Annie: How are you doing, Alex? I believe that you have actually been on the acid house scene for a long time - you were around in the Shoom [seminal 1980s London dance club] days and all that.

Alex: Yeah, I first started going out clubbing then, so I've been a raver for quite a long time.
 
Annie: When you first got involved, I imagine you were just as excited as everybody else about a form of music that was totally new and Wonderful. How did you think the dance scene would develop?

Alex: I didn't really think it would go the way it's gone. You had three good years and then I think the whole scene just became really commercial and it all changed. But the music scene today, especially with the jungle/drum'n'bass thing, has the same sort of buzz - it's new, it's exciting, so I'm quite happy to be involved in it now.

Annie: Oh, sure, but did you fell disappointed when the original scene went very commercial. I mean, a lot of dance music is very corporate now, isn't it?

Alex: That's the way it all goes. You can't expect things to be totally underground forever, loads of people want to get in and make money out of it.

Annie: Does that annoy you?

Alex: Yeah, but you can't change it.

Annie: So you were out clubbing and listening to all this stuff in, what, 1987/88?

Alex: Yeah.

Annie: Did you find it easy to learn to mix?

Alex: Well, no (laughs), it always takes time.

Annie: Were you one of these people that practised in your bedroom for six hours a day?

Alex: Yeah, totally. I was right into it (laughs).

Annie: There are no short-cuts are there?

Alex: No, you've got to practise. Practise makes perfect.

Annie: Do you think that there are born mixers and people who are never going to be able toget it?

Alex: I dunno, my girlfriend can't do it and I've tried to teach her. You've just got to spend time practising.

Annie: What did you do first? Buy yourself a pair of decks?

Alex: Yeah, just a pair of decks, cheap ones, and then I spent all my money on buying records every week.

Annie: I bet you did. People don't realise thats what DJs have to do, they probably think they get vast sums of money to buy them. In the early days you were buying an awful lot of new stuff?

Alex: I was always buying records, yeah. You have to because you've got to keep up with it. So I was spending a lot of money on records and nothing else, really.

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