the map.

It’s an amazing coup, and I never in a million years thought I’d be able to get them on board! They are both idols of mine – they play fantastic music and are really great people – so I was amazed and delighted when Karim asked if I’d thought about him playing for Hard South regularly… I mentioned it to Andy next time he was down and he said “Well what about me then?” – I nearly fell over on the spot! It’s great to have their support, and I hope it shows that Hard South is pushing forward and will just get better and better :-)

Which other guest DJs have you particularly enjoyed or have been particularly successful with the Hard South crowd?

I can genuinely say that I’ve enjoyed working every guest we’ve had over the years (with maybe two exceptions, who will remain forever un-named). It’s unfair to single particular DJs out, but as people I’m particularly fond of Andy Farley, Karim, Ed Real, Rob Tissera, Adam Lab 4, Lisa Pin-Up, Proteus, Lucy Fur, Cally Gage, Ting….. hold on – this list could go on forever…

More generally, what would you say makes a good Hard South guest DJ?

I think commitment and enthusiasm are the main ingredients – the crowd loves it when a DJ gets really involved. That and an ability to read the crowd properly, which to be fair most of our guests do have – when Anne Savage played last time she saw that the floor was really jumping so played harder than she often does, and she went down a storm. We’ve only had a couple of guests who’ve stuck to some sort of pre-determined set, and it hasn’t really worked…

Any particular highlights you’d like to mention in the years you’ve been running the club?

All of it! I suppose the creation of the Hard South scrapbook on my birthday a few years ago was the most personally touching bit…. And did you know we’re responsible for a marriage? Alex and Yan Yan met at Hard South, got to know one another over the next few months and are now very happily married – that’s a pretty good one too :-)

It’s widely said that hard dance is struggling these days. Hard South seems to have bucked the trend. How have you managed this?

I really don’t know. I just try to give people what they want at a price they can afford, and I’m prepared for things to be fluid – change should be embraced, not avoided as far as I’m concerned. I just create the event and provide the space – it’s the crowd that make it happen.

Put it differently, what’s the secret of a successful club night?

Listening, and being available to your customers, giving it your all, and not treating people as cash machines are top of my list. It’s not something you can ever really regard as just a money making exercise – as soon as you do that, you lose people’s respect, and then you lose everything. Other promoters may not agree with me of course!

What have been the biggest obstacles you’ve faced in making the club a success?

Single biggest is probably the rest of the industry’s irrational hatred of hard dance – yes I’m looking at you DJ and MixMag, and also at you, local magazines. So what if we’re not all sleek tanned individuals (Ed: speak for yourself ;o) in Armani, or ex art school, cool as f*ck purveyors of Brazilian 80’s influenced DanceHall Grunge or whatever else is the latest hip thing to oh so casually drop in post gallery opening conversations? You won’t find a more committed, knowledgeable, friendlier, welcoming and downright non-judgemental bunch of people anywhere. Why does their sheer enjoyment and unalloyed joy annoy you so much that you want to mock or even destroy it, you sad, joyless, obviously insecure individuals?

Sorry, rant over….

The other main obstacle is the sheer cost of it all – it’s always touch and go as to whether we’ll make any cash, which means I often don’t have the money available to do some of the things I’d like to. Unfortunately it also means that some DJs are completely out of our price range as well – that’s the way it goes though; we just have to live with it!

The other big obstacle is probably that I’m a really crap capitalist – can’t get my head round the basic concepts I’m afraid…

How has the scene changed over the years?

Less cyber (boo), fewer completely messed up people (thankfully), probably fewer people dressing like loons overall, which is a bit of a shame. There seems to be a bit more of a divide in musical styles across the country as well – it’s always been in the background, but it seems to be more overt now. That’ll probably change again though!

I’m really happy to see that there’s a lot of new talent coming through again though – there was a time where things were in danger of getting a bit stagnant, so it’s good to see the rise of newer faces. Having Andy Farley & Karim as residents means I can start to give some of those newer faces an opportunity now, and I fully intend to do that.

And how has the club changed?

If you’re talking about the venue – it’s changed almost beyond recognition – and I helped with the building of some of it! Best thing that’s happened for me has to be the DJ box returning to the far corner, leading to the huge raised podium for live acts and dancers. The Honey is constantly upgrading its lighting too – we seem to have got a couple of lasers now, which is always a bonus for a hard dance event!

What’s the immediate future for Hard South? What other guests have you got lined up for us?

Hopefully the future’s bright! On the DJ front Kutski will be making an appearance soon, I’m working with an idea from one our most loyal supporters for a bit later in the year, and December is still under wraps :-)

I’m very excited about the fact that we’ve now got Recoverworld hosting the trance room, which should be good for our customers and for both brands. Chris Hampshire (Recoverworld boss) is planning to bring Activa down soon too… so it’s looking good!

How are we going to celebrate the 6th birthday on Sept 4th? What’s in store for us?

I’m delighted to announce that in the main room we’ve got Paul Glazby, Andy Farley and special guest K90. As well as playing an hour in the main room, K90 is playing a classics set in the new Recoverworld trance room because he’s mixing their next Classics album …

Main room residents Krunchie and Salerno will be getting the masses jumping (unfortunately Drummer can’t make it - he’s as pee’d off as the rest of us are, but shit happens, as they say!)

The Recoverworld room will also see label owner Chris Hampshire and true Brighton legend Coxy playing – and I’ve just heard that Chris has recently offered a set to a certain Digital Harry….

I’m currently trying to work out how on earth I can afford a big enough cake for over 500 people – I don’t think it’s do-able unfortunately!

Finally, tell us your favourite clubbing anecdote.

After all this time, I’ve got loads of stories as you’d expect, but they’re all a bit long and “you had to be there” ish. They range from someone disappearing completely at a club in Miami, and being found after an hour long increasingly frantic search fast asleep curled up in a bass bin, to the time we had to drive a DJ who’d been thrown out of his own closing party from one end of Ibiza to the other (much worse than anything in Kevin & Perry!), to an absolutely hilarious but horrible sequence of events that happened to a mate when we were clubbing in Cologne – all I’ll say is it involved blood thirsty Thai “working girls”, angry German lesbians, and someone who turned out to be – at the worst possible time, and considerably later on - a senior customs official… If it got made into a film you’d never believe it!

Hard South is the first Friday of every month at the Honeyclub, Brighton. See
Hard South