AWsum interview with Andy Whitby

[SteveArnold]

On May 24th (Bank Holiday Sunday) Polysexual and Andy Whitby present the first ever AWsumsexual @ Air in Birmingham.

Hi Andy! Tell us how this exciting partnership came about?

Polysexual has been one of the biggest and best nights in Hard-Dance for a number of years, and I’ve been a regularly face on their line-ups. As a club, Air is one of my favorites’ with the DJ booth being in a unique place letting clubbers surround you and look down as you perform.

When I decided to take AWsum on the road and do a series of collaboration nights Polysexual was top of my list. We chatted to them about different ideas and the concept of AWsumsexual was born – 3 rooms of hard-dance and a few extra treats thrown in for good measure.

I chose the line-up myself. Mark H and I then bounced it back and forth fine-tuning it until we thought we’d nailed it just right. The result is something fresh, with a great blend of who I feel are the best acts in the scene today, playing the full range of our scene’s wonderful music!


The line-up is huge, with you playing 2 sets to headline Rooms 1 and 2, tell us about those and what’s happening in Room 3?

At every AWsum event I try to do something a little different. At the first ‘One AWsum Night’ event I played a 3hr set, so for this special occasion I wanted to do something a little different.

Here’s what I’m up to @ AWsumsexual...

Room 1 – Andy Whitby (2hr set) – I love playing for 2hrs, it gives me a chance to play the full range of style; lots of vocal tracks, lots of bouncy tracks, big riffs and then harden it up at the end before Gammer b2b Klubfiller step up to take things up a notch!

Room 2 – Andy Whitby (vote for your favorite AW mix) – There will be a poll on http://www.awsumdsi.com letting clubbers vote for their favorite AW mix, which were a series of free c.ds I did earlier in my career. The winning mix will be performed live by me in the Nitrogen room on the night; I can’t wait to see which wins!

Room 3 – NUsum DJs – Calling all DJs! Fancy playing at AWsumsexual? Send your demo mixes to andy@awsum.co.uk and I will choose my favorite 8, and then call you to book you for this event – I’m looking for fun, originality and more of all


You’ve chosen the theme for AWsumsexual as ‘fancy-dress – anything goes!’ Talk to us about that…

People love to get dressed up, and when a night puts on a certain theme I always feel it’s too limiting for the clubbers; you either dress like the theme they give you or you don’t. A lot of the time people might not want to wear camo or dress as a gangster or wear a hat, so with the ‘anything goes’ part people can dress up in absolutely anything they want! Of the people I’ve already spoken to we’re going to see some wild outfits at AWsumsexual!



AWsum is being labeled ‘the hottest new brand in Hard Dance’? How did it come about and what is your vision for it in the future?

The idea and motivation behind AWsum is simple; to supply good quality, fun, original hard dance via releases on our label and at our events.

3 years ago I realized there were less and less hard dance labels making good quality fun music. It had all got a bit serious, a bit too obvious and in a lot of ways a bit too boring!

I want AWsum to be known as the brand which constantly supplies big releases, produced by our existing artists; Klubfiller, Cally Gage, Gammer, Tom Parr, MDA & Spherical, Audio Riot and myself. It’s a special and exciting team as a lot of the producers don’t work with many other labels or artists, letting us create a very unique and different style of hard-dance, something a lot of people describe as a cross between Hardhouse, Hardcore, Bounce and Electro.

The future of AWsum is, as far as I can tell, an exciting one. The label releases new music every 3 weeks and the tour already has 8 confirmed dates all over the country and even Russia, with many more to fully secure.

The tour is for all those who failed to get down to the first 2 AWsum events in London – don’t worry, we’re coming to you!

How did you get into Dance music and DJing in particular?

I used to play basketball professionally, and a captain from one of the teams I was a member of invited me round to play on his decks. I was instantly hooked, so much so that I eventually quit basketball (to my parents horror) to pursue a wild dream of actually making a career of it!


A lot of producers/DJs seem to be moving away from Hard Dance these days, do you ever see yourself following suit?

I will never move away from this scene. I might try new styles and sounds, but hard-dance is in my blood, it’s my passion – I literally eat, sleep and breathe hard dance every day!

In some ways I feel disappointment towards the artists that leave. I appreciate that musical tastes change, but those who leave the scene because they aren’t seeing the success they want or don’t feel they’re getting the respect they deserve are wrong to move away. It takes a great deal of hard work, determination and originality to achieve things in any scene nowadays, so if you think it’ll just land on a plate for you, you are wrong.


As we all know, your 'better' half is of course Ms.Cally Gage, any plans to do any collaborations with her in the near future or any exclusive b2b sets that we can look forward to?

We do plan to go into the studio together, it’s just a case of finding the time and when it feels right. Cally has a lot going on in the studio right now, especially after being snapped up by Riot as one of their artists as well. She will be working on an E.P for AWsum later in the year and we’ll definitely write a few tracks together.

She’s only yesterday finished a new track for the label with MDA & Spherical and it sounds absolutely brilliant, I’m really excited about it.

We also have a back2back @ Magna very soon, only the 3rd time we’ve done it with the previous 2 being at special Frantic events in London.



You obviously have a huge fan base these days and I often see you taking time out to talk to your fans before/after your sets, how important is this to you?

The clubbers are the single most important factor of your career, as without them you are nothing, and with them you can achieve anything.

I never forget the entire reason I am up there playing is because of them. The support and loyalty they show me is absolutely incredible and is what motivates me to keep moving forward and keep working hard to ensure they are happy on the dance floor and with the tracks they buy by myself and the AWsum artists.


You are labeled as 'the saviour of hard dance' but what I would like to know is if your house was on fire and you could only save 3 items, what would they be?

I guess, off the top of my head they would be…

1) My puppy Henry – We can’t let little Henry burn can we!!
2) My hard-drive – my entire life is backed up on there, so I’ll be needing that!
3) As many of my t-shirts as I can carry – I get asked a lot about my t-shirts and where I get them. A lot of them are quite rare so I’d have to save those bad boys!


Is there anywhere in the world you haven't played yet that you would really like to one day?

I’ve played all over the world; Tokyo, Osaka, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Moscow, Cape Town, Sydney and Ibiza to name a few, but there’s still a number of places I’d love to play, mainly LA, New Zealand and China – all 3 of those look like amazing countries and I hope I’ll appear there sometime in the near future.




Your rise to fame was quite fast; aside from getting into production is there any other advice you can give to aspiring DJs that may help them on the road to realizing their dream?

When people ask me this I always say the thing; be unique. Too many DJs nowadays try to copy their favorite artists and wonder why they don’t get bookings or don’t progress up the ladder.

Also, don’t do it because you want ‘fame’ or money or even to appeal to the other sex – DJing is about playing records you love to people who will share that passion and excitement with you.


Finally, this is your chance to plug anything you like in 100 words, go for it.........

Ok! If you enjoy what I do, please check out my website @ www.andywhitby.com, it features everything you need to know about me, including DJing dates, videos, song clips, clothing, message boards and much more!

For all things AWsum, check out www.awsum.co.uk, it has everything you need to know about the label, the artists, music, videos and lots of other fun stuff.

It appears I have quite a few words left, so I guess I’ll just mention that if anyone needs to ask me about anything they hear in my sets, or wonder when a track is coming out please don’t hesitate to drop me a message on andy@awsum.co.uk.

**FULL LINE UP & TICKET DETAILS**

***AWsum and Polysexual Present AWsum-sexual
Bank Holiday Sunday May 24th***

Doors open 8pm - 6am


Fancy-dress theme


***Oxygen Arena***

Andy Whitby 2hours

Rob Tissera
Sy & MC Whizzkid

Gammer
*b2b Klubfiller & MC Whizzkid *(hardhouse to core set)
Cally & Juice feat. MC Shocker

Cally Gage b2b Frisky

Technikal b2b MDA & Spherical

Jon BW b2b Scott Fo Shaw



***Nitrogen Room***

Andy Whitby (‘Vote for your favourite AW mix’ set)
Andy Farley *b2b Paul Glazby (VC classics set)

Cally Gage (Frantic classics)

Mark H (Polys classics)

Tom Parr (Filth classics)

Mike Avery

Helen G b2b Nathalie



***Carbon Lounge***


NUsum DJs - Send your mixes to andy@awsum.co.uk to play in this room!

7 available slots

TICKETS:



Early Bird tickets
£12 + £1.50 BF

Advanced tickets
£16 + £1.50 BF



click here for tickets