:: INTERVIEWS :: BEN STEVENS

Ru: With your passion for hard-house and based on my experience of seeing you play, Vicious Circle is a natural home for you. But how did you get in to that genre of dance music in the first place?

Ben: I have always had a passion for harder music, the first kind of music I remember buying was the prodigy album ‘Experience’ & I think that probably set me up for a love of the hard stuff! As far as hard house goes it was probably from hearing Glaz play each week at Insomniacz in Sheffield. Paul was always playing a style that was so different to the other dj’s on the night & I was instantly hooked.

Ru: How did you land your fist set, and when/where was it?

Ben: Haha it really depends what you class as my first set! I used to do mobile disco’s with a friend from school when I was about 15 so it was probably at a party of one of my parents friends. I got a residency at a club in Loughborough when I was doing my A-Levels playing house, trance & a little bit of harder stuff & we certainly had some good times there. As far as hard house that I play now my first gig was at Sunday Mass in Sheffield that a mate of mine Taz managed to get me. Along Glaz, Kate, & Scott (Cooper) Taz certainly has to be someone I have to thank for giving me a help in breaking into djing.

Ru: How did you get involved with Vicious Circle?

Ben: It was by pure luck really, I had met & got to know Paul & Scott when I was still living in Leeds & not going to uni very much. I decided that I was going to leave university & get myself a job rather than getting into more & more debt. I sent Scott & Paul an email on the off chance that they would be looking to take anyone on & it was at the time that they were just setting up the VC Store. In a couple more months I was down in Sheffield every day & loving working life!

Ru: I saw you play a really hard set at one of the Tidy Weekenders, (and loved it, by the way) – was that representative of your style?

Ben: That is certainly representitive of my style if I am playing a last set (especially at the weekenders). However I love playing at all different times in the night so my style has to change depending on the time. I love more funky groovy hard house at the beginning of the night & even some hard trance in the middle (people may find this hard to believe!) but my favourite set has to be the end of the night for full power attack!

Ru: How would you describe a Ben Stevens set to anyone that is yet to see you play?

Ben: Relentless, hopefully well mixed hard house.

Ru: Do you prefer playing at the big festivals and events or the small independent nights?

Ben: Each of the 2 has its good points for me, the festivals are really special because of the sheer number of people that are in front of you & I’m looking forward to hopefully doing that again this year!

The smaller nights though have such amazing atmospheres especially if its nice & dark with a low celing. A perfect example of this is Parlez-Vous? in Bradford, you take your own booze to & it’s a dark sweaty rave in a warehouse that’s perfect for hard house!

Ru: Of course DJing is only part the story; you have quite an impressive back catalogue of production work, which of your own tracks are particular favourites of yours?

Ben: My favourite original track is Traumatic which was a collaboration with Paul Maddox. It has all the elements of a good hard house track with a bit of melody thrown in aswell. As far as remixes go I have just done a mix of Kick It In by Paul King & the original mix of this is one of my all time favourite tracks. It will be coming out on the forthcoming Trauma Trax album so get it when you can guys!

Ru: You’ve worked with some key scene figures on the production side, how do such collaborations come about? Do you have a list of who you want to work with and tick them off as you go?

Ben: Haha not quite no, usually they have come about from people asking me to do it with them. I still feel a bit cheeky asking to do collaborations with the people that I look up to in the scene but hopefully I’ll be doing some more of them this year. I think the main people I’d like to do them with now are Glaz, Justin Bourne, Andy Farley & Dom Sweeten.

Ru: You're credited with mixing duties for “I Love VC” and “A Retrospective of VC”, the latter being a back to back with Paul Glazby, you are with one of the worlds finest hard-house labels and have gigs all over the world, and an impressive back catalogue, all before the age of 25. Where do you go from here?

Ben: I’ll just keep on doing what I am at the moment & hopefully people will like it. The tracks I write are primarily for me, so if other people like them & buy them then it’s a massive bonus as far as I’m concerned. It was a real pleasure to be asked to mix the 2 albums & I’d love to do some more stuff like that in the future. The international gigs are also a real pleasure & I’ve met some quality people in the countries I’ve been to. I feel very lucky to have a job that allows me to travel & see other parts of the world that I wouldn’t ever get the chance to see otherwise.

Ru: Dance music perhaps more competitive now than at any other time. Despite the success of labels like Vicious Circle, do you think it’s true that hard-house has had its day?

Ben: Certinaly not no, each week it seems that one genre of dance music dies & another one pop’s up out of the music press pages. Hard House has certainly reduced in popularity but if this years bookings are anything to go by then its on the up again, there are lots of new nights starting up & the big events are all still very busy. Let look forward to a quality 2007!

Ru: Naturally you are joining your fellow Vicious Circle and Red Management colleagues for VCr1 at Stylus, Leeds University on Sat 3rd Feb to celebrate 6 years of Vicious. In that time VC has built its self an awesome reputation; why do you think VC has been so successful?

Ben: Paul started the label at a great time for hard house so got a good following very quickly, the releases are all top notch & I can count on 1 hand the number of releases that I don’t like. That is very impressive for a label of 61 releases!

The branding for VC is also very strong & everyone recognises the logo so that must have helped get the massive follwing that they have. Kate certinaly has a major part to play in it all aswell & I know without her hard work there would be no record label anymore!

Ru: Can you tell me what a typical Vicious Circle event is like? How would you describe it to someone that has not been to a VC night before?

Ben: The night is a hard house lovers dream! The full spectrum of harder music is played from the funkier grooves from Paul Maddox & Nik Denton all the way to the full thrash power hour from Glaz! With quality house music being played in room 2 the events are perfect for almost all clubbers. The house room has an amazing lineup on its own so there are no compromises from the VC crew.

Ru: Vicious Circle's Kate Hammond, and ex-Tidy Kelly Dayus Cook are managing the VCr1, and the venue is huge! Have they bitten off more than they can chew?

Ben: Haha they probably thought that when they started work on the event but I think that have got it all under control now. The ticket sales & paying guestlist are going extremely well so its all looking good for Saturday.

Ru: The next VCr1 event is going to be in the South. In your view is there such a thing as a north / south divide when it comes to clubbing?

Ben: The only real divide is the M25! Often I find that London clubbers aren’t as willing to travel up north than the northern lot are to make the trek to the smoke. As far as music goes there doesn’t seem to be that music difference in the clubs that I play at.

Ru: When you’re not DJing /working, do you go out clubbing? Where to?

Ben: To be honest I probably wouldn’t go out clubbing as I spend all weekend in clubs. We tend to go to gigs & other events like that. I like all different kinds of dance music though so I might go & check out Andy C play at a drum & bass club, or go to a good quality house night (no funky rubbish though)!

Ru: What is the one track guaranteed to get you up on the dance floor when you are out clubbing?

Ben: The Captain & RR Fierce – Street Tab

Ru: Given your famous hard sound, are their any tracks or albums in your record collection that I’d be surprised to find?

Ben: Haha there are plenty of hard house records i’d rather not admit to like the Mr Bishi remix of Kylie – In Your Eyes!

Ru: Finally, imagine you are outside Stylus on 3rd Feb, and a couple of lads come up to you and through some bizarre freaky medical reason, they are only able to communicate using words that begin with the letter H. They manage to convey that they are thinking about coming into the club but want to know what the night is all about. What five words would you use to accurately set their expectations given their unusual condition.

Ben: Happy Hot Hard House Hangover