Eats Everything isnât your typical superstar DJ. Heâs a 34-year-old ex-recruitment consultant from Bristol who, as his stage-name makes clear, loves to eat and refuses to take himself and the often-absurd world of international dance music too seriously.
However, heâs also one of the biggest house DJs in the world, whoâs about to close a year thatâs seen him hold a 12-week residency at Londonâs XOYO and headline his home-city festival Love Saves The Day with the midnight slot at Manchesterâs Warehouse Project â and an eight-hour set at his Edible party at Electric Brixton the next day.
Itâs exactly this curious dichotomy that makes Eats Everything such a refreshing and invigorating force in dance music. Whether through his sets, his own productions, or his unforgettable interviews with the music press, the born and bred Bristolianâs sense of unbridled joy and obvious awe at being able to fly the world and play records for a job shines through. And itâs hard to not be swept along with that; whether youâre a shuffler, an Ibiza veteran or a jaded music journo, Eats Everything is a breath of fresh air.
As anyone who saw the âOriginsâ film on Resident Advisor earlier in the year will know, all this is the result of years spent working his ass off to be where he is now. His is a story of hard work, belief and a shred of luck combining to finally deliver him to dance musicâs top table after years of effort â and heâs clearly loving every single moment of it.
In the middle of a US tour thatâs taken in everywhere from LA and Denver, to New York and Miami, we catch Eats on Skype just before he jets back home for a packed Christmas and New Year period that includes the aforementioned New Yearâs gigs and the release of a double-disc mix album in January for the much-vaunted Hypercolour imprint.
Read on for one of the most honest and unpretentious interviews we could ever hope to get from a house music DJ sat in a New York hotel room talking about himself and his job before flying down to Miami and back againâŚ
Hello mate. First things first; thereâs an amazing story behind how you came to be where you are now. You were still working as a recruitment consultant in your early 30s and your wife gave you a year to make itâŚ
âYeah, thatâs right, I was doing recruitment and a lot of different boring jobs⌠It wasnât that my wife said, âOne more year â thatâs it!â⌠It was more like, âLook, youâve been doing this a long time, we know youâre good at it, but youâre not getting anywhere, so letâs just give it another year â put your time into it, donât work, go on the dole and see if you can do it. And then, after a year, if not, it will be time to make it a hobby.â
âItâs not how Iâve maybe made it seem like before â it wasnât a Rocky moment. It was more âGo on mate, give it another go, see if you can do it and if not, then youâre gonna have to fuck it off Iâm afraid.ââ
So what happened in that year?
âLuckily, I made âEntrance Songâ. Iâd had that conversation with my wife in April 2010; I made âEntrance Songâ in June, just a couple of months after. Thatâs the record that gave me the steppingstone to become what I am. It got rejected by so many labels. I wonât name them, but a lot said âNah, itâs not for nowâ or âItâs too much.â But then I gave it to J.Phlip the following March and that was it. Bang.â
It was a tight call then!
âIt was a fucking tight call! I had two months left of that year! But, you know what, Iâve never said this before, but I wouldnât have given it up! Not a fucking chance. Thereâs no way I would have stopped doing music. I would have gone back and worked a shitty job, sure, but thereâs no way Iâd stop trying to do what I was doing. I still would have tried my hardest â Iâd been trying since I was 12 years old.â
You canât just drop a passionâŚ
âNo, I couldnât. But a lot of my mates have; a lot whoâd been DJing since I was a kid, the guys who were better than me, they all just gave up. Some of them are probably now thinking âFuck!â. Youâve just got to keep on trucking, as they say. Eventually, if youâre good enough and youâve got enough drive and enough passion, you will get there. Itâs as simple as that â if you work hard enough at something youâll get there eventually.â
We hear that a lot when interviewing guys like you. But youâve got have the tenacity to get through the period where you feel like no one gives a shitâŚ
âYeah, exactly, youâve gotta keep battering down doors and talking to guys who now kiss your ass, but at the time didnât give you the time of day. Again I wonât name names, but thereâs so many of them⌠People who maybe I get on with now, but back then, ignored me or toyed with me, got me to do certain things to tracks and then still didnât want them⌠I think itâs a little different now; there are so many people breaking through. Iâm only talking four years ago, but it was a lot tougher then.â
It does seem like dance music is more of a meritocracy than it used to beâŚ
âOh, definitely. Now, if you work hard you can get noticed. Before, it was the elite crew of people keeping it for themselves. But the tables have definitely turned. At the end of the day, labels want to be seen to be putting out the best records, they want to be the ones catching the next person whoâs gonna smash it. I do it all the time â Iâm always looking for the next big thing, you want the best people to be part of your gang.â
Staying with âEntrance Songâ for a minute. That was a powerful record â along with other bass-centric tracks like Bashmoreâs âBattle For Middle Youâ, it brought a lot of people to house music that had maybe never considered it for them before. Where did that record come from? What were your influences making something as groundbreaking at that track?
âFirst and foremost, Iâm a junglist; Iâm massively into hardcore. That was my first love, when I was around 11 or 12 years old. Thatâs always been there in me. The reason I made that track was because I wanted to make something that had massive fucking bass, but still had groove. Iâm forever happy that I made it; I wouldnât be talking to you now if I didnât, but I donât know where it came from, really. I guess it was just in there waiting and one day, it all just came together and came out.â
Bristol is a city known for its enduring love affair with all things bass. Growing up and living there must have played a part in the way that record sounded?
âOh yeah, definitely. Itâs an inspirational place, Bristol. You have such a heritage right back to Smith & Mighty and then later Flynn & Flora, Full Cycle, Portishead, all the way through to Redlight. There are so many people that have come from Bristol and smashed it; that gives you hope and inspires you.
âAnd for me, when my tune came out, it was off the back of Julio Bashmore really⌠Bashmore was the first one in years to come from Bristol to really leave a mark on house music and to make it really big. There had been Jamie Anderson and Deep Groove â they were big, but they werenât at the heights that Bashmore and, luckily, myself have managed to hit.
âBashmore opened the door and then he just held it open for us and we ran through â me, Waifs & Strays, all the Futureboogie lot and now even My Nu Leng. He held it open and we all went charging through, with me running as fast as I could to be at the front! Itâs all partly down to him really, if he hadnât made that record, we wouldnât have got a look in. He put the eyes on Bristol, and people thought âFucking hell, this kiddyâs from Bristol, there must be other people like him.â Now, Bristol isnât just a bass music city, like perhaps it was seen as before â itâs an everything music city.
We remember you causing quite the twitter storm for saying something similar to The Sun, of all people, a while backâŚ
âYeah, I got misquoted by The Sun and ended up getting loads of grief on twitter. I said that Bristol has always been known as a bass-music city, but now, for the first time, house is at the forefront, but essentially Bristol is a music city. They turned that into me saying Bristol was now a house-music city.
âThereâs no way I would have said that â thatâs bullshit, and would be a huge disrespect to most of my mates in Bristol who are DJs and producers that donât make house music. For me to diss 70% of my mates in my own city, that wouldnât make any sense. It was a misquote; thatâs what newspapers do, isnât it? It just happened that I was on the end of itâŚâ
Thatâs a taste of serious fame, when youâve got The Sun misquoting you!
âHaha, I guess it means youâre not doing too badly! But really, you shouldnât pay any attention to it âcause itâs a load of fucking shit! Itâs not like itâs written in blood on a scroll and then burnt, itâs The Sun; one massive lie!â
Youâve already told us you were a jungle and hardcore kid first and foremost â when did house music grab you?
âFrom 1994 onwards, all I was into was house and techno. Once jungle had become D&B in â95 and hardcore became happy hardcore, I was over it then. I was never into the harder, darker D&B stuff, that period â95 to â96 was when jungle died for me. I like jungle, ragga jungle, DJ SS and Swannee â thatâs what I like! From then on, Iâve been a house music person. But I donât have that snobby elitist thing, because for me, at the end of the day, itâs a fucking rave. Itâs just dance music, it doesnât mean youâre any better than anyone else cause you listen to a certain type of it.â
Thatâs whatâs so refreshing about you â you donât give off that elitist vibe that puts so many people off the house and techno scene. Youâre definitely not that typical Ibiza or Berlin guy â is snobbery and elitism something youâve experienced coming into the scene over the last few years?
âThere are a few people Iâve not got on with, but Iâve never had snobbery directed at me. Iâve noticed in certain cities or islands, there are places where thereâs a ridiculous dress sense and stuck-up attitude. I just avoid those places, and if you end up somewhere where that is a thing, you and the people youâre with just have to rise above it and take the piss out of them all! Have a laugh. At the end of the day, dance music is about getting fucked up, partying and having fun. Itâs a rave. There needs to be more acid house spirit and less elitismâŚ
âItâs the elitism that really annoys me, though. I donât care if you got into any form of dance music a day ago, or 30 years ago. No one should look down on anyone else because, for instance, theyâve only just discovered house and they listen to MK or Disclosure. Who gives a fuck? I was into Venga Boys âUp & Downâ back in 1998! At the time, when I was going Lakota, that tune got played and I was into that. The first house tune I ever bought was Felix âDonât You Want Meâ, which is considered a massive gay anthem, but who cares? Itâs an amazing record!
âEveryone has to get into something at one point, so why give people shit for it? People saying shit like âOh, shufflers, theyâre not here for the musicâ. They are there for the music â theyâre fucking dancing! Theyâre having a great time and theyâre not causing trouble. Who cares if theyâve been into it for a year or 10 years? Thatâs bullshit, and itâs that sort of snobbery that seems really prominent. Actual dancefloor snobbery; people sneering at others for not knowing their Levon Vincents from their Theo Parrishes or whatever. Oh, fuck off. Just have a laugh!
âWho cares if some girl goes to a Westlife reunion concert two weeks after she went to DC-10? As long as she enjoyed herself at DC-10, walked round with a smile on her face and didnât cause any trouble, what does it matter if sheâs into Westlife or One Direction? Itâs ridiculous. People are fucking idiots! Itâs music! My wife is a nurse, she saves peopleâs lives, stops them bleeding to death out their ass, and weâre here getting funny cause some girlâs only been into house music for two weeks and she used to like Westlife or One Direction! Itâs a fucking joke mate, a joke!â
We couldnât agree more. I guess we should talk a bit about your new mix album for HypercolourâŚ
âYeah, I guess we should! I got asked to do it three years ago and Iâve been going over and over it, then finally late last year, I thought âRight, letâs do it.â There are two discs. The first one is upfront dance music; if you came to watch me, for instance, on New Yearâs Day when Iâm playing eight hours, or at my residency at XOYO this year â any of the gigs where I play all night long â CD1 is all that condensed into 74 minutes. You get a snapshot of me playing for several hours in one CD.
âWe did it live; that first CD is mixed by me on decks in my studio at home and it must have taken me 18 or 19 takes to get right. I did it a different way to normal; I hooked three decks up to Ableton Push instead of using Pioneer mixer effects. Itâs all studio effects; I can do a lot with club mixers and effects, but the possibilities in the studio are infinite. Thereâs one mix thatâs slightly out the whole time, but I like that.
âIâm really proud of it. I went in on being really picky about the selection, so there are no massive tunes; I picked records that I donât think will be over played by everyone else. I tried to pick as many rare records as possible. And every record is slightly edited too, so they wonât sound the same as the versions you hear elsewhere â Iâve changed breakdowns, added acappellas, layered drums⌠Hopefully that will help keep bringing people back to the mix to hear the edits.â
A bit like the old jungle days with dubplate specials?
âYeah like the Mickey Finn version of âKing Of The Beatsâ, or the SS version of âSuper Sharp Shooterâ, those guys had their own edits and that made you want to listen to their tapes over and over to hear that version. And then CD2 is a classic mix, but theyâre my classics. The average of the year of release for the music on there is around 1995 or 1996; theyâre tracks that have defined my musical upbringing in house music, without going for the obvious big ones. The whole thing has been a mega labour of love.â
And youâre happy with the results after all those attempts?
âYeah, Iâm really, really happy with it. The classics one, I love. A lot of kids wonât have heard of a lot of the music on there. Iâm hoping it will give younger people an introduction to some great records.â
Finally, with the mix out the way, is an Eats Everything artist album next up?
âIâve been talking about doing an album for the last two and a half years. Iâve not got anywhere! Although, recently, everything I make that I think is good, Iâve started labeling as potential album material. Iâm definitely planning it, but Iâm just going to make records and see if they work as an album. Iâm not going to come with a concept or anything, although thatâs probably the way to do it, but, if Iâm honest, Iâm not that fussed about making an album.
âI am a DJ over a producer; I only make music to DJ. I do enjoy making music, donât get me wrong, but DJing is the best thing in the world. I love DJing more than⌠apart from my wife and my child⌠I best say that⌠I love it more than anything in the world. Itâs the best.
âDJing, watching people get down to music you love; thereâs no better feeling. I actually think DJing is officially the best job in the world â that and being a rock star. If you wanna get fucked up â like some DJs we could name â youâre revered; people love you for being off your face! If youâre a footballer, you canât be seen getting off your face! And by 30 years old, youâre done and youâve got loads of money, but thereâs this massive void in your life. So then you go into football management and that ainât fun! Not as fun as playing footballâŚ
âAs a DJ, you earn a fortune, you get to see everywhere in the world, play all these amazing clubs. I challenge anyone to show me a better job than being a DJ. And I know Iâm very, very, very lucky to do itâŚâ
âFries With Thatâ is out now on Hypercolour.