Rivmixx Rising: DJ Kutski > <

 

DJ Kutski is like a poster boy for how far hard work and passion can get you. His journey to this point paints the story of a bedroom superstar; a music geek that, day after day, has been striving to make it. But, for John 'Kutski' Walker, such hard work is certainly paying off. From his humble beginnings making mix tapes - do all of you readers even remember tapes? - to his successful, weekly show on the UK's biggest radio station, his passion for 'rave' music certainly has a lot to answer for. To be included in a line up that sees him follow three of the biggest dance tastemakers on modern radio every Saturday night - Annie Mac, Pete Tong then Judge Jules - he's proved himself as the leader of the hardcore/hard dance revolution.

So, with a hugely popular Radio 1 weekly slot, a gig timetable that sees him playing out every weekend and a following from teens to OAPS - all at only 27 years of age - the future looks to hold a lot for Mr. Walker.

Rivmixx: So how did you, originally, get into the 'rave' scene?

Kutski: "It was my sister really. I used to rob all her tape packs back in the day. Most people talk about their first rave experience as this glamorous, illegal field raves but I just used to steal all my sister's tape packs."

R: You've been DJing since you were 14 - how do you stay passionate about it?

K: "I'm well into dubstep and other stuff too but I still really love hardcore and never really grew out of it. When you go to the big raves at the NEC and you can hear all the whistles and air horns going off before you get in - it's still really exciting. I've been to all the cool house clubs and that but they just don't have the same atmosphere."

R: You've said in the past that you're influenced by hip hop, which isn't a genre you'd tend to put next to hardcore/hard trance - who are you listening to in the hip hop world?

K: "I've worked it out that I just really love any kind of music that's hard and aggressive. Like drum and bass, I've always been more into the jump up stuff than the liquid stuff and again with hip hop - it was the late '80s/ early '90s stuff that drew me in. The majority of hardcore loops and samples come from hip hop anyway."

R: How would you describe your music?

K: "I always say my music is 'rave' music. The only time people would really use the term 'rave' was to describe bands like Klaxons and I'm like 'THAT'S NOT RAVE!'. Nowadays, as soon as a type of music gets big, people like to pigeon hole it as genre and it fractions off. I like to take hard trance, hardcore, hard dance and put it all together then you have rave music. That style is equally as big as house or trance on record sales and attendance to events."

Pic by Natalie Cord

R: You're known for dropping bizarre samples into your sets, what's been the strangest?

K: "Shitmat did a mash up of 'Snow Informer' with 'Thomas the Tank Engine' and I listened to it and instantly thought 'that's amazing'. I played it once out of the blue and everybody stood there and looked really confused for a few minutes. I think that's probably the most bizarre."

R: What's your favourite party at the moment?

K: "The industrial stuff that's going on out in Holland is just next level. There's one called Q-Dance that is just immense and sells out so quickly. That's a pretty special event."

R: London and Manchester are somewhat regarded as the UK's music hubs but your repping Chester, what's the secret of making it when you're based outside the hubs?

K: "I used to collect all the flyers and ring up all the numbers to get addresses to send tapes to. I would just record loads of tapes and send them out to everyone. Nowadays it's different obviously because it's all on the internet, but you have to fight through the masses."

R: You're pretty hot with the remixes at the moment as well, what are you working on?

K "I like remixes because the song has already been made and I'm lazy! But I've got a few on at the moment, one with Marcus Schossow, a track called 'Kaboom'."

R: How did you get such a niche genre of music onto such a mainstream station like Radio 1?

K: "Radio 1 were doing this new thing called The Residency. They were looking for somebody who; did hardcore and hard dance, that was up and coming but not totally established and someone who was not a big producer and not tied into any camp so it wouldn't be a bias show. I did the pilot and they liked it and have just worked my arse off on it since 2005."

R: How has it been received?

K: "Really well! You'd expect it to be a young audience too but it's really across the board. I get school kids to write in who listen to it on the iplayer. This year I got Christmas cards from a 68 and an 86 year old who both listen to the show every week. It's still pretty c*ck-heavy though - I think it's 25% women and the rest men!"

R: You're a bit obsessive about your gadgets, what are the most exciting bits you've come across recently?

K: "The Serato Itch Vestax controller is amazing. Vestax gave me one to play with recently and straight away I was like 'S**t that is really really good'. It's just amazingly good, it'll be a game changer."

R: You're also quite prolific on YouTube, where did that come from?

K: "I just decided I wanted to do it. Management weren't really behind the idea to begin with, I think they were a bit worried if promoters saw it they might think we could cause trouble, but it's fine"

R: You used to be an avid vinyl lover but you seem to have embraced the cross over now, what's changed your mind?

K: "The real problem was literally just that I couldn't get any good music on vinyl anymore. It got to the point where I was playing one really big weekend with like Gatecrasher and Slinky and consciously felt like I was playing really s**t sets because the set up was all wrong and really dull. The only CDs I had with me were what I had been sent so I just had to play that. Sadly, there's only a couple of years left in vinyl."

R: What's been the highlight of your career so far?

K: "All the Radio 1 stuff. One single 'what the F**k am I doing here' moment though was the Radio 1 DJ dinner. I was sat between Scott Mills and Tim Westwood. Westwood was getting right in my face saying, 'hey man, you're representing your scene man, you have as much right as anyone to be here dog. Hold your head high man'. It was bizarre. At the end there was a cheesecake going and Westwood was like. 'Hey man, do wanna split that cheesecake?' Even Scott Mills turned to me and said, 'how bizarre is this? Sharing a cheesecake with Tim Westwood!'

R: What's the ultimate goal for your future?

K: "What I'd like to be is a kind of John Peel of Hard Dance - to represent all the music across the board. It's more about longevity for me."

Written by: Liz Stokes

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