Livvy interviewed Uncle Dugs from kool 94.6fm

Renegade: When and where did you start DJing / producing?

Uncle Dugs: I started djing in 1991, strictly bedroom nation for the first couple of years

Renegade: How did you get your dj name?

Uncle Dugs: The Dugs bit of my name is related to my actual name, the Uncle bit got added years later by some younger members of a radio station i was with at the time and it just stuck.. It fits well with playin old skool so it was meant to be..!!

Renegade: How did you originaly get into the scene and who got you into it?

Uncle Dugs: My 2 older cousins got me into the scene originally, they took me to Raindance (The Egg) @ Jenkins Lane Easter 1991 and basically my life changed that night...!!

Renegade: What and who were your influences?

Uncle Dugs: My first influences were 2 djs by the name of Lloyd Anthony & Chris Watts, these were the 1st 2 dj's i was around and who were regularly playing at parties and this gave me the early kick up the arse to buy a set of turntables and get involved, i owe them 2 so much and they dont even know.. Once i had decided that i wanted to dj i can only really say that Kool FM was my biggest influence from then on in, the Kool years of 1992-1997 pretty much shaped my life, from raving - what tunes i wanted, Kool was like an extended part of my family for them times, saying that it still is now...

Renegade: Darkside or uplifting tunes?

Uncle Dugs: Darkside for me,ruff n rawDepends really, i like a bit of both, i cant say one over the other cos they both have a place in my selections depending on what era i am playing.. Personally though i like to play the ragga jungle more than anything if i can get away with it..

Renegade: How serious were you when you started DJing & producing and how serious are you now?

Uncle Dugs: For the first 2 or 3 years i knew i wanted to be a 'dj' but i never really thought to much further than parties and bedroom mixing but when it got to about 1993/4 i decided that i wanted to take it more serious and started sending tapes out etc etc,.. After i got my first show on pirate radio around the end of 94 i really started to try to get myself about a bit more although looking back now i didnt really have a clue, i was running around like a nutter but going nowhere fast..!! There is so much more to it than just djing, that what i didnt understand in them early years, you gotta put yourself about so much, i think i just thought that one day someone would spot me and they would make me a superstar dj.. Yeah sure...!!! Nowadays im a bit older and wiser and i take my music very serious, more serious than i ever have done in my life, and slowly but surely things are coming together...

Renegade: What and when were your first events as a raver?

Uncle Dugs: Raindance 'The Egg' Jenkins Lane Easter 1991, after that i was hooked..!!

Renegade: What and when were your first live DJing experiances? (radio & events/parties)

Uncle Dugs: My first radio show was Saturday 8-10pm on Conflict FM (89.4 originally) around the end of 1994/beginning 1995, a show which i held for about 2 years with MC 205, as for parties and events i suppose my first proper booking that wasnt a mates party or something was at Oscars in Clacton, i think the event was called Planet Earth and i remember being paid �10 expenses for it, bloody cost me twice that just to get there and back but none of that mattered, it was what i always wanted...

Renegade: Who were your favorate DJs Back in the day & now?

Uncle Dugs: When i first started raving my favourite djs were the Labrynth djs cos i spent so many weekends down there, djs such as Lloyd Anthony, Roger Johnson & DJ Unity etc etc, then as i got older and the Jungle era started my favourite djs i suppose were Ron @ SL, Brockie, Darren Jay & Mickey Finn, Hype and Bryan Gee but also a few of the Kool djs that werent so well known such as Easy D, Footloose, Pressure X, Tonic and a few others... As for now Andy C, Friction and EZ are the main djs i check for, all 3 of them are the top of the game in the music they play..

Renegade: Whats the most influential tune you have heard?

Uncle Dugs: Errrrm, cor there is a few aint there, off the top of my head the influential tunes in my world have been : We R e, 28 Gun Badboy, Terminator, Dirty Games, Dread Bass, Roll On, there is loads but if i had to pick one then for me it would probably have to be Dead Dread - Dread Bass, its not my favourite tune by far but i remember hearing this at Telepathy @ Roller Express, im not even sure who was playing it but i was sitting talking with a random guy for 5 mins when he must have heard the intro bit, me and most of the crowd didnt know nothing about it at the time, he was so excited tryin to tell me to wait for this tune that he couldnt get the words out quick enough, before you knew it the gunshot part sounded and the tune dropped in, the whole crowd kinda stopped for a minute not knowing what the tune was and then the place went off, im sure it got a few rewinds and whatever but the next time i heard it was on Kool about a month or 2 later and i remember where i was parked in my car, who i was with and talkin about it constantly till i got a copy.. There hasnt been a tune that i remember hearing 1st in so much detail before or since...

Renegade: What is & was your fave club to go out raving / play at?

Uncle Dugs: My favourite place back in the day to rave in was The Tasco Warehouse, Nathan Way,Plumstead, i near enough lived there in 1992 lol.. To play at, i would say either Ministry because on a good night the system and the dj set up is toppa top or recently i was at a club called Area in Vauxhall for A Jungle Fever, this club has a perfect set up with a lazer & light show like i haven't seen for years and a nice sounding system.. I wont go into the worst ones cos there is plenty of contenders for that title...!!

Renegade: Who do you rate as the best producers & labels from 1988-presant day?

Uncle Dugs: Noise Factory were my favourite producers around the 92-93 era, i think they are really underated, they made so many classic tunes its a joke.. Erm, Shadow, Reinforced, Production House, Sub Base & The Labello boys were also banging out classic after classic regardless of the actual producers making them.. As the Jungle years came in i suppose the main labels for me were Ram, Philly Blunt, V, Full Cycle, Dope Dragon, Metalheads and a few others... The big labels become big for a reason... Obviously there was others and white labels also that tore the place up but for consistency then them above were the ones for me...

Renegade: What is your prefered genre to listen to / make / play now?

Uncle Dugs: I play Old Skool mainly although i do play upfront D&B on occasions, in fact in the last few weeks i have had more work playing new than old...!! As for listening wise i pretty much listen to everything from Drum and Bass to the Beatles

Renegade: Whats the best night raving you have ever had?

Uncle Dugs: There has been toooo many but if i had to pick one it would be The Living Dream @ The Eastway in East London (i do believe its now an olympic site for something or other) I have very fond memories of that night...

Renegade: Do you have a pet? is so what is it and whats their name?

Uncle Dugs: I got a cat called Boy, he is one of the crew...

Renegade: Vinyl / cd / mp3? - what do you use?

Uncle Dugs: Vinyl only, im a firm believer in vinyl still... I hear producers moaning about not selling units no more then i see them playing a whole set of cds in front of the crowd that they want to go out and buy there tunes, if a kid see's there idol playing cd's why are they gonna go and buy it from the record shop when they can get a copy for free off the internet...

Renegade: Where do you see yourself in 5 years time?

Uncle Dugs: In 5 years time if im still here ill be 5 years older than i am now, thats the only garauntee in life but i would hope that i'll be doing ok off of what i got planned for the future but that is all top secret hush hush for now, being succesfull and happy in what im doing is good for me though..-/p>

Renegade: What are your aims and goals now?

Uncle Dugs: My aim is to keep doing what im doing, i am slowly gettin to where i wanna be but once you get to the top of one ladder the next one starts...!! Its a never ending saga but i love it..

Renegade: What Djs would you love to B2B with?

Uncle Dugs: B2B aka clash lol, in my mind any b2b is a private clash, even if i am doin a b2b with a friend for a mess about i wanna be better than them..!! Sorry back to the question, Any of the big boys on the circuit, as long as its an old skool set i reckon i could take any one of them out ;)

Renegade: What producers would you love to work with?

Uncle Dugs: Im not really into that side of the music to be honest, i have owned labels, distribution companies and so on but the actual sitting down in a studio side of it has never really appealed to me, i get bored quickly and it does my head in listenin to one beat or snare about a trillion times.. But saying that i would like to sit down in a studio with someone like Rob Playford and just talk to him about music, people like him are a big reason our scene became so big cos they were making such good music straight out the UK...

Renegade: What advise would you give to young DJs & Producers?

Uncle Dugs: Dont give up, i know thats an old cliche' but its the best advice.. If you believe in what you are doing then in the end others will, its just sometimes it takes a hell of a lot longer than you maybe first thought it would...!!

Renegade: What do you think of female DJs & Producers?

Uncle Dugs: All good, i dont see what it matters, a record sounds the same whoever puts it on the deck, if a female is as good or better than the male then give her the job and the ��'s.. Same with producing, i couldnt care who made the tune, if its good then its good..

Renegade: Whats your fondest memory in the scene?

Uncle Dugs: The whole of it, watching it grow from not much into the worldwide success its become.. Thing is cos its our own music originally from the Uk its like it belongs to us all, if you was a raver, dj, producer or anything from back then you know what i mean.. Its like havin a kid and watching it grow up and move out of house and go on its own travels, it was only the people from before me and after me that kept it goin cos at certain times it was like the whole world was against it...!! We all did our own little part to keep it going and now look at it... A Massive success spanning the globe, i got a 18 year memory of it that i love...

Renegade: Whats your fave food & drink?

Uncle Dugs: Food wise im terrible, i should be on freaky eaters.. Both me and Fuzion always say we wish there was a pill we could take so we never had to eat again..!! Chicken and Rice is me though... As for drink, Robinsons Summer Fruits in the day, Brandy n Coke at night.

Renegade: Where would you take someone on a 1st date?

Uncle Dugs: I cant let out my secrets..!! A good 1st date usually ends up at Club Uncle though.. lol..

Renegade: What do you do when your chilling out?

Uncle Dugs: Smoke far to much weed...

Renegade: Whats your day job?

Uncle Dugs: I am pretty much involved in music 24/7 these days wether it be the radio, the shop we run (Record Box in Gants Hill Essex www.therecordboxuk.com), djing, flyering or something else, its really taken over my life fully nowadays...

Renegade: What do you think of the new genres? (hardcore breaks / nu rave / dub step / uk hardcore)

Uncle Dugs: I dont wanna be negative about anything so ill only say that i love Dubstep, I was around the whole dubstep thing when it started emerging about 5/6 or so years ago and i have once again enjoyed watching it grow from nothing to the huge success it is rapidly becoming, i know quite a few of the Dubstep headz and im so glad its going so well for them, they are mostly a really good group of people and i love seeing them doing so well travelling the world with there new sound... Thumbs up for Dubstep..!!

Renegade: Nike or Addidas?

Uncle Dugs: Nike Trainers, Adidas Tracksuit tops...

Renegade: Whats your greatest fear?

Uncle Dugs: The Wrath of my Mum or Nan if i do wrong and they find out....

Renegade: Whats your most prized possestion?

Uncle Dugs: My records, flyers and tapes.... Nothing else comes close...

Renegade: What would you do in your life differant if you could start over?

Uncle Dugs: I wouldnt have started smoking but apart from that i wouldnt change anything..

Renegade: Any funny stories of your time in the scene?

Uncle Dugs: Most of them are x-rated and not for anyone elses eyes or ears ha ha...

Renegade: Where can we expect to see you in the near future?

Uncle Dugs: Catch me on Kool 94.6FM Mondays 12-3 in the afternoon with The Connoisseur show and Thursdays at the same time alongside 5ive-o and Miss Diamond for the Packed Lunch, Londons liveliest talk radio show.. As for raves in the comin months you can catch me at Jungle Fever, Breakin Science, The Kool 17th Birthday party, Low Down Deep, Rinse @ The End, The Monday Club, Most of the Kool Fm tour nights and Dance Concept amongst other things...

Renegade: CHEERS FOR THAT - BIG UP AND NUFF RESPECT FOR YOUR TIME.