ITM’s cLoUdWaLkEr talks to Melbourne DJ/Promoter DJ Freo about his Hyperactive ventures and his future plans with running a DJ School, the Melbourne trance scene.

How did you start Djing?
I first got exposed to Djing in grade 6, when a friend’s dad had a show on a community radio station. We took the 4 week night-time course on how to run a show, in some country church hall, and hosted our own shows for about 6 months in 1990, aged 10 or 11.
After that, I kinda fell into it when I worked at a roller-rink (of all places). Unfortunately I still get recognised by people who went there, and I last worked there 7 years ago! That was my first foray into “live Djing ” rather than on radio, and it was great fun.
After that I did radio shows on about 4 different stations, went into “mobile Djing” at 18 with a spankin’ set of CDJ500s, learned to mix on them, and bought my first decks whilst living in Canada in early 2000.

What/who were your early influences and role models?
My main dance music influences early on were Tech DJs, because raves in the mid 90’s were mainly the Hardware and Every Picture Tells a Story parties. I was exposed to guys like CJ Bolland (1996), the Prodigy (1994), Carl Cox etc …
Locally I must admit, Sean Quinn at Redheads and the Mansion, and Gavin Keitel also back when they played trance, that is!
The DJ who inspired me to play hard trance was definitely Mauro Picotto in about 1998. I was at the first Gatecrasher party on the docks, it was a big new concept at the time, having an international club in Melbourne. Tom Wainwright and Matt Hardwick played, back when ACTUAL resident DJs would represent a UK brand. Hardwick opened with Iguana by Picotto, on a white label. I recorded it live from Kiss FM by co-incidence, and spent 3 months searching for the track! I bought everything he released for a long time after that.


Describe your first gig.
Well ignoring the crappy mobile Djing and stuff, my first gig on Decks in a club, was a place called “Dancehaus” on the fringes of Berlin in Germany. I was travelling Europe 5 months after first getting decks, and i was lucky to know a Berlin DJ – “Dj Join Forces” who lined me up two very well paid gigs in clubs he played at. The gigs went well, I had a lot of trouble mixing but I thought it went smashingly. They invited me back to play again, which was nice. Unfortunately my friend mailed me the CDs of the sets I played and they were terrible! You have to start somewhere, but I can recommend not debuting in the Mecca of Hard Trance, Berlin.

Why start Hyperactive?
Why Not? I really believe in what we’re doing with Hyperactive. I’ve been clubbing & raving since 1995, which doesn’t exactly make me old-skool in Melbourne. But all I can remember is the excitement of my first two parties at Shed 14 and the very first party held at Altona – E.P.T.A.S.
I wrote an article for TRM magazine about the state of recovery parties in Melbourne, and realised there was no-where for young, happy ravers to go and recover. I was in the right place at the right time and threw together a weekly recovery at Altitude in August 2002. It went really well for a few months, it was a really friendly place and everyone enjoyed their time there. Unfortunately, bars need money to survive, ravers don’t drink alcohol in the morning, and we shut down after a very fun 3 or 4 months.

How did you get Hyperactive Nights off the ground?
When the weekly recovery shut, I got a lot of calls and emails from people saying that Hyperactive was the first place they have really felt comfortable and felt at home whilst clubbing in recent years. So I guess by public demand I decided it was time to venture into running some night-time raves for the people who wanted to party but were sick of the attitudes, alcohol and violence at mainstream 5,000 people parties. I wanted to provide a party where you could sit and talk to any other person in the place, where you could smile, laugh, dance, relax, chill and be comfortable, safe and happy all night long.

We were basically sick of expensive parties that didn’t deliver. That promised so much but provided nothing. We felt that the scene desperately needed a fun, down to earth, no hype party.

And the last, very important thing we wanted, was to run it at a break-even point, No
profit for us. We didn’t see the point charging $25 for 500 ravers & friends if we were simply going to be pocketing $5000 of that (or $10 per ticket) ourselves. I see that as ripping off our mates. We’re not a business; we don’t need that sort of money. That’s how we keep our ticket prices so low, by budgeting and planning to break-even. We all have day jobs to put food on our plates, Hyperactive is something we do for the love of partying and having a great time, so as long as we cover our costs, we’re happy.

We got together a wicked group of people who wanted to help put on a night like that, and we quite simply went clubbing every week for about 2 months and told everyone about it. I was fortunate to have a good Credit Card limit, so I put out a bunch of my own money to fund the warehouse, lighting, sound, DJs, security etc, and on December 7th 2002, Hyperactive ran a wild night in a warehouse in Campbellfield. The turnout was perfect, exactly as planned. We had a dream, we knew we doing it for the right reasons, and I can quite proudly say that I didn’t get a single piece of negative feedback from the event.

Plans for Hyperactive in the future…
Continue running the warehouse parties! We’ll be going every 2 months for the rest of this year at least. We have found amazing venues for our next 2 or 3 parties, all across Melbourne. They are all different from one another, so ensure that no two Hyperactive events are the same. We want to keep using Melbourne DJs who play for the love of the scene, not the money or fame. Whenever we see somewhere where we can make a difference, entertain people, and have some fun, we’ll put on a party!

Plans for DJ Freo in the future…
Basically I’ve put my Djing on hold these days and I’m focused on making the Hyperactive parties as wicked as possible. I’ll definitely DJ when I’m asked to, but I’m not pushing for gigs or handing out demos to promoters! I’m playing obviously at all the Hyperactive parties, including the Paul Van Dyk recovery on the morning of the 29th, and our warehouse party that night. After that I am playing at Hardware 20, which is a thrill because my first ever party was a Hardware seven years ago, number 9 I think, and back then I dreamed of one day being able to play at a party of that magnitude! It’s a huge honour to play something like a big Hardware party, a Welcome or any Kryal event, and hopefully with time I’ll be able to progress beyond the “Rising Stars” arenas into larger rooms and one day onto some main stages.

Apart from parties, I’m getting together with a few amazing well-known local DJs and starting an evening DJ school. These have been around for years, the DMC house/prog one, Will-E-Tell’s techno one, and Hip-Hop ones, but there’s nowhere for young (and not so young) ravers and trance DJs to get the basics going. Again it’s due to public demand. I get a handful of young DJs come to me every time I DJ, and tell me they would pay to learn how to mix & play from experienced DJs. So very soon we’ll be getting groups of up to 4 people to come along and learn from 2 or 3 of the technically best trance and hard trance DJs in Melbourne (and I don’t mean me!).

Short Answer Questions!
Age: 24 in April.
Non DJ occupation: I just quit my I.T. job, and I start my new career as a travel agent at Student Flights Prahran in early April!
Marital status: Not married but spoken for!
First Vinyl: Skydive/Freefall and Conception Vessel/Steve Mason.
First turntables / mixer: Technics 1200s and a DJM300s.
Current set up at home: Just sold my CDJ500s , so it’s just the decks and mixer at the moment.
Approx Number of Vinyls: About 300, I sold 100 oldies last month!
Most embarrassing DJ moment: Nope – don’t get embarrassed.
Define your style: Hard Trance with a twist of something totally different in every set. I play to entertain, not for people to lie down and say “Man, this is a reallll journeyyyy!”.
Favourite Restaurant: Thai/Oriental in Bridge Road.
Best coffee in Melbourne: Don’t drink coffee.
Favourite Movie: Fast and the Furious or Austin Powers.
Favourite International DJ: Norman Cook.
Person you would most like to meet: Anthony Kiedis from the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Residencies: Just Hyperactive!
Advice for bedroom DJ’s: Don’t send promoters your CD until you are good enough to play a set at a big club or party. Play it to your friends and enemies and if they say you’re good enough to play main room at Two Tribes, you’re ready to start pushing for gigs Otherwise your CD will be thrown in a pile and promoters won’t listen to your follow up efforts. Oh, and no more CDs full of anthems! Melbourne has enough DJs playing anthems!

Hyperactive is on this Saturday 29th March, Check ITM whatson for more details.