Music > Interviews

Dave Pearce Takes his 90's Dance Anthems to Norwich

EPIC Studios

25/11/19

 

We are very excited to have you return to Norwich this year, what can we expect from the latest tour of 90’s Dance Anthems?

I’m excited to be back in Norwich playing at Epic Studios for the first time. What you can expect from this 90’s Dance Anthems tour is some of the all-time biggest records that I played over the years at my residencies in Ibiza that were just on fire in the late 90’s. Also records that I helped make famous on my BBC Radio 1 Dance Anthems show. So, lots of records that are really dear to my heart, big arms in the air moments, and really music that brings back a great moment of time.

A lot of people now are saying that the 90’s was really the golden era of dance music and if you look at the spectrum of tracks that were available back then it’s hard to disagree. Music for happy, smiling faces, trademark trance anthems and just big bangers from the 90’s – it’s going to be amazing.

I understand you began your career with the establishment of a pirate radio station, did you think at the time that was the beginning of a lifelong career path in music?

When I started out doing my pirate radio station I was still at school. I was about 15 years old when I got on my first pirate radio station and then I started my own one. I had no idea this was the beginning of a career in music and radio. It was just a real hobby for me; something I was really passionate about.

On the other pirate radio station I worked at I met a lot of great DJs. It was a great place to learn, try things out and make your mistakes without millions of people listening. So it was a great learning curve and something that was purely driven by passion. It’s something I don’t regret for a minute. I had some really great times doing my pirate radio station. There was total freedom obviously as well, and radio is so regulated these days I am really glad to have had that experience.

I believe this led to you holding a residency in Mumbai of all places, how did that come about and what was it like compared to clubs over here?

My first professional residency actually was in Mumbai in India when I was 17 years’ old and that was when I was still doing my pirate radio station. What happened was I saw an advert in London’s evening newspaper called the ‘Evening Standard’. In the back they used to have job adverts and there was an ad saying “DJs wanted to work abroad”.

You had to go to an audition if you were selected at a very posh hotel near Piccadilly. I turned up there thinking it was going to be for working in Spain or something like that, you know at the holiday resorts, so I turned up for this audition and they said it’s actually to work in India in Mumbai for this club. This was towards the end of the Disco era and aimed at the Bollywood community. It was called ‘Studio 29’ based on Studio 54 in New York and all those kind of big, cool clubs of the time. It was incredible and I got the job which was amazing. They used to fly in all the hot new records from New York because that was where all the hot music came from in those days. It was a totally eye-opening experience and something I’ll never forget.

Dance Anthems has now become a clubber’s institution on BBC Radio, did you ever imagine it would be so popular?

When I created Dance Anthems for BBC Radio 1 I had no idea it would be quiteas popular as it would be but I was fairly convinced that the idea was a good one. I got the show by taking control of the radio station and a guy named Matthew Bannister out for some drinks. My theory on it was that the top 40 on a Sunday night was one of the most listened to shows on British radio, I think after the Breakfast show it was the most listened to show. It had millions of listeners but then at 7 o’clock Radio 1 used to put a documentary on and millions of people would switch off. So I thought, particularly in those days when I started the show in the mid-90’s, clubbing was such an important part of people’s lives and Sunday always felt like a bit of a come down. People had been out, had great experiences and gone to clubs and had a wild time. The Sunday night comes and there’s nothing really on the radio, there was ‘Songs of Praise’ on the telly or something and it was all a bit dull. And if you haven’t been to clubs or if you were a bit younger, you were doing your homework or your revision or college work or whatever.

It seemed like Sunday night was a really good place to put on an uplifting music package together which reflected people’s lives and also played great music. I thought it would do well but what was interesting was the very first night we were on air we had so many calls come into the show - I think it was around 2000 - it actually broke the phone lines. O2 had to put up an announcement saying you couldn’t put a call through. We’d jammed all the switchboards *laughs* which was quite good fun. But yeah I was really pleased and we continued to do the show for 10 years. We also very quickly got the 3rdhighest share audience on Radio 1, so we became the third largest show on the station.

Did you have the same freedom around your playlist working for the BBC as you do playing live or on your own radio stations?

In terms of freedom on the radio it is an interesting one. When I was doing Dance Anthems I had total free choice in the show and kind of one of the stipulations I had was that I wanted to make sure that it was my own and I could really reflect musically what I thought was the right thing to do. To be fair to BBC Radio 1 they give me full reign over that which was brilliant. When I was doing Drivetime for Radio 1 obviously that was playlisted and you only had a few choices but I did manage to create a mix in the evening and also have records of the week and stuff but the Dance Anthems show was total freedom. I mean naturally I programmed it in a way to reach a mass audience, particularly with the top 40, but then it got slightly more about exploring new music as it got later on into the show.

When you are playing in a club you have complete freedom. Radio has changed a lot now so it’s much harder to get free choice on the radio, or commercial radio or on BBC Radio. But playing in a club you have complete control over what you’re doing. Then I also have my Delirium show which is syndicated to various radio stations which is music that’s new and upfront trance. On that show it’s all my own choice. When I do the dance shows on BBC Radio 2 - which I’ve done several series and New Years’ Eve and stuff - then I get to pick my own music on there too.

You have a vast catalogue of trance releases under your belt now widely attributed to be classics, referring to both track productions and compilation mixes. What are your favourite tracks to play live? Do these change over time or do you have a few that never get old?

Well I’ve got quite a lot of trance releases under my belt, several albums and I think I’ve done around 20 compilations. I’m lucky enough to have quite a few of them go gold status in the UK as well which has been very humbling. I have the record labels too like New Lifehas scored quite a few top 40 hit records.

In terms of favourites to play live it’s always really hard to answer that as there are so many but I love records like Paul Van Dyk: For an Angel, I think that’s such an emotive record and Energy 52: Café Del Mar, those are a couple that I absolutely really love. I love Delirium: Silence, I love Robert Miles: Children. I think that for me those classics from that era just don’t get old, they really are timeless classics. I play them a lot to a younger generation like 18/19/20 year olds and they all go mad to them as well. It is amazing how that music has stood the test of time.

Are there any up-and-coming DJs/producers on the scene right now you are particularly excited about?

In terms of up-and-coming DJs and producers there’s a guy called Dan Thompson who I really like. He’s doing some really good stuff, he’s a UK-based producer so I’ve been supporting a lot of his music on my Delirium shows. There’s also a progressive producer called Farius who I was looking after for a while. I’ve made some records with him; he’s really, really cool. There is a lot of talent out there. What I do on my Delirium podcast (which is free on Spotify, Apple Music, Mixcloud and on my website davepearce.co.uk) you can hear each week the various producers from around the world that I’m supporting. But I’m pleased to say there’s a lot of great talent out there at the moment.

 

 

What was your most memorable gig and why?

I’ve been lucky enough to have had a fair few memorable gigs over the years as you can probably imagine. My first residency night in Ibiza was awesome. I was approached by this promoter to do the night in Ibiza and in those days DJs like myself would normally have just gone and done a couple of weeks in Ibiza but not the whole season as a headliner. Anyway, I was invited to do Eden and the first night I just couldn’t believe it. There were all these posters and billboards with my name on and this plane used to fly around Ibiza with a big advert out the back for my night. I just remember pulling up outside the club and there was this huge queue of people coming to see me at my first night in Ibiza, it was just such an amazing experience and ten years later I’m still there.

I suppose another one that really stands out is doing the O2 Arena in London. That was for Ministry of Sound. Before it was called the O2 it was called the Dome. It was setup as a sort of exhibition centre and it didn’t really work. So it was empty for a while then somebody came up with the idea of approaching them and seeing if we could put on this massive rave in there!

The building really was sitting empty, it was before it was turned into different venues like it is now. It didn’t have all the restaurants and stuff. Anyway, somehow Ministry managed to get it and we did this gig in there for 45,000 people. In fact, so many people turned up they had to let some more in. There were so many people trying to get in the police actually made them let more people in!

I did the headlining midnight set there and we had Tiesto, Mauro Picotto and Judge Jules; lots of great people on the bill. That was in the days of vinyl and to play to 45,000 people in one room, one building, was totally awe-inspiring. You felt like you were U2 on stage at some giant arena. It really was just a totally incredible experience.

What can we expect to see in the future for Dave Pearce and Dance Anthems?

Well, a lot of touring across the UK in 2020. You can get all the details on where I’m playing on my website. I’m going to be making a few more tunes and there’s a few big projects in the pipeline that I can’t reveal just yet but they’re pretty exciting. Best thing to do is just to watch this space.

Follow me on Twitter on dj_davepearce or get me on Facebook on davepearceofficial or go to my website davepearce.co.uk and you’ll see all the action on there.