Cally, you’ve risen through the ranks to now enjoy one of the top positions in the Hard Dance scene – was there one moment when you thought this was what you wanted to do with your life?

I don’t think there was one moment that I realised this was what I wanted to do, it just kind of happened I suppose and something I progressed into from being a clubber! Whenever I do something I always put 110% into it and always want to be the best at it as well, I’m quite stubborn like that you see and don’t like settling for anything less really – if you’re going to do something, then always do it to the best of your ability and always aim for the top. I truly believe that you only get 1 shot at this life, so you have to make the most of that and never have any regrets (wow, that’s deep)!!

When I first started DJing all I wanted to do was to play in a club, once I’d achieved that then it was onto the next thing and then the next – it’s always worked like that really and one I’ve ticked something off on my list of goals, then it’s straight onto the next thing.

As a Frantic resident, you’ve really stamped your mark on the London scene, but at the same time a legion of fans follow you up and down the country every weekend. Have you noticed much difference in clubbers across the country?

There isn’t much difference at all, not that I’ve noticed anyway – clubbers tend to prefer a different style of hard house depending on where they are in the country, but at the end of the day they all go out with the same aim – to have a fantastic night and to forget about the daily chores of the week, it’s all about living for the weekend as a clubber and meeting the same sort of people.

Compared to some other top flight DJs, we’ve not seen as much from you in terms of production – is this something you’ve got planned in for the forthcoming future and what are your thoughts on the whole DJ/Producer crossover?

Up until now all I’ve concentrated on is my DJing as that’s what I love to do and that’s what keeps me going each week – to know that I’m going to be playing the music I love each weekend to clubbers who love it just as much as me. But to be a DJ now, playing music just isn’t enough anymore – you have to be seen to push the events you play at, to market yourself on the internet, you have to source new music to keep yourself ahead of the game and also be seen to be making your own tunes too. To get your name further afield and out to people who wouldn’t necessarily have the chance to see you play, you have to get into the whole production thing really and you’ll be pleased to hear that I have dipped my toe in, at last!! Producers I’ve been in the studio with so far are BK, Klubfiller, Tom Parr, MDA & Spherical as well as Gammer – I’ve learnt so much from these guys and the tracks we’ve come up with are totally different to each other as well, so I hope that it shows my versatility as a DJ too. I’m going to concentrate on production as much as I can this year and already have dates in the diary to go in with Jon BW, as well as follow up tracks with BK, Klubfiller, Gammer and MDA & Spherical – so watch this space and keep your ears peeled!!

If you were given the chance (and budget!) to put on the ultimate event and there were no limits as to what you could do, where would it be, who would be playing and what would it be like?

Wow, no budget – I could go crazy with this!!

I’d like to put on a mini festival I reckon with a few different genres of music, to cater for everyone. It would have to be somewhere beautiful though – maybe on a huge beach and somewhere really hot. DJ’s I would have play would be:

Hard House
Me (of course)
Andy Whitby
Andy Farley
Klubfiller
Adam M
Paul Glazby
Lucy Fur
Mike Avery
Nathalie
Helen G

Hardcore
Gammer
Recon
Dougal
Squad-e
Joey Riot
DJ Sy
Darren Styles
Hixxy

MC Whizzkid

Trance
Eddie Halliwell
John O’Callaghan
Ferry Corsten
Sander Van Doorn
Judge Jules

I haven’t really thought about it that much at all have I, lol!!

We recently saw you selling your beloved 1210s on ebay – do you think we’ve now seen the end of vinyl or will it always be around? And what have you done with all your old tunes?

I still have a pair of 1210’s left – I wouldn’t have sold the only pair I own!! Between me and Andy we both had our own pair and 1 of them was kept in the loft, so we thought that it wasn’t worth keeping both of them and decided to sell one pair.

Within the hard house scene vinyl has nearly completely gone, which is a shame as I love playing vinyl so much – you really get a lot out of playing a set on vinyl and I love the feel of it too. I remember playing a set on vinyl at Sunday North a couple of years ago and a clubber came up to watch me, he then said “you’re well old school aren’t you?!!” I thought that it was quite funny he said that just because I was playing on vinyl - I hadn’t actually been playing out that long at that time, so hadn’t learnt how to use a CDJ yet! I still have all my old tunes and don’t think I’ll ever part with them, I’ve got some right classics up there you know – the whole of our deck room is covered with them!!

Asides from Hard Dance, what other music are you into? Could you see yourself crossing over into different genres like Lisa Lashes with her Breaks sound or Alex Kidd dabbling in Techno perhaps?

I don’t really listen to that much other stuff at all you know, sorry!! All of my time is taken up with hard house, but that’s why I love it. I do love a bit of hardcore though and absolutely love playing at their events as well, I’m really starting to like tough tech-trance too and am starting to get into that a lot more.

At the moment I don’t think I could see myself playing anything other than hard house, it’s at a really exciting point at the moment too – but never say never, as they say!!

And lastly, if you could trade places with one other person in the music industry (living or dead), who would it be and why?

I don’t think I’d want to trade with anyone else at all – I like being me and am going to do the best I can to get to the very top!