You've both just played back to back at Frantic’s Hard House Academy, was it your first time you have played there and was it your first time playing back to back together?

Adam - Yes it was my 1st time playing HHA, I’ve been plenty of times in the past as a clubber and really love the venue, great atmosphere and always really busy. Yes it was also the 1st time I’ve played b2b with Steve. was fun, especially as we were playing in the filth Foyer, deffo my fav room in the venue!!!!

Steve - It’s also my first time and I’ve not been fortunate enough to attend any HHA’s previously so I’m really looking forward to it. As it’s mine and Adam’s first B2B as well, this makes it even more special, add that to the fact its my birthday the week after. I shall be celebrating it at HHA and Crafty the following weekend. I always celebrate my birthday the weekend before and the weekend after when it falls during the week. It’s good if your birthday falls on a Sat or Sun of a weekend but you can only celebrate it that weekend! This way get to do both so therefore, lots of free drinks!! Only jokin!!

Frantic & HHA is about as big as it gets, apart from Tidy Weekenders and the well-known festivals. How does it feel to be a part of such a big project?

Adam - Always nice to be part of a Big event, My goals as a dj were to play at The ‘Tidy Weekender’ (which I was lucky enough to cross off my list 2 weeks ago ;0) Play ‘Frantic’s HHA’ which is coming next week and to play main room at Storm which is also coming at the end of the month (Fright Night Part 2) What a month, all seems so surreal.

Steve – It’s wicked as I’ve wanted to be involved with Frantic for such a long time and this was my second outing. My first was Justin Bourne’s Final set at the Coluseum. This was a very special event for me as Justin has been my favourite DJ for a long time and I feel that to play at the last ever event he performed at is a massive achievement in itself.

On the subject of Tidy Weekender 15 Adam, you have just returned from what I believe was your first one. How did it go?

Adam - Was amazing, I’ve been going to the the weekenders as a clubber since i can remember, think my 1st one was TW2. I was Lucky to get myself a great set time on sat night after Pickup & Rise 4-5. The room was rammed and such a wicked crowd, couldn’t have asked for a better debut ?

Roll on TD16......

Can we expect to see you at the next one?

Adam - I really hope so, I’ve got a good relationship with Sam & the guys at Tidy now so fingers crossed they will be kind enough to have me back in 2009

Steve, You haven’t performed at The Tidy Weekender’s as yet, will we be seeing you at the next one?

Steve - I’ve not performed for Tidy yet but with all DJ’s to play at the Weekenders, it is most definitely an important part in any Hard Dance DJ’s career and for those that have not yet its always in their goals. The booking side is down to Tidy though but I’m sure when the time is right you will se me there. It’s also good to see that they are brining through more and more new talent, more so at present than ever. You have to respect that in a promotion/promoter as most are to worried about not conforming to the norm and always playing it safe. There is a lot of quality talented DJ’s and producers out there and through my own brand, Crafty, we hope to bring through this talent and take them up a level.

It’s always good to see new events pop up and you both run 2 very promising events, Crafty for yourself Steve and Hi Oktane for you Adam. What’s it like to promote as well as DJ?

Adam - Its hard work that’s for sure, takes up a lot of my free time on the build up to the event. I really love the buzz you get though when it all comes together in the end and you see every 1 having a top night. Really looking forward to Hi Oktane’s 1st Birthday on 21st Nov, I can’t believe it’s been a year already.

Steve - Crafty is only coming up to its second event on Friday 24th October which happens to be the day after my birthday, so this will be the second celebration but won’t be able to party as much! When you run events you can’t party like everyone else as you have to make sure all is running fine and you have to be on hand to deal with anything that arises. Promoting is very hard work but I’m quite lucky that I’ve gained a lot of experience to help me along the way. As a DJ you have to promote yourself in order to progress. I also run 2 record labels, Razor Recordings & Test Lab, and it’s the same principle with these. DJ, Record label or Club brand, they are all products that you have to promote and market. With events, its just on a much larger scale.

So, for both of you as well as DJing and promoting, there are your record labels as well which I’ve noticed you don’t just flood them with your own material. This is quite unusual as you’ve both had a lot of very successful productions, some of which have been signed to various compilation albums. Any particular reason why you haven’t pushed more of your own material?

Adam - I wanted to get my label up there with the big boys quickly so I decided to push a lot of big names to get people to take notice of it straight away, best way to do it I reckon

Adam - I’ve got quite a few of my new bits coming out on Oktane, The next release is my track Tango actually which I’ve been asked about a lot over the last few months, should hopefully do quite well. A few of the newer tracks I have done were meant to be for Oktane but they got snapped up by big labels such as Flashpoint & Vicious so can’t really turn that opportunity down when it comes along.

Steve – For Lee and myself we realise there is so much quality material out there by some very talented artists and deserves to be released. It’s good to give others the chance as well, if the market was flooded with tracks by just a few producers, it would become boring as everyone would be playing the same stuff and clubbers would be hearing the same tracks in every set they hear.

I do have quite a bit of material due for release, one of my last releases was featured on the Nukleuz Frantic Album under one of my production projects, SwitchDisk called FruitJack. This is available on Toolbox Recordings, SwitchDisk is Riggsy, Lefty and myself and I’m very pleased with this release as it’s the 5th track I’ve had signed to a compilation album and hopefully not the last.

We are currently into our second release for both labels. Test Lab No. 2 has been released recently and has an excellent track from Matt Pickup & Dave The Elf vs Riggsy, Elevate, which is a massive track hence the same reason not to push so much of my own. It also features an excellent track from fresh face Groovepounder. Test Lab was set up to help bring through the future artists.

Steve, 5 compilation albums, that’s pretty impressive! Which is your biggest achievement out of all five?

Steve - It’s hard to pin point a particular one as they are all very special. I can probably only pin it down to my first ‘Stack The Galli’ as this was my first track signed to a label and it also appeared on Tidy Weekender 10 album mixed by Andy Farley, so first release and first album, I was well chuffed!! But on a scale of achievement, it would probably have to be ‘Deeper Down’ as this appeared on 2 different albums, Tidy Weekender Live mixed by JP & Jukesy and Justin Bourne’s Toolbox album mix. I was really pleased with this as to get one track signed to 2 different albums is very hard nowadays.

Adam, you have also had tracks signed to a few different compilation albums and was all so one of the winners of the Trauma Trax completion! How many albums have you featured on now then?

All together I’ve had tracks on 4 different compilation albums.

My 1st track was ‘Terra Zone’ which was featured on the toolbox album ‘WHATS YOUR PLEASURE (Volume One)’

2nd track was ‘Sweatbox’ which went on the ‘TD14 Live album’ mixed by Ben Stevens.

The 3rd was my Remix of ‘Salt n Shake’ that won the Trauma Trax competition and was featured on the ‘Trauma Trax remixed’ album.

And the 4rd was ‘Tango’ which went on the new ‘Frantic 11th Birthday’ CD mixed by Pickup & Rise.

So you both DJ, promote and run respected record labels, is there anything you guys don’t do?! Lol! So, can we expect to see any collaborations and/or joint ventures from you both?

Adam - Yes I’m sure we will be in the studio together at some point in the future, just soo busy at the min, got few remix bits to do for various labels and a couple of collabs to do b4 xmas, 1 with Karim, 1 with Ilogik and another with Defective Audio. Hopefully have some spare time in the New Year ;0)

Steve- We don’t make cups of tea especially not when mixing. I’ve stopped offering cos when you got a house full of people you ask to be polite and every fucker wants one, half of em never drink it either... lol
There’s not much of the year left and its now chocca so yeah I’m sure we will but will probably be in the new year like Adam said would be a good way to start the year though.

Adam, what would you say has been your biggest release to date, both personal and on your label?

Adam - My biggest release I think is Sweatbox which I did With Defective Audio, I always get requests to play this at every gig I play.

The biggest release for me on my label has got to be Mean Streak which me and Dave Owens did b4 I started my label. Still does the trick on the dance floors now!

Steve – For myself it would probably be have to be ‘Stack the Galli’ it became a bit of an antham which everyone recognises. I recently brought it back up to date with a new mix that you will be seeing in the near future. With regards to the labels we are only on the second release for each so it is hard to say but on paper it would have to be the 1st release on Test Lab as it hit no. 1 in th Banging tunes Vinyl charts. If the question was asked a couple of months from now the answer might be a whole lot different.

What can we expect in the future from the both of you? And with the ‘Digital Revolution’ taking a hold of the music industry, do you intend to continue pushing Vinyl?

Adam - Depends how the sales keep going really, I have been thinking about making the switch to cd for a while now and I think the time is nearly right as you can see from how well the Tidy Music Library series & Karim's label ‘Do Not Bend’ are doing.

Steve – Well we just about to send a press release out with regards to the next Razor Release so look out for that, but yeah Vinyl sales have dropped which is a shame but I suppose you have to move with the times. Test Lab will be staying Vinyl for now give the fresh faces a chance to get their work on wax!.

So it’s been a very eventful year for you both with so many achievements, for you Adam, Hi Oktane seems to be really establishing itself, as well as your label which is very strong. You have just come back from Tidy Weekender and have also toured Dublin earlier this year - what has been your biggest achievement?

Adam - I’d say my biggest achievement has got to be Playing at the Tidy Weekender. It’s my favourite event on the hard house calendar. I’d also say taking my night Hi Oktane from nothing to what it is today.

As for you Steve, you started the year playing at the Hard Dance Awards! On a couple of occasions we’ve caught you once again in the main room at Polysexual and you were also involved with the Celebration of TDV at Storm, as well as setting up your own event and second label. What would you say has been yours?

Steve – Its been a fantastic year with each and everything being an achievement in itself. To play at the Hard Dance Awards was Fantastic and to be apart of HHA is awesome, I’m very fortunate to play at Polysexual regularly but I would have to say being part of The TDV Celebration. Tony has influenced me in so many ways and you can hear a lot of it in my sound as well. So to be involved in helping to bring the TDV life Celebration to Storm at such a fantastic venue like The Emporium, which was one of Tony’s Residencies with Passion, was something I could have never dreamed of.

I met Tony’s dad earlier this year for the first time and felt privileged to be in the same room as him. We are now very close friends and it was Majic to see him enjoy himself as much as he did. It was a really good line up as with DJ’s from Tony’s era.

What do you have install for the remainder of the year then?

Adam - Well I’ve got a few nice gigs lined up. Crafty ;0) Storm presents: Fright night part2, Hi Oktanes 1st Birthday, Storm vs. Hi Oktane vs. Frantic, Coalition vs. Hi Oktane xmas bash and the big 1, GoodGreef vs. Hi Oktane on NYD, gunna be a cracker that 1!!!!!

Steve- Its pretty hectic from now til the end of year so pleant to keep me out of trouble. Lol As if! This weekend, Friday you can catch me at Crafty in brum Saturday i’m playing ‘Westfest’ which is my first festival so i’m really excited about that. then 1st week in November i’m @ Judgemejtal then I haven’t a clue what i’m doing till December. Hopefully some time off then its Deprivations Birthday with Xstatic and finally bringing the year to a close will be Crafty on Boxing Day this will be a very special event so watch out for that, it will also be an mini awards ceremony in recognition for some of the work from some of the finest Hard House Record labels. Hopefully this will end the year on a high for all involved!

So after such a fantastic year for you both how do you think you will improve on it next year?

Adam - I’ve got big plans for next year, I can’t say just now but you will find out on NYD, watch this space........

Steve – Hopefully adding Tidy Weekender to my achievements but well have to wait and see. I’ve got a lot of plans for next year for the labels and events so watch this space!