As Frantic’s key resident, Andy Whitby is headlining their birthday celebrations on Bank Holiday Sunday 24th August at Koko. With his whirlwind schedule of international gigs, designing his own clothing range, productions being snapped up left, right & centre and promoting his One AWsum Night, it’s a wonder he managed to find time to answer a few questions for us!

So Andy, most important things first…what was it like on the photo shoot for Frantic’s 11th Birthday, being surrounded by gorgeous women in skimpy outfits for a day?

Well, I’m lucky enough to call all of them my friends, so I spend a lot of time with most of them on a weekly, if not daily, basis.

Photoshoots are always good fun as most people only see the results, but to get there it usually takes a full day of being on set, a thousand poses and ideas being bounced around until the photographer feels they have enough images to work with. The fact I was the only male and all the girls were wearing corsets really made the time fly by!

You were wearing a Phantom of the Opera mask for the shoot; he used to live underneath an old theatre like Koko & caused all sorts of problems. If you could hide away in the back passages of Koko what kind of mischief would you get up to?

I wouldn’t like to hide away in anyone’s back passage, but if I did live in Koko I’d obviously get to go to all the shows for free which would be nice! I think I’d be drunk each night aswell, due to having free reign on all the bars once the staff leave for the night.

What special tricks have you got planned for your main room set at Frantic 11?

That all depends if there’s a DJM800, which is my mixer of choice. If there is one, then expect the full show!

I’m going to be debuting lots of new tracks, edits and special tracks at this event, so I really can’t wait to get up there and rock Koko!

The main room line up’s looking pretty hot; who are you looking forward to seeing in there and in the other rooms?

Anne Savage b2b Cally Gage is a world-exclusive that I’m sure a lot of people are excited about, I’m really looking forward to that!

Klubfiller headlining the Regional Riots room is another set I’m going to make sure I don’t miss, partly because he’ll play a lot of our tracks and also because he’s such a close friend I have to offer my support don’t I!

Nathalie is another DJ I’ll want to watch, as one of my best friends I’m always interested in what she’s up to and as she comes to so many of my shows and stands at the front screaming like a mad woman it only seems fair to return the favour…although I’m not a woman and don’t scream, but you get the idea.

Mike Avery a.k.a Driver Mike is another best friend who I’ll be trying to watch. He’s shooting up the ranks very quickly and definitely has a unique sound and mixing style, which is setting him apart from other DJs right now.

Will you be joining in with the Masquerade Ball theme?

I don’t really ‘do’ shirts, but I’ll try and make myself look half decent.

Frantic’s Birthday at Koko is a bit of a clubbing institution, how does it compare to your other gigs? And did you prefer it when it was Camden Palace?

I never went when it was Camden Palace, so I can’t compare! I’m a Northerner at heart, so I only came to London to go shopping before I was a DJ.

Koko is one of the best venues on this earth and I’ve been to a fair few in my time! There’s something about stepping on the main stage and looking up and seeing people everywhere. For some people it might be a little overpowering having a sea of people towering over you, but I love it and if anything it makes me play better as I feed off all the energy in that huge room.

With your own night AWsum having run twice now, has that given you an understanding of the challenges of promoting a night?

Definitely. Running an event is a whole new ball game and it was something I wanted to tackle head-on when I started doing my own shows. Will Paterson has taught me a lot, and when it comes to putting on parties there’s not many people I’d want teaching me other than the promoter of Frantic!

The main difference is when you’re a DJ you only have to worry about what’s happening in the club for the hour or two that your playing, but when you’re a promoter you need to ensure that everyone is happy and enjoying themselves for the entire night; from door opening to kicking-out time.

What else have you got planned for the summer, I hear you’ve been a bit jet set lately?

I’m writing this interview a few hours after getting back from South Africa, so I’m a bit jet lagged as the last month as been hectic. I was in Ibiza a couple of weeks ago for my Judgement Sunday debut and shall be returning to the island a few more times over the following months.

This summer is all about me getting my One AWsum Tour ready for the end of this year and making sure the AWsum label is full stocked with enough music to carry us over to 2009. Judging by the amount of music Klubfiller, Matt Lee and myself have written in the last 6 months shouldn’t be a problem and I can’t wait for people to get there hands on what have been the biggest tracks in my record box.

And you’ve been as busy as ever on the production front.

I’ve just recently spent a full week in the studio working on new material for my own label, for Klubfiller’s label Defiance and some remixes for Nukleuz.

The E.P Stevie (Klubfiller) and I have cooked up has got me really excited. Both tracks; ‘Universal Sound’ and ‘Run 4 Cover’, are absolute dancefloor destroyers and have already been the biggest tracks in my box alongside the new remix Matt Lee and I have done of Stevie’s summer smash ‘Way Of Life’. For that remix we really wanted to go to town and try something different so the track was written at 150bpm, but it kicks back after the breakdown at 170bpm, so a little something to keep you all on you’re toes!

All of my production revolves around Matt Lee, Klubfiller and obviously myself. This is because it’s a sound I’ve been pioneering for a few years now and is the style of hard-dance that I feel is a positive direction for the scene, judging on the reactions I’ve been getting on the dancefloors each week and the amount of mails I get about them.

Each AWsum release sells more than the last and there’s a great selection of what’s to come on the label on the new Tidy Music For A Harder Generation CD I’ve mixed, which features 6 AWsum tracks.

Do you ever just get time to chill out at home in between gigs, promoting, producing…?

I try to chill out from midnight onwards during the week. I’ll work all day on PR, label and event issues then around midnight I start to ease back and maybe play some video games or read before bed so my mind is a little less active. If I don’t do that I find myself lying in bed thinking too much about what needs to be done the following day. I then try to get up before 11, so I’ve had at least 8hrs sleep…otherwise it takes about 3 cups of coffee and 3 cigarettes before I wake up properly!

How do you manage to find time to do everything you need to?

I make lists. I prioritise which are the most important tasks in hand and then work through them until I’m done. The problem with that is while you’re doing one, another 3 suddenly pop up and you’re stuck in an eternal loop of work…welcome to my life.

I also don’t go out much in the week apart from Tuesday, which is mine and driver Mike’s night of good restaurant food and drink. It gives us chance to relax for a few hours away from everything. We’ve done it every Tuesday for about 3 years now and it’s something I always look forward to.

What else do you have your sights set on now you’re involved in most aspects of the clubbing world?

My clubbing clothes range Whitbywear is something we’re working hard on expanding right now as we’re waiting on the T-shirt and top designer to hurry up and get our ideas back to us! There are 3 outfits available for girls right now and they have been selling very well, but I’m very keen to expand on that and offer clothes for both girls and boys.

We’ll be taking the current outfits and releasing them in several different camo variations, including baby blue, green and black/grey so there will be something for every clubbing girl who wishes to wear a little bit of Whitby!

I’ve also recently launched my own Youtube channel; AWsum.TV. I’m keen to start pushing that forward and offering an insight to what I get up to when I’m not on the decks as a lot of people only see me like that. I’ll be taking my Handycam everywhere and recording what I get up to and adding my thoughts on each night plus interviewing the AWsum 4sum (Cally Gage, Matt Lee, Klubfiller and myself) just to give people a better idea of what we’re about away from the music.

Will you be sticking around after your set at the Masquerade Ball?

I will indeed! I will be capturing lots of footage and a few interviews so I can put up an AWsum video diary of my Frantic 11 experience on www.awsum.tv, so I’ll be around for a while. All drink offers welcome!

Living in Peterborough (which isn’t quite the clubbing capital of the country!) is it hard having to travel miles to get to all of your gigs? Is there a hard dance scene near where you live?

Peterborough is actually one of the most ideal places a DJ can live in for playing all over the UK as it’s so central. Everywhere is a few hours away, and anywhere longer than that I usually fly anyway, so I’m happy to be living where I am.

The hardest part of being a DJ is the travel but I’m lucky enough to have 2 drivers; Mike and Steve, who usually do all the hard work for me so I can relax between shows and catch up with emails and texts. I’ve been told I’m the worse person ever at replying to texts as I usually just read it when it arrives and then put the phone down with the intention of replying once I’ve finished what I’m doing. 4 days later I usually get another text moaning about how crap I am as I forgot to text back!

Thank you Mr Whitby, we’ll be seeing you at Frantic’s Birthday at Koko next month!

Brilliant stuff, I can’t wait! See you at the front!

Frantic’s 11th Birthday Masquerade Ball @ Koko, 2100 – 0600, Bank Holiday Sunday 24th August 2008.

www.ticketweb.co.uk
www.franticuk.net/11