Only a few days till Moondance The Summer Festival 2009! We give you a brief insight into rave scene legend Billy Bunter ahead of his main room set!

When and where did you start DJing?

My 1st major break was for Labrynth/2000 AD in early 1990 when I was 15 at the legendry 4 aces club in Dalston (East London), where I remained resident for 5 years every Friday & Saturday night. Prior to that in 1989 I had played at lot’s of house parties and started getting my 1st taste of playing in smaller venues around London due to working in a record shop and people giving me the chance to play early at their night’s …. I started very young!

Vinyl vs CDs?

That old chestnut! I have to say CD’s, I now take over 5000 tunes out with me in my CD wallet, so I have far more musical freedom, even when I was playing vinyl there was times when 2 big boxes of tunes wasn’t enough for me. All my vinyl is now in storage other then my Hip Hop and soul collection. I think I have about 50 000 tunes on my Hard Drive … You know your going to interview me in a year and ask me Laptop or CDJ’s???

You have played at every important rave event of the last 15 years and then some, can you name your 5 favourite events and tell us a good story about each one.

Crikey ….. Your testing me here, 20 years of gigging, and you want me to choose 5, these aren’t necessarily my 5 fav’s, but the first 5 that spring to mind.

1. It has to be my 5 year’s residency at The Labrynth. I was there every Friday & Saturday for 5 year’s from 1990 I saw so much stuff going on there that I could write a book. One of my favourite stories is when the club got raided, the old bill had been doing undercover in the club for months, and come to the conclusion that I was selling drugs in the venue due to every one coming up to me in the DJ box (Every one was asking for shout’s on the mic or tunes to be played, not E’s). They raided the club with Thames TV filming the whole thing. I was the 1st person they nabbed and I was on the news the following night saying hello to my mum as they carted me out of the club. It’s also the place where I met Sonya and we went on to have 2 wonderful (At times) Children!!!!

2. My 1st ever set at Helter Skelter, late 1994 I think @ The Sanctuary. No real stories other then the anticipation of driving up the M1 to Milton Keynes, and walking in to the sanctuary for the 1st time and seeing 3000 + people going nut’s. I stepped up to the decks and my 1st tune was my track Let it lift you that I made with JDS and Gem, I had been dj’ing for a good 5 years before this gig, but I remembered my hands shaking as I queued up my 1st tune!

3. Resurrection up in Scotland in 1997 at the height of my Trance Kor day’s, me and Rob Vanden did back to back, at the time there was a big buzz about our sound, and I felt that it would work really well in Scotland. There must have been 8000 people in the arena and we did a 2 hour set. It went well (I thought), then at the end the whole crowd started throwing glow sticks at us. I was gutted; I said to Rob we must have played shit. It turned out the whole crowd were showing their appreciation, and if they think you was good they throw their glow sticks at ya (It’s a Scottish thing). The following month in M8 there was loads of letters published saying that we had smashed it (PHEW)!

4. Honey Pot Recordings Tour in Taiwan 1999! Honey Pot was a real success for me in the Hard House scene, and me and Jon Doe toured all over the world due to the buzz of the label. I did the Taiwan tour on my own, and it was a weird old experience. Made even more eventful by the fact that my plane was delayed at Heathrow, meaning I missed the connecting flight in Amsterdam (Lucky enough the promoters of Q Dance in Amsterdam hooked me up with accommodation for the night). I got to Taiwan after travelling for 24 hour’s, an hour before the gig. It took an hour to get to the club, I hadn’t been to sleep, I hadn’t eaten, no time for a shower, just straight in to this club rammed with a 1000 odd people going nut’s I stepped up and did a 5 hour set, through out the whole set people were tipping me 100’s of pounds as I was playing. I was refusing to take the dough, and they were getting really angry with me, the club owner, who scared the life out of me just by looking at me, was getting angry and told the promoter I was insulting his clientele by not taking the money …. I was insulting them by not excepting the gesture, in the end I just started taking the money off everyone (I ended up with bundles), it was proper weird. The following day the promoter took me to pray with him as he said I was going to bring him luck (Even weirder) ….. I’ve not heard from him since!

5. Poland! Every time I play it’s mental, not only are they the most clued up place in the world for Old School … They know how to fucking drink as well, and get the hump with me if I don’t drink with em (Result)! This one time I went with MC Spenno I thought I was playing the bollox (Again), but Spenno was getting the right hump with me saying I was too pissed and not being professional and rewinding too many tunes …. I thought the crowd were loving it! I lost my head set that night as well (You know you’ve had a good night when you lose your tunes or head set, or end up cuddling the toilet the next morning)! All the way home on the plane Spenno was giving me a grilling whilst I was hanging over … Their never going to have you back, you’re an embarrassment, you’ve insulted the promoter, he paid all that money to have you over and you play like that! Since that gig they have had me over 4 or 5 times and not invited Spenno back LOL. The time I went after that gig I never drunk, as I felt I had to make it up to em …. The promoter got the right hump, telling me the crowd want me to get pissed on Vodka. So every time I go over with Sonya we just get drunk as cunts, party with the Pols and I get the chance to play proper old school to wicked crowds!

You and Slipmatt seem to live in each other's pockets. What does a typical Mon to Fri involve for you both?

Can you feel it media, our music company is a full time business. And it is literally a typical Monday to Friday full time job (But one we love doing, for most of the time). Because of our weekend life styles our weeks need to be really disciplined to make the business work as it does. We constantly have things on the go from compilation albums, promoting up coming singles, artist management, publishing company, remixing, producing new tracks. So much goes in to keeping every thing moving. Then with all the fun stuff comes all the contracts, meetings, accounts, admin etc. At the moment we work closely with a team of 10 to 15 people, and organising a team in it self is a challenge to make sure every one is on the ball and driving forward. We both then have to put time aside for working on our own individual dj careers. We also have our family lives as well …. So discipline of time is essential, which is easier said then done in this game!

Old Skool, House, Hard House, Jungle, you play them all. Is there any other music that gets you excited?

Hip Hop. I grew up on Hip Hop, and it never left me, and to be making it with my son is like a dream come true that I never knew I had in the 1st place. When I first heard him on a track I was choked up. When I was 13/14 I was bunking school to go up to Groove Records in Soho to buy Hip Hop music. My son at the age of 14 is making Hip Hop music. At the age of 14 he’s had his music played on Radio 1, and has all kinds of producers and labels from all over the world wanting to work with him. At the moment his school comes 1st, but the experience his building up is immense. Music will be here forever, his school day’s wont …. Check his music here myspace.com

If you could put together your dream Moondance Main Room what would it look like and why?

Please note Funki … I have copyrighted this line up!

10.00 – 12.00 Matt Maurice aka Vinyl Matt (My favourite dj from my Labrynth day’s, he would do the ultimate warm up off classic 88/89 and 90’s house and ware house anthems).

12.00 – 01.00 Groove Rider and Fabio with MC GQ (Doing a classic early 90’s Rage set, would set the party off wicked, and GQ would compliment it perfectly).

01.00 – 02.00 Carl Cox (3 deck 92 mash up of proper underground hardcore from back in the day. Carl could get on the mic himself).

02.00 – 02.30 Rebel MC Live (Say no more - Wickedest sound, Coming on Strong, Tribal Base, all live with Tenor Fly and Super Cat in the house).

02.30 – 03.00 Shut Up & Dance Label Showcase (Ft Nicolette, Ragga Twins, Shut Up & Dance, Imagine the tunes being dropped in this set 5, 6, 7, 8, School of the world, Hooligan 69 … It would be immense).

03 – 04 Rat Pack (Doing a 20 years of Rat Pack set, giving people their complete history, you know they’ll get the party jumping)

04 – 05 DJ Sy V’S DJ Hype with MC MC (Doing a 93 / 94 scratch off … People would pay serious money to see this. 2 of the greatest rave dj’s of all time going back to the mid 90’s with MC MC on the mic ….. This would kill it).

05 – 06 Kenny Ken B2B Micky Finn with MC Fearless (Classic Jungle set of all the exclusives that were made for them both. It would have to be Fearless on mic, this would end the party perfectly).

Afterparty – Slipmatt B2b with Yours truly for a 6 hour Hip Hop, Reggae, Soul and House mash up! (Going from the late 60’s right to the present day of quality music with feeling)!

Someone once said that all promoters are frustrated comedians! Who is funnier Rich Raindance or Funki Moondance?

LOL, their all certainly Comedians and their all most certainly frustrated!

Both Richard and Funki are funny old git’s, and have their own brand of comical charm, that over the years I have warmed to. Their both as funny as each other, but for different reasons. I think their real characters would be truly shown if we had a caricature picture made of them both sitting next to each other whilst we all went up to them to collect our wages after a bad night!!!!

If you werent DJing what would you be doing?

Going back to working on market stalls and robbing phone boxes!

Thanks Daniel, make sure you catch Billy Bunter b2b Slipmatt in the Main Room of Moondance on Saturday 13th June!

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