If you're the biggest DJ in the world, you're in a position where you can play stuff that people don't know and blow people's minds. But if you just chose to play stuff they know just to get a reaction, that's just being lazy.
As a personality, I'm not one that likes to be center stage. It's not about me, it's about the music. I just want people to listen.
The most important thing is how you program and how you choose your records. That really does sort out who is a good DJ and who is just playing records.
Vinyl, CDs or laptops, it doesn't matter - you should use whatever you're comfortable with. If you're on the dancefloor and there's good music coming out of the speakers, that should be enough. If you're standing there storing your chin going: 'This would sound better if it was on vinyl', yes it might do, but at the end of the day, people want to go to a party.
I love what I do. I'm living the dream. I know that sounds corny, but I wanted to be a DJ from about the age of eleven or twelve, so the fact that I've spent over half my life living out my dream and still doing it at a very high level, I consider myself very lucky. But I've also worked extremely hard and I still work really hard, maintaining my career.
I've always strived to find those records that people don't know, but they actually go "Wow, what is this?" - and they go crazy to it. To me, that's more rewarding as a DJ, and that's what I always thought a DJ was supposed to do: it's about educating people. Now there seems to be a commercial edge to stuff and people are reacting to stuff they've heard on the radio all day long: to me, that's not what youth culture should be reacting to.
People think my career started when I sent that tape to Renaissance. I’d actually been working hard for seven years before I got to that point. I was putting on parties and booking DJs around me to get my name on the flyer. I knew I had to do it for myself. I knew no one was going to come knocking on my door. I knew it was up to me.
I'm one of these DJs who likes to play true to myself, so I'm not gonna be throwing in some rock bootleg mashup mix of some record to get a reaction. Sometimes it does amaze me, you go to festivals and DJs think, "Oh, I need to play big crowd-pleasing records." You don't need to spoon-feed the crowd.
