DJ Profiles A Anthony Pappa (UK) | Anthony Pappa (UK) |
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| Thursday, 06 March 2008 | |
 Growing up in Melbourne, the Pappa household was a household full of music. Anthony’s Dad played in a band, and band practice was at casa Pappa: “I was always thinking music,” Anthony remembers, of this outpost of Italy within the new world of Australia, “because as a family the house was always full of music.” From the age of three or four Anthony was picking up sticks and joining the band on the drums, leading to a 12-year education in the instrument, the ability to read and write music, and a lifelong love of tight percussion and syncopation. “I was supposed to become a top drummer, that’s what my dad wanted me to do,” Anthony recalls, but instead… he ran away and joined the disco. At 13, Anthony first accessed dance music via the radio: recording shows, then tracking down the music. At the same time, he taught himself to mix, and because of his technical background, was able to do that before he even had decks, using a metronome to beat match. The loss of another Ringo Starr was clubland’s gain. At 15, Anthony had already secured a residency at the 4000-capacity Metro (“my dad used to drive me to the venue, drop me off and then come back four or five hours later to pick me up because I was underage!”) and the same year, only two years after teaching himself to mix, he was Australia’s DMC Champion. By 15, Anthony already possessed the technical skills that later would bring him to the attention of fellow DJs and punters alike, as he evolved into “the DJ’s DJ”. Yet still Anthony was thinking ahead. “I was ordering my music from London. It cost me a fortune. I would ring all these record shops and get a DHL package with two or three days delivery, to be as upfront as possible and be ahead of the other guys in Australia.” Such blue sky thinking became the literal blue skies that that took Pappa to the UK. On advice from a friend he entered a competition to win a set at Ministry of Sound, promptly won, and in 1994 packed up his record box for his first trip away from Australia, playing Ministry and Up Yer Ronson in Leeds: “I was just blown away... seeing the club scene over here in 94, I thought the place was amazing. Within six months I’d packed my bags and come back.” In the mid 90s the “sound du jour” was progressive house and Anthony was very much caught up in that moment, taking his place on DJ magazine’s infamous “Nu-Breed” cover with Lee Burridge, Craig Richards and Steve Lawler. Back then clubland was fractured but thankfully these days people are less eager to stick labels on everything. “All DJs are playing all different kinds of music now,” says Anthony. “Any DJ who plays one style of music… whatever it is… is going to be boring because it doesn’t go anywhere. It’s the range in your style and set that makes it interesting. It’s not about playing techno or house… it’s about playing good music.” Anthony’s music was always more elegant and experimental, and that quickly brought him to the attention of clubs and labels alike. He mixed the very first Nu-Breed CD for Global Underground, several well-received Renaissance albums (two of which passed 100,000 sales) and as part of Freefall hit the top 10 across Europe, taking his rightful place in the haloed booth alongside the UK’s DJ aristocracy. “I saw posters of myself and I nearly crashed my car,” he says, smiling at the memory. Anthony has played the biggest clubs on the planet and mixed the scene’s biggest selling albums. But fuelled by endless energy for the music and a desire to play it for people, there is much, much more to come. From the comfort of your home you can access Anthony via the radio show on www.protonradio.com, but if you need to get closer, the hardest working man on the circuit spends much of his time at the coalface of club culture, actually doing the job of the DJ, working the territories that love him, from Eastern Europe to South America. “I’ve always been known amongst the other DJs as the hard working guy who tries to do it all,” Anthony details. “Maybe it‘s because I’ve come from Australia and I’ve got that drive, to try and make it work for me over here.” Now based in the UK Anthony recently set up a label, Red Light District, on which he will soon release a single, Outback. Also out in April is Moments, a 3-CD mix album which gives Anthony the space and the scope to really dig into all four corners of his record box. “It starts off with deep house, then tech house, then finishes off with techno,” he explains. “And it goes through whatever in the middle to get there!” A deep, urbane album, Moments progresses without necessarily being progressive and true to form, is truly forward thinking. “People say ‘progressive’ is a bad word,” says Anthony, “but that’s exactly what it is. At the end of the day… it’s all progressive.” Thankfully there are innovators like Pappa prepared to do think that way, otherwise we’d all still be wearing flares and spinning Night Fever. Anthony’s career has been as smooth as one of his mixes, and like his sets, continues to build and evolve. But after the gigs, the productions, the tours and the compilations, Anthony Pappa remains modest and circumspect about any highlights: “It’s all a highlight for me,” he admits. “The main highlight is that I’m living my dream, and I’m doing it.” Web: www.anthonypappa.co.uk |
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