Clubbing Magazine

Danny Howells: “It’s not about big tunes”
From Hasting in the UK comes one the best DJ’s in progressive house music. Danny Howells started DJ’ing professionally in 1990 quitting a job as a psychiatric nurse. He was spotted by John Digweed who offered him a spot as a resident DJ at his Bedrock nights. This led him to other gigs around the UK and the rest of the world. He has held residencies at several of the world's leading clubs, including Ministry of Sound, Twilo, Home and Renaissance. He is now embarking on new adventures that are taking him around the world doing what he is doing the best – playing records. He now has residencies at Renaissance in the UK and at Vinyl in New York, where he played his ever first 10-hours set. You are a producer and a DJ. What is the background for that? - Well it is difficult to explain. I think if you are doing both, the production and DJ’ing, it gives you an understanding of the other. So if you are DJ’ing a lot you get a feeling of what works. When you are in the studio you are thinking of what was working at the club. I have always wanted to do production and when technology changed I was able to go into the studio without playing an instrument probably. I have a partner Dick Trevor who is very good, he likes to golf and to see his girlfriend, so he teaches me how to use the studio. He is not possessive like some of the other people I have worked with. It’s his studio we are using and he is helping me a lot on doing my stuff. You have released “Repercussion/Persuasion” on Bedrock and “Breath” on Renaissance under the Science Department name. Tell me about that and your new project Kinky Funk? - I do tent to react against a lot of the things that are going on. At the time we did the “Repercussion/Persuasion” single for Bedrock, I also did the first Nocturnal Frequencies, it was just trance trance ……, it was the commercial stuff, like Judge Jules, really cheesy, so instead of doing my normal thing I would like to push it down even further, so we did the single for Bedrock, which is relay slow, relay warm up music. The Science Department is progressive and we are going to make it more vocal. We have released “Breath” on Renaissance with vocals by Eririe and she is a great singer. The next one is nearly ready to go and that is the Kinky Funk, it is coming out on Yoshitoshi. It is slower, groovier and wider sort of things, mainly instrumental.
You have just released your first compilation on Renaissance, you have done 3 releases in your Nocturnal Frequencies series and you have also done a compilation for Global Underground’s Nubreed series. Tell me about the differences in these releases, are they snapshot on what you are DJ’ing at the time they were done? - Yea - they are totally snapshots. When I am doing a CD I sit down with all the records I am playing at the clubs. There are so many records that are so powerful at the club, usually they are harder more techno stuff, but I haven’t been brave enough to put them on a CD yet, but I have touched it on the number 3 in the Nocturnal Frequencies series. I have put some of the more progressive stuff on the Nubreed album, but I haven’t ever gone mental. The third one in the Nocturnal Frequencies series is different, it has more vocal tracks, the first two are very instrumental. The first two in the Nocturnal Frequencies series I mixed live. But I found doing nr. 3 hard doing because there were a lot of tracks that I played in the club finished so quickly. The new one is my first CD for Renaissance, it was done alongside Nick Warren. Do you have total control on what is put on the compilation? - I have a 100% control on what is going on the compilations. If I was asked to do a compilation where they would ask me to put certain tracks on it I wouldn’t be able to do it. I think it can happen if you are working with big compilation companies. Global Underground has a reputation on that fact that they give the DJ full control, but they have a certain quality to their releases as well of the music and the mixes. They didn’t have any control with me; they said, “Okay do what you want to do”. If you work with some of the big commercial companies, more TV based, like Ministry Of Sound, I think they are going to be a lot of difference – they are going to say that you loose control. You have done remixes for example of Robbie Williams, BT, David Morales. Doing remixes, are you not afraid of giving some of your own ideas away? - It is true that you are giving a lot away, but it can work in your favour I think, it can give your carrier a boost. My second remix I did was for Robbie Williams “South of the border”, there was nothing in it we could use, so you have tiny bits of spoken words, and you are making your own track. Doing your own track is much more rewarding, lately we haven’t been offered tracks that we said, “wow we have to do this track”, so we have just been working on our own stuff, building some new ones. How do you see the Progressive scene versus the trance scene? - I think that the whole progressive scene would never have the same attraction to the mass public or for the record buying public as the trance scene, because it’s not about big tunes.
	Audio part You can listen to a telephone interview with Danny, talking about his 24:7 release and other stuff. The Interview was done in the fall 2003 here. Length: 20,25 min, mono 32kbps Size: 4788Kb Format: MP3
	Interview by: Christian Almind Interview published: Clubbing Magazine # 3 Feb-Mar 2002