Who inspired you to start DJ-ing?

Jon: A DJ friend from school called CJ Murphey; We used to organise parties at a local rugby club when we were 17, I was one of the promoters (£1.50 a ticket as I remember!) and we used to book him to play. I can vividly remember one night complementing how great a set he’d played; everyone (me included) were going nuts on the dancefloor. I told him how much I respected his talent and that you’d never catch me on his side of the decks as I loved to party too much, then I had a go and (cough), er, ate my words really!

Dan: For me, it wasn’t really anyone in particular, it was just house music in general. I just couldn’t get enough of the 4/4… I had to be a part of it. I wanted to mix it, make it, eat it, sleep with it. Seeing Carl Cox mixing two copies of Moby’s ‘Go’ at the Zap club in Brighton when I was 15 (my Dad took me!) was pretty seminal though… I started off loving early techno, trance and acid and you’ll hear influences from this stuff in our tracks now.

You’ve just completed a new record, Powercutz – who would you most like to see play it out?

Dan: Actually we‘ve made 2 new tracks since Powercutz, and we are working on a fourth this week. We are in the process of starting our own label, Catmusic, to put these tracks out – expect the first EP in early October. We plan (if we don’t party too hard) to put out an EP of two original tracks every 6 weeks or so… We’d love to see DJs like Steve Lawler, Futureshock, Seb Fontaine, Eric Prydz and The Scumfrog pick them up.

Do you ever argue over who gets to play the first/last tune?

Jon: Christ, what, argue just about the last tune? We argue about loads! We’re like a married couple sometimes! We rarely plan our 1st tune until we’re at the gig; we tend to spend time surveying the crowd and watching how they are interacting with the DJ on before us. Then we have a chat and decide what to play; whoever has the best idea starts. We have all sorts of weird and wonderful ways to start our sets though!

Last tune is pot luck really, the last half hour of our sets are usually pretty loaded with seriously big cat tunes (and I don’t mean commercial anthems) so it tends to be a prolonged musical orgasm type experience until the promoter (or bouncer usually) has the bottle to try to stop us from playing and the crowd from dancing! We’ve had our crowd boo the promoter/sound engineer/bouncer on several occasions into letting us play one more, which is always nice.

Dan: Yeah we do like to announce ourselves with a clever loop or re-edit. The last time we played at Riot! at The End, in August, the sound guy had come over to remove the cartridges and I was begging him to let us play another tune. He hesitated for a second so I pulled out ‘Wrong Sound’ by kiwi producer Greg Churchill – it’s the stompiest funkiest dirtiest acid house loop tune I’ve ever heard – and put it on the deck. After a few bars, as the 303 acid noise started to filter in, he just winked at me, reached over to the mixer – I thought he was going to pull the plug – and turned the master level up full! It was so loud… everyone cheered - it was incredible. That’s the power of a rockin’ house tune. That was one of those tunes that I really liked when I bought it, but wasn’t sure how it would go down – I thought it would be more of a driver tune - and it totally took us by surprise. Electric Woman, by Dr Kucho, is another example of a tune like this… the crowd reaction blew us away when we dropped it for the first time.

Your Cheshire Street after-hours bashes are fairly legendary… what are the ingredients for a perfect carry on?

Jon: Ha! Over to Dan on that one. One important ingredient is nice, up for it party people. I remember we once invited 6-10 people back after we’d played the ‘At Night’ warehouse party for ‘a quiet one’; by the time I’d got back to Cheshire Street with some of the sound equipment there were already 150 people there! Needless to say the party rocked!

Dan: People get it so wrong, it’s infuriating… but it’s really easy. I’m not sure if I should tell you! Well, OK then… but just don’t tell everyone, ok?

1. Make sure the neighbours are aware, and will tolerate it, or even better: coming to the party. We were playing at an SW4 after-party in Battersea recently and it got shut down by the landlord after 2 hours. We all decamped to Cheshire St of course! It was funny because the host of the party had a clipboard and was collecting email addresses for future parties – and at the top of the list it said ‘the new Cheshire Street Sessions!’ I don’t think so :)
2. Proper DJs – and plan the set times – so there isn’t a fight for the decks. Most DJs, if they aren’t booked somewhere will play for free if they think it’s going to be a rockin’ party. Just go up to the booth and ask them! I remember the first time I met Tom Neville, it was in the booth at Turnmills – he just walked up to me and looked me in the eye and just kept repeating ‘Dan, I want to play at your party, I need to play at your party, let me play at your party’
3. Decent decks, mixer, CD decks, monitor speakers. And I mean proper MONITORS that the DJ can actually hear!!! Not someone’s hi-fi.
4. A Proper PA system and some spinny lights. You can hire a decent sized sound system for about £100 – and lights for about £50. Ask your mates to contribute a few pounds each. You want people to remember the party don’t you? And not walk away saying ‘sound system was shit, wasn’t it…’
5. SMOKE MACHINE!!!!!! Never underestimate the power of smoke and lights. Repeat after me: Smoke and lights SMOKE AND LIGHTS! You can buy a smoke machine for £70 or so, or hire one with the lights. And don’t forget extra fluid.
6. Alcohol. Again, ask your close friends/housemates to contribute and get a few boxes of beer in. Sure, tell people to bring booze – but grease the wheels of the party a bit too.
7. Make sure that there are plenty of party treats around.
8. Friends. And their friends. And – very important - an equal mixture of boys and girls!
9. A little sprinkle of party magic… ;)

What celebs would you invite to the ultimate Cheshire Catz bash?

Jon: I don’t know any celebs. If any turned up we wouldn’t let them in - pretty much defeats the whole nature of what we do at Cheshire Street.

Dan: Well, the Queen, obviously. She’s into acid house circa 1989. Yeah, at the risk of sounding too poncy (hey, it doesn’t normally stop me) the parties are what they are because the people there love house music. Simple as that.

Oakenfold’s played a gig on the Great Wall of China – what world landmark would you most like to rock?

Jon: How does some poxy wall compare to Cheshire Street??? Have you been to one of our parties mate?

Dan: I’d love to have a party at the top of the Gherkin, that would rock! Plus, you can see Cheshire St from there if we got home sick!

What’s your favourite party poison?

Dan: Well, don’t tell any club owners, but that 3rd record bag we carry to gigs is actually the Cheshire Catz mini-bar, fully stocked with Jack Daniels, vodka and coke.

Which of you is more likely to still be looking for party at 6PM on a Sunday?

Jon: We both have our moments and frequently we are both still going strong which is a bit scary. Can remember meeting up with Dan in a café not long after I met him. He was still celebrating his birthday about 4 days (I’m serious, it was a weekday) after the original party: he looked like sh*t!

Dan: oi! Watch it Cat-boy! It’s a little known fact that Jon is half boy, half cat.

If the Cheshire Catz were a football team who’d you like to be your sponsor?

Jon: Football, oh please. Pioneer?

Party animals like you must know a few… so what’s the best hangover cure?

Jon: Orange juice is blinding cure for everything. Dan introduced me to the magical curing powers of Berrocca many moons ago. Mind you, I was in such a state I stuck it it straight in my gob thinking it was a massive crunchy/chewy vitamin pill. The resulting foaming at the mouth scenario was utterly hilarious as you can imagine!

Dan: Haha yes that was hilarious! I thought he’d got rabies or something! Erm, what’s a hangover?

Any tips for big nights/tunes/DJs to watch out for in the next couple months?

Jon: We could tell you but then we’d have to kill you!

Dan: Look out for a bright new label called Catmusic :) Ps. If any of you are serious Cat fans, email me at dan@seditiondjs.com and I’ll send you a link to the secret catz download page where you can get all our new tunes, remixes and edits. But you’ll have to ask nicely :)