Definitely. You always have five records that are perfect blends, that you know go well together. For me, every sixth months or so, I like to switch it up, because there's YouTube and there's SoundCloud—you don't want people knowing what you're going to do. I like to surprise people.Get the crowd to trust you, starting by playing three or four records that are in the vein of what they're listening to. This is why you should get to the club an hour or two before you actually play. If you're already there you might find out that they're not really a vocal crowd—but I want to play vocals tonight. How do we do that? So maybe I'm gonna play a couple things they like, no vocals. Now I'm gonna play you something that has a vocal dub, now I'm gonna play you something that doesn't, and then I'll play some more vocals.Definitely. That thing we talked about, trusting the DJ—you gotta do that a little bit longer. These people don't know you or what kind of a set you playing. You get some gigs and think, "Errr, why would you put me on after this guy who's playing like 135 BPM? Have you checked my résumé? Have you listened to a mix?" So you can tell people aren't paying attention, which hurts. We should care.Every DJ has a different story to tell. If you doin' a love subject, it could be with songs about love that people don't actually know. "Oh why's this thing happening? Oh why do I feel this way?" It's because subliminally you don't know that he's playing all these love songs. It's basically trying to figure out this puzzle of how music fits together to you. And that's the big part of being a selector.When I'm DJing, I plan six records ahead. So as I'm playing this one, I'm thinking of the next six and how they are going to fit together. That's also what I mean by story. How can I make this record help me go anywhere I want to go? So, if I'm playing a Theo record with a jazz sample, then that means I can actually play a jazz record. If I'm playing some hip-hop stuff, there are ways that I can get back into house, because some hip-hop samples house, or vice versa.To me it works on two levels. There's the opening DJ, and then there's the headliner. A lot of DJs always feel they get pushed into being an opening DJ, which I think is the most important part of the night. They start the vibe of the party. You are on the same team as the headliner. It's not him versus you, it shouldn't be him versus anybody. They set the vibe, and then you—as the headliner—comes in and takes it from where he left it, and hopefully it's in a good place.Good DJ etiquette is also knowing the other DJ's work. I don't think you should play their music. Don't try to go louder or harder than this person, if you know their style. Because that's bad energy. No DJ wants to walk into a booth and see the DJ in the red already. Why? That's not good DJ etiquette. You’re not even giving yourself a volume to work with.No! Why?People get into these really stupid arguments over analogue and digital. I don't care what you're doing. You moving the crowd? Keep it moving. That's that. Now, I get why people use sync. But I also like the excitement of it being off, or being just a little wrong. Maybe you get a phase on it that you wouldn't have got just syncing it. Or just by being behind, it just sits right a little bit better.Sometimes it's like watching a race—you like, "Oooooh, oooooh, is he gonna make it? Oh he made it work. Oh yes, son!" That means you are with me, I got you. You don't get that if it's all linear and perfect. I've seen sets like that, and it's good and it sounds great, but there's no excitement.Definitely. It's the same thing as when the amp overheats or the system cuts. Who does everybody look at? They don't look at the people who actually made the mistake, they don't look at the guy who kicked off the plug—they look at you. All eyes are on you.I stay sober, but I'll have two gin and tonics—usually one at the beginning and then one at the end. I'm concentrating, and I don't want drinking to be the cause of me having a bad set. If I'm having a bad set, it's because I'm having a bad set. I don't want it to be because I had three or four of those and I wasn't thinking clearly. I want full responsibility, and don't wanna be doing a trick, and doing it—like I said—for too long. If you drink, you're not thinking. Or if you're on whatever, you're not thinking sharply. I have to be on point as much as I can.Not really, because I don't get why there's really an argument about it. It's not like we got all these clubs with properly tuned and maintained systems. Every system varies, so yes I think it should start out as a good file. To me, the whole mp3 to wav or higher quality, of course it matters. But on some of these systems, it doesn't matter. And then still, until you negate all of that, let's go back to point one—are people dancing? Yes. So if there's ten people talking about how it sounds more digital—honestly? Fuck you. Because it's not about that, that's not why you here, to figure out the sonics. It's the freakin' dance. Back in the day we wasn't considering sonics. We heard some of the best music on the worst systems, and vice versa, and still made it work. So now we gonna get to the point where it's a thing? No man, it's about the vibe. That's all you need to be concerned about. Yes, your vinyl should sound good, but if the mp3 is all you got and it's the best you can do, it shouldn't matter.Right. Who cares if you can't even put 'em together? Or who cares if the system is whack, it don't even matter. If the system is whack, it's gonna sound whack. So, before you get into all of that, are you making the people dance? Because they certainly not on the floor saying, "yeah, this is a mp3, I'm not dancing., my ear tastes mp3,, I don't like this taste, I'mma go have a smoke, talk to my girlfriend, or go talk to this girl." No, they gonna keep dancing, unless it sounds really bad. Unless we can definitely tell the difference, but really it shouldn't boil down to that. Yes, I think at all times you should have the best quality music you can play out. But it shouldn't be something that people argue about.It's all super positive. I mean, the CDJ is why I jumped from turntables. They're more compact, and nine times out of ten they'll sound good. I don't have to worry about static, or hope and pray the turntables are stabilising at a point so the feedback doesn't mess with it too much. These are headaches. Hoping and praying that the turntables are managed well, because that was a thing. You'd get to a place, and somebody had spilt beer or whatever into the pitch.Yeah, it was right.I don't know one artist who hasn't had a point in their career where they're like, "Hmmm, fuck this. Do I even matter?" To an artist, it matters that they matter, because you could do other things. But if you really love this, it matters that you matter. So you start looking around, and you don't see your old friends around. That support system is gone. Here's the new crew coming in. Do they like you? You gotta deal with that again, you gotta make friends. Are you gonna trust these people? The main question is, "Why am I really doing this? Am I playing myself?" Because I'm not overly successful, but I really love this thing, and the reason I got into it was because I really loved it, and no matter what, this is something I dedicated my life to.Am I playing myself at 40 years old? You gotta ask yourself this question. And for a time it was like, "Man, yeah you are." But, the reason I came back to it was, one: I gotta do it till I die, it's just in me. Two: once you start taking away the pieces, and we've lost so many through death, the bar gets lower. So if I'm not in the fight, if I'm not part of that bar, then that bar gets lowered. So you can't complain about it, you gotta stay in. I can't complain about if I don't make music anymore, and if I'm not in the fight. So that's why I'm in here till I die. I couldn't stop it if I wanted to.