DREAMS

Before he was old enough, and with his parents waiting outside, Cristoph started playing round town. At that time, there was a chance he might have gone on to play football professionally. There were a few teams sniffing around, but he felt the pressure was too great, so DJing become his main focus.

“I was the only real house DJ back then,” he says as we head down some steps into RPM Music. He used to come here with his pocket money (or to HMV, or Air Records) and seek out the tunes he’d heard that weekend at Shindig, or before that, “shit, awful stuff like Eiffel 65”.

While playing those bars, Cristoph said he often got sacked because he wouldn’t play the cheesy R&B that the owners wanted. He became obsessed with Sasha, Digweed, and progressive house, but it was too underground. However, everything changed when he made his first big tune, ‘Guffaz’.

He had worked hard at teaching himself how to produce, knowing it would help him break out of the local scene. He’d done so after he lost a friend, who unwittingly took too many painkillers to deal with a toothache. He realised we can disappear from this earth at any moment and set out in pursuit of his dreams in earnest.

Some years ago, he’d finished a degree after first starting one in Leeds then dropping out, and then getting caught out for plagiarism on a Criminology course at Northumberland. “I just didn’t go, mate,” he says. “I cannot park for shit, even in the little Citroën I had then, so if I couldn’t find an easy space I’d just go home and play computer games with the lads.”

Despite being caught out, he was allowed to finish the degree with the help of his sister who he says, “basically wrote my dissertation for me”. Soon after, he was taking a wage from the family business. He was supposed to be out collecting monies owed, but often didn’t. The family understood and allowed it to carry on, which he views as invaluable in allowing him to get where he is today.

‘Guffaz’, which like all his tunes is named after one of his mates, had a sample in it that needed to be cleared. When Cristoph sent off the tune — and the sample clearance request — Defected loved it. They asked if they could release it and wanted any other music that he had. It was the moment that broke his name, releasing music on Last Night On Earth, Bedrock, and other key labels.

FRIENDS

Later, we visit a cosy local gym. Cristoph works out here two or three times a day in order to “stay focused” and later says that pretty much every day he eats the same to help stay in shape: a peanut protein shake, a half chicken from Asda, microwave rice, five eggs, an avocado, tuna pasta, and a second shake. The small, independent gym has a range of weights, rowing and running machines, and a huge chandelier on the ceiling.

All the staff are pleased to see him, which is unsurprising: despite being a big, muscular bloke who stands at least 6’3” tall, he’s down to earth and chatty. After passing us some water from the gym’s fridge, he’s shouting out his friends again.

“They were really supportive of me coming up,” he says. “They would understand when I said I didn’t want to go out partying.” He’d stay at home, teaching himself how to make music while they lay about drinking vodka and watching him. “They’re as surprised and amazed by my success as I am,” he says. “They’re on a few Facebook fan pages dedicated to me and are always messaging about how crazy it is that these people follow me so closely.”

He says they can’t be trusted to come on tour with him, as they get too excited by the free drink, and every time he makes a new tune they tell him it’s his best yet, so he tends to rely on Prydz’s opinion more on that front.

In the gym, we talk about his father’s death a few years ago. Despite having terminal cancer, it still came quicker than expected. Cristoph had also lost an uncle the year before, as well as two friends, so it knocked him sideways. They were best friends who would often go away together on holiday, just the two of them. “If he was alive now he’d probably be my tour manager,” he says.

Taking just a week off after losing his dad, he threw himself into music and produced his 8-track mini-album for Knee Deep In Sound. Music making was, as is often the case, therapy for him and a way to get out some of his feelings. “If he was alive now he’d probably be my tour manager,” he says.