As a warm up to the Lost Souls massive night on the 13th October, ‘We Are Lost Souls’, we have very special guest down at Public Life during the day.

Max Cooper is one of the most exciting up and coming DJ’s on the clubbing scene; the multi-talented Max is a DJ, producer and turntablist. When not smashing up dance floors by himself, he forms one part of the Nottingham Techno duo ‘Trash Jelly’ with long time friend, Jeet. They are both residents of the Midlands biggest Techno night, Firefly and Max has travelled round the country bringing to dance floors his own brand of electro/techno turntablism. As well as a DJ star of the future, Max has also recently finished his PhD in genetics.

So Max for those that do not yet know you, what is your background and what got you into DJ-ing?

I got sucked in to the electronic music scene of the late 90's and was off sliding down the slippery slope from there. As for what got me into DJing, I'd ask why anyone that's into the scene isn't a DJ (there's not many of those)?

You earned your stripes as a Firefly resident in Nottingham, what is the clubbing scene like up in Nottingham and how does Firefly fit into it?

The Notts scene is big, lots of exciting things have been brewing over the years, spewing out some monsters like Detonate and Spectrum, and Firefly, which has gone through the roof in the last couple of years. Firefly fit's in as the "last proper rave in the country" (in the words of Jon Carter), which has pushed the was been uncool sound of techno through it's unpopular days until it got rebranded and became the taste of the town! Circulating fad's of the music industry aside, Firefly has always been about a big dutty party with the best atmosphere about, like a house party with 1000 people at it (and an unusual living room).

In your sets you display a wide range of styles, influences and music genres, so who have been the biggest inspirations to you throughout your DJ-ing career?

Early on I took my biggest influences from the turntablists like DJ Craze, Noise and Babu. These days I'm much more focused on my productions, because that's what's more important for DJ's at the moment (in terms of profile anyway - whether or not this is a good thing is up for question). Some of the people that I've been most driven by would be Stephan Bodzin, Adam Beyer, James Holden, and the rest of the Border Community artists - there's a handful of producers in each scene that take the piss really, they're just a league above everyone else. Then you've got your Prodigy, and Chemical Brothers, living on their little clouds of superiority in supremeproducerville. I take a lot of inspiration from the more adventurous and downtempo side of things too - Blamstrain, Squarepusher, Ulrich Schnaus etc, that's what I'll listen to when I'm taking it easy at home.

What has been your favourite set to date?

Last week at the Ballroom in Notts (with Vitalik), Firefly is back for a new season looking better than ever!

Do you think the Breakbeat scene has gone as far as it can go?, and do you think the British techno scene will ever be able to rival its German counterpart?

The issue here isn't anything to do with "breakbeat", the issue is our obsession with classifying everything into genre's - Every scene change's as people try new things and get bored of old things, but with breakbeat (as in "nuskool breaks" or whatever you wanna call it), the definition of the genre got so precise that when it changed, everyone started calling it something else, and then because it had a new name, everyone thought that "breakbeat" must have gone as far as it could go. Take a breakbeat tune, move a couple of kick drums and you've got yourself an "electrohouse" tune. When "techno" has changed a lot more than this over the years, from nasty 150 bpm pounders to musical masterpieces that put everyone to sleep.

As for whether the British techno scene will ever rival the German, maybe we can all vote in Hawtin for Prime Minister, teach the "real" meaning of techno in schools (with advanced Villalobos studies at university), minimalist push chairs for the babies, and we'll be well on the way!

Over the last few years you have got into producing, with the recent blending and blurring of music genres, what direction have you taken your music in and what tools are you using?

The best I can do with words is minimal/electro/techno, or maybe I should just call it dribble-step, with some hard-dribble at points. Have you ever heard hard-folk (aka folkcore), it's pretty special!! I use Ableton live to write my tracks, a lovely bit of software.

Firefly and Lost Souls are both renowned for their atmosphere, calling themselves a ‘party’ instead of a club night, with the age commercial clubbing upon us, what do you think club nights can do to regain this atmosphere?, and has the growth of the warehouse clubs nights around London really brought the underground scene back to the clubbers?

As long as a night is in it for maximising their profits then the atmosphere is always going to suffer. If club nights wanted to regain atmosphere then they could pump all their profits into making the best party they could, but that's not gunna happen as long as people keep going to the clubs because at the end of the day it's just a business to most of the people at the top. As for the warehouse thing, I think it's more of a marketing scheme than anything else, call a club a "warehouse" and yer off!

Now that you have made the move down the M1 to London, what does the future hold for you with regard to your DJ-ing and producing?

It's all go on the productions at the moment, which has a lot to do with being in London. As for what the future holds, I'll just keep on developing the sound of rinseout gonadbeat and see what happens.

And finally, "Bukkake?” A warped ancient Japanese tradition or a modern day team sport?!

Well, it's going to be an event at the London Olympics so I guess we'll have to call it a modern day team sport (I hear the Queen is rather looking forward to it).

Max Cooper Releases Sep-Oct:

Tamperine EP out now on vinyl and digital

Ergo EP out on digital 18th Oct:
"This is a fine example to all aspiring “minimal” producers how it should be done 4/5" - IDJ Magazine
"Awesome release from Evolved" - Luke Dzierzek
With Radio 1 support from Mistress De Funk

CLICK HERE TO CHECK MAX'S TRACKS ON BEATPORT