Funky House DJ Paul Velocity
By admin on May 3, 2008 in DJs and Producers
Paul Velocity has been a DJ for over 10 solid years. In this time he has been part of pirate radio, online radio and mainstream radio. He has played all over the UK, Wales and abroad. He is a DJ, a clubber, a producer, a promoter and a remixer and has worked alongside some of the music industry’s biggest names. His podcasts are climbing in the iTunes charts all of the time and his future looks set to explode even further.
We catch up with Paul to find out how he became a DJ, what he’s currently up to and what advice he would give to rising London DJs.
The following is a transcript of selected questions within the interview. To hear the full interview, please download the audio file using the “Quick links” box at the top right of this page.
So when did you first discover music?
That must have been when I was a lot younger than I am now. When I was about 14/15, I remember I was at school back when Happy Hardcore was absolutely massive and back then I’d never heard of things like Slammin’ Vinyl or Dreamscape or any of the other big promoters and there was a mix tape floating around from one of the dreamscape tape packs. I think it was a Slipmatt mix and I got my hands on it and had a listen. It was something absolutely unheard of. It was different to anything I’d ever heard before and what I really liked about it was the MC’s on it. Again, that was something new to me at the time. It was the energy and the happy uplifting feeling. It was about 1994-1995, it was DJ’s like Slipmatt and Vibes and MC Robbie D as well. I absolutely caned that tape to death. That’s how I started getting into music; it was my first major influence. I started to think “Wow, hang on, music’s absolutely great”.
What was your motivation to move into the DJ’ing?
The motivation was my friends and the people that I hung about with. Music was a way of life for me back then, and it still is today. Just being involved in all kinds of aspects of it, even putting on events and DJ’ing at friends’ parties it was just such a buzz and something that I really enjoyed. The thing that motivated me was what I got back out of it. From putting a little bit of effort into helping set up these parties and run them and either do the DJ’ing or MC’ing, it was just such a buzz and that’s what kept me going. I would just carry on looking for the next booking, the next event and the next date.
If we were talking about you putting on a theoretical event, where you had an unlimited budget, what 3 DJ’s would you have there, from any genre of music?
God, I’ve never been approached with that before! I would definitely have Slipmatt there doing an oldskool set, without a shadow of a doubt. I’d have Slipmatt and Vibes back to back. What I really liked about Vibes was he played all kinds of stuff. It just worked for him. He wasn’t the best mixer in the world, I know he’s still playing out now, but his tune selection was always spot on, and Slipmatt was obviously the godfather of Happy Hardcore. I’d also have Ian Carey and Raul Rincon going back to back or DJ number two. That would be an absolutely phenomenal set and I’d probably get a live P.A. down from Katherine Ellis as I think some of the vocals she does are spot on and the people she that she works with as well produces the sounds that I like. That would be my line up.
Do you think as a DJ it’s important to know your music? Is there anything else that a DJ should do to make someone’s nights special?
They have to really closely understand the music they’ve got in their collection. They have to know what tunes go together, they have to know how to work a crowd, they have to know how to look at a crowds feet and work out what sounds are working for the crowd and they have to know how to give the crowd what they want. It’s not something that I can easily describe in words; it’s more of a feeling. If you’re playing something a bit mellow and you take it up a notch and the crowd seem to really go for it, then the next record, you know, take it up another little notch. But when you do that it’s got to be tunes that go well together, it has to be roughly the same kind of tempo, the same kind of vibe and just tweaking it, getting a little bit tougher or a little bit grittier depending on the style of music that you’re playing. That’s something that’s important for every DJ to know!
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