Beats Per Minute: Nathan Dawe x Halloween Town Festival special

Sought-after DJ and producer, Nathan Dawe shares some of the tracks you can expect in his live set at this weekend's Halloween Town Festival and takes five to tell us what life is like as a superstar DJ

Skiddle Staff

Date published: 29th Oct 2021

Small town Soundcloud enthusiast turned jet-setting, world-renowned DJ and producer, Nathan Dawe graciously agreed to give us a few minutes of his time ahead of his performance at Halloween Town Festival this weekend, to chat about his rise to fame, what it's like being a celebrity and his plans for 2022.

The twenty-seven-year-old house music maestro, for those who've been living under a rock these past few years, first broke into the UK charts back in 2018. Since then, he's frequently been seen reaching the top spot, producing and releasing a horde of smash hit records with high profile collaborators the likes of rapper KSI on 'Lighter', pop songstress Anne-Marie on 'Way Too Long', and girl group Little Mix on 'No Time For Tears'.

Not only did Nathan say yes to a quick natter, but he also put together a very special Beats Per Minute x Halloween Town Festival playlist for us, the legend that he is.

Featuring fifteen sublime dance tracks you can expect to hear in his live set this weekend, as well as his other upcoming 2021 live shows, listen to the Nathan Dawe curated Beats Per Minute playlist now, below...

Hello there Nathan, how are you? Describe your current surroundings for us? Where are you and what’s keeping you occupied presently?

"I’m currently in my hometown of Burton getting ready for a UK tour that’s about to start in a couple of weeks. It’s been a mad summer, back and forth from Ibiza, so it’s been nice to be in the UK for a constant period."

Without question, now a firmly established name on the dance music scene here in the UK, your rise to fame has been something of a whirlwind adventure, you could say. Take us through how you got to where you are now? Where did it all begin?

"I started doing shows at clubs around the country whilst producing my own music. One of my early records was a song called 'Cheatin' that got picked up by Atlantic Records. We released it in 2018 and it went on to sell 400,000 records. That was really the starting point for what was to come."

Hailing from a small and sleepy market town in the Midlands, you must be quite the celebrity back home? How is it returning to see family and friends?

"Yeah, it’s been amazing being in Burton during my rise in the music game. I love my hometown and the community is like one big family to me."

We’ve had the Skiddle office moving and grooving to your latest single release, ‘Goodbye’, featuring the skills of fellow London-based producer, T. Matthias. How did that link-up come about?

"I went into the studio with T and he showed me the beginnings of ‘Goodbye’ which I absolutely loved! We then worked on it together to get it to the place it is now. It’s definitely one of my favourite tunes I’ve released, and T is an amazing talent."

As part of a very special Beats Per Minute playlist takeover, we asked you to create a fifteen-tack playlist including some of the tracks dance fans can expect to hear in your set at this year’s Halloween Town Festival, in Bedford. Now, imagine you could only play one of these tracks for the rest of the year at every live event. Which track would you choose and why?

"I have to pick 'Lighter'. I know it’s an obvious choice as it’s one of mine but it’s such a highlight in my set. Everyone seems to love that one."

Rounding things off and looking forward to 2022, what can we expect from Nathan Dawe? Where can we expect to see you live? Is there new music on the way? What are your big ambitions for a hopefully less COVID impacted year?

"As always, I want to just keep releasing music. It’s amazing to have live shows back after so long away. I’ll definitely never take the feeling of performing for granted again. A lot of us DJs and producers’ livelihoods were taken away during the pandemic so it’s been so nice to be able to do shows again. I’m looking forward to hopefully being able to get back abroad as well as to Europe when it opens up fully. It should be a really exciting 2022!"

Halloween Town Festival begins today and is set to run over three days this weekend. Appearing on the Sugar Skull stage in front of up to fifteen-thousand appropriately attired party revellers are huge music names the likes of including Craig David, Nathan Dawe, Majestic, Andy C, DJ EZ, David Rodigan, Shy FX, The Levellers, Peter Hook & The Light, Dreadzone and many more.