We Got secretsundaze and Nick Höppner to Reflect on 15 Years at the Forefront of Contemporary Club Culture

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We Got secretsundaze and Nick Höppner to Reflect on 15 Years at the Forefront of Contemporary Club Culture

Three of Europe's most beloved house DJs shoot the breeze ahead of the secretsundaze 15th anniversary party.

For 15 years now James Priestley and Giles Smith have been throwing the kind of parties that attract the brightest and best in cutting edge house and techno. Their secretsundaze events have become jewels in the crown of UK nightlife—expressive, open, warm parties that actually feel like parties rather than an opportunity to spunk the best part of $65 (£50) on a few cans of Red Stripe and an Aperol spritz n a room that feels like being wrapped in a damp, musty flannel. This weekend they celebrate their 15th birthday with a huge day and night party at Oval Space in east London. They've decided to bring Ostgut Ton's star man Nick Höppner along for the ride too.

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They'll also be joined on the night by everyone's favorite apple pie aficionado Prosumer, and the criminally underrated Jane Fitz, who for our money is quite possibly the best DJ in the UK right now. We're pretty confident that it'll be one of the best parties of the year and you'd be an absolute fool to miss out on spending the day and night down at Oval Space. Oh, and they promise us, "there will be a special one-off, never to be repeated again, four hour surprise b2b session which will serve as a perfect celebration of Secretsundaze 15 year history." Which is pretty, pretty exciting.

Before all that though, why not read the results of what happened when we interrupted James and Giles' holidays to get them in four-way Skype call with Nick and I. The result is an intriguing and illuminating look into the ever-changing world of nightlife by three men who know pretty much everything there is to know about club culture.

THUMP: Let's start with a big question: what's been the most noticeable change in clubs and club culture since the birth of secretsundaze?
James Priestley: Professionalism has become so much more important over the last 15 years. There's a lot more attention to detail in certain places. Soundsystems as a whole have come on in leaps and bounds in the last five years, especially compared to the clubs of the early 00s. As clubbing culture has become bigger, and possibly more significant, clubs have had to up their games. It's not so much the physical environment that's changed as the social one.
**Nick **Höppner: For me personally, the club I'm affiliated with—Berghain—had to move location in 2003, 2004, because the old Ostgut location has been redeveloped as a multi-purpose sports and event space. There's a new entertainment district which looks pretty bad from what I've read and seen about it. So we moved somewhere three or four times larger than the first space. With that came a huge leap in professionalism. Soundsystems, lighting, architecture, management. The old club was more improvised, makeshift.
Giles Smith: I'd echo all of that. Another thing is that if you look at the scene from the 80s, 90s, it was a lot more underground. When James and I went to school there weren't many people going to the kind of clubs where you'd hear that stuff. Now, with the change from the underground to popular culture, things are changing. Clubs are better organized. And maybe some spirit has been lost, and we've got some sanitized clubs. Berghain's a great exception. Even the lack of mirrors there is important: people aren't so worried about what they look like. At most clubs they are.
Nick: One thing that has disappeared is the removal of the ambient and chill out rooms which used to be a staple until the late 90s. And that's streamlining and efficiency. The way house and techno have gone in the last 15 years is a lot more functional. It's less risky, and at times more formulaic.
Giles: In years gone by raves were utopian and extravagant. Now it's more businesslike.

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But what, if any, are the benefits of that increase in professionalism?
Nick: To be honest, the biggest benefit is that I can support myself and my family by DJing. If you look at the group of DJs and producers making a living it's much bigger than it was 20 years ago. And a good proportion of those people are making decent money from it. It's become an actual career.
James: People have also been able to better themselves as DJs. They can up their game and take their art more seriously. Giles and I recently warmed up for Jamie xx at Hideout. The level of professionalism he brought with him was impressive and inspiring. He had a sound technician, a lighting technician. It made the performance, or experience, so much better than the average festival set. You don't get things like that unless the industry you're in has upped it's game. Being able to afford those things is impressive.
Nick: In an ideal world that wouldn't be necessary because the festival itself, or the club owner, should be taking care of things the way they should be taken care of. So on one hand things are getting better, but on the other, considering the amount of money involved in these things, you can end up in clubs where you can't even play vinyl. That's why I gave up using it. Even though everyone seems to be buying vinyl, and setting up vinyl-only labels, it's very hard to find a space that's set up to play them properly.
James: The people buying vinyl aren't the DJs on the road though. I used to work in Phonica and proper DJs would come in week in week out to buy vinyl. I still go there often and I very rarely see what I'd class as an on-the-road DJ in there. It's home listeners and hobbyists. There's nothing wrong with that at all, obviously.
Nick: I still don't get why the festivals and bigger clubs have such high production but aren't suited to playing vinyl.

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Why don't they do that then?
Nick: Well, less and less DJs want to play on vinyl because they have these bad experiences, and then promoters think, "Well, if only one out of the ten guys playing wants to use vinyl, that ratio doesn't work." That's just an attempt at an explanation.
James: There's a lack of knowledge too, and that might be generational. Younger sound engineers might not have grown up with vinyl. They also might have come from live music backgrounds and as such don't have the interest in dance music and DJs and vinyl. It's very easy to plug in a pair of CDJs and you're off. To properly set up turntables isn't easy.
Nick: Again, it's the streamlining thing. Everyone's concerned about sound quality and lights, and some of that risk taking has gone. There's very little tolerance for risk. Vinyl is a risk: the needle skips, fluff builds up, it'll never sound as loud as a .wav file played from a CDJ. People might not want to tolerate that level of risk.

How does life on the road affect you mentally and physically? DJing is, to an extent, a kind of nomadic occupation, which is interesting psychologically.
Nick: I've never got to a stage where I was on tour constantly. My career's developed very slowly and until three years ago I had a day job on the side of my DJing. Five years almost I became the father to twins. My wife is self-employed. I can't, and don't want to play 140 shows a year. Last year was my best ever and I did 80 shows. The real superstar DJs play 150 or something. This year it'll be 50, 60 gigs. So I never get to the stage where it takes a huge toll on me. I'm home more than those DJs. Last year was exhausting, though. Right now I've decided to not drink or take drugs any more. I still can't quit smoking though. And I'm doing better on the road now—I'm less exhausted, and recover quickly. That makes my job easier.
Giles: James has a wife and child, and we're approaching 40 now, and we've come off the back of our busiest three months in ages—doing around 12 gigs a month—and it does take a toll, yeah. You need to look after yourself. Which I'm trying to do. You've got to alter your behaviour as you play more and more if you want to retain your quality.
James: Once you have a family your responsibilities change and that affects everything. Cutting out those temptations helps with the travel. Giles and I, aside from the DJ, are pretty active in our office running the label and the events. We come back and have to be on the case. If we come back on a Sunday we might take the Monday off at a push.

When you're behind the decks and you're the focal point of a lot of people's evening, are you daunted and haunted by responsibility?
Nick: Each and every time, yes. There are gigs were I don't get that nervous but generally speaking every gig makes me nervous beforehand. I'm aware of the fact that people might have come just to see me, and they've spent money to be here, so yeah I think about that responsibility a lot. There's also the matter of competition. There are a lot of very good DJs out there and having a few bad gigs gets around. But that pressure is motivating. I like it like that. I want to be kept on my toes.
Giles: The minute that you stop feeling a sense of excitement and anticipation is worrying. James and I are often worrying about the vinyl setup, for example. That's something you've got to deal with before you even begin to think about crowds or records.
James: I've got less nervous since Giles and I started playing together. The emphasis isn't on you as an individual any more. Playing B2B allows you to step back and experience the evening a little more. You're not constantly thinking about what to play next and where to find it.

Do you get to check out clubs and DJs for pleasure? And are clubs still places where that sense of abandonment we like connect with them actually possible?
Nick: Rarely. When I play out at the weekend and come back on a Sunday I'm not going to Berghain. Unless it's someone I really appreciate and want to catch. Sometime last year Grain was playing Berghain for the first time. And I'm a fan of everything he does but the techno Arthur made as Grain is a blueprint for me. So I went down to check him out. And I did that because I had a weekend off. Other than that, if i've got a weekend off, I'm happy to be with my family. I'll go to the zoo rather than the club. I try and make clubs—when I'm playing—places I want to be. I might see a guy harassing a woman in the crowd, and I'll try and look at him and catch his eye and communicate with him non-verbally to stop. Or it might be something like the lighting guy using too much blue, which I don't like. If i see security treating people shittly, I'll have a word. I try and be active. If the promoters ask me about my experience I'm happy to offer feedback. That's all i can do.
James: Again. It's a rare occasion for me too. Generally I like to have fun in clubs before and after we play and that's when I get my clubbing fix in. I don't, unfortunately, feel like that abandonment is there all the time. There's a sterility to some clubs that wasn't there in the 90s. How do you make it feel like that again? You're limited as a DJ to the music you play and the message you carry with it.
Giles: How you display yourself to the crowd makes a difference. I don't think any of the three of us are going to be waving our hands around too much behind the decks. I like to make eye contact with people on the dancefloor to make a connection with the crowd. It's very rewarding. You have an exchange. I like to have fun with individuals on the floor.