MC Zit

Jamie Blawan gets it. He just slotted straight in. He was loving it. He DJed, and then went out on the dancefloor and he partied and everyone just welcomed him.

Paul Bailey

The last two or three years there are loads of obviously much younger people coming to the House, so it’s not just a nostalgia night. They seem like the same sort of people as well, which is brilliant because it means it’s still working.

Elaine Edmundson

The last one we went to at Halloween [2016], we got there about half 11 and it was the most packed that we’d seen it for some time. Lots of younger people joining in and absolutely going for it right from the start. It reminded us very much of the vibe you got in the ’90s because it was packed and a lot of younger people were joining in as well. Whole families came along!

Chris HOG

Loads of the people involved have got kids. Their kids have turned up. That just started happening in the last couple of years. That’s just fucking weird. I don’t know what to say about that. It’s going to happen though, isn’t it?

Terry Donovan

The last time I played there in October [2016] was one of the best atmospheres I could remember. I sat in the booth while Nicky played and the energy in the room was amazing by 11 PM. The fact that you’re still capable of getting nights like that after however many years just tells you everything you need to know. People are discovering it all the time.

Sir Real

Doing it every week, now it would be Thursday before I’d be ready to go out again, really. Obviously we were younger and all that, but it’s like we entered some kind of bubble and just stayed there for years. Then you kind of come out the other side and realize you’ve spent half your life doing this thing.

Paul Bailey

The energy the crowd has is absolutely fantastic at House of God. I’ve been in some perfectly good events where people don’t get that enthusiastic, they don’t feel like it’s theirs, whereas people think the House of God is theirs. They’ve grown up with it.

Chris HOG

The crowd are massively important to what we do. I think people who have come really want to come to it. Most people will know somebody. There were tons of people at the last House of God who had never been there before, and I know that by the end of the night, most of them will have met somebody who they don’t know. There’s a real feeling of people looking after each other, and that’s just built up over the years.

Terry Donovan

There’s always been a desire to make the night much more varied than you would expect at a traditional techno night. It’s definitely the techno club where you can take the most risks. I think one of the things that philosophically Chris and everybody’s bought off on is an equal value between the DJs, the lighting and production people and the crowd. If you can view all of those people involved in that equally, you get a much better understanding of why the night works well.

Surgeon

It’s never been a pure techno club. It’s always been a weird collision of styles. I think that’s one of the fundamentally important parts of the club that’s often overlooked. People mistakenly think it’s a pure techno club and it couldn’t be further from that, really.

Terry Donovan

Why would you come to House of God and play a bunch of records made by Tony and Karl if they’re already playing? It’s never been the case where you’d walk in and hear Downwards, Dynamic Tension, etc…for eight hours straight, but when you would hear it, it would be done beautifully.

Jerome Hill

You always build up preconceptions about a night, and when you get there, if it’s a good gig, it’s always just a big party that everyone’s having loads of fun at and you just play what you want to play, which of course it was. I remember playing “Surfin’ Bird” by the Trashmen at some point during my set, and Chris told me later he asked me back because he was so happy that I played that record.

Nik Wells

We’re very much into celebrating Birmingham and its heritage of heavy music, and it’s one of them where you just don’t take yourself so seriously. That’s the downfall of far too many clubs, being all po-faced and serious.

MC Zit

It’s a punk attitude, in a way. It seems almost antisocial, but actually it’s extremely social. It’s extremely caring. There’s no misogyny, there’s no bullshit.

Sir Real

I say freaks flock together, and I think this is definitely true of what happened with House of God.