De:Bug interview: "Sheffield is back with a bang"

As De:Bug prepare to celebrate two years of throwing parties in the Steel City, we caught up with the guys to find out more about their new label No More Noise and the Sheffield scene.

Jayne Robinson

Date published: 14th Mar 2013

De:Bug have existed for a relatively short time on the Sheffield clubbing scene, but have already made an indelible mark with their on the pulse bookings from the worlds of deep house and techno.

With an undeniable knack for picking the right guests at the right time, the club usually takes place at the underground Fez Bar, and has so far seen performances by the likes of Hot Since 82, Russ Yallop and Huxley, who all went on to be responsible for some of the biggest tunes of 2012. And that’s not to mention Eats Everything, who performed for the club last February and went on to be crowned DJ Mag’s Favourite UK DJ of the year. Not bad spots then!

Fresh off the back of a midweek rave with the hotly tipped Ben Pearce last month, De:Bug are back with one of their biggest line ups thus far, as the club brings both Shadow Child and Waze and Odyssey to Sheffield; two of the hottest producer powerhouses in the UK, with releases between them on Crosstown Rebels, Dirtybird and Get Physical. With nine hours worth of party planned at The Fez, running through until 7AM, you can imagine the amount of exclusives that are gonna get dropped...

Digging even further underground, Dale Howard also joins the line-up. A perfect example of one of De:Bug’s finds, his recent EP on Love Not Money records has a been a club favourite recently, so he’ll be taking to the decks for a session of forward thinking, classic leaning house. And as usual full support comes from the De:Bug residents, Reece Johnson, Jordan Hope, Sean Doughty and Steves Lynam and Roberts.

To get you deeper into the mind of De:Bug, the crew joined us recently for an interview and all chipped in about the club, the future, and Sheffield’s rave history.

What is the main ethos behind De:Bug? And indeed, the origin of the name.

Steve Roberts: The De:Bug ethos comes from a stupid obsession we have for throwing parties guys. All we wanna do is make every party bigger than the last, and get together a great group of people to have a stomp with. We get the best crowd in Sheffield, they are far too much fun, and they are the reason we do this. The name? Nothing was sticking… someone shouted something… De:Bug happened! The End. Ha!

Working as a team, or individually, what club nights and experiences cemented your ideas and expectations for De:Bug?

SR: Sheffield has had some amazing nights come and go. Bed and the Pin-Up club were where we used to lurk about for our dose of House in the steel city. Big players like Greg Vickers, Yousef, Nic Fanciuli, Deep Dish (the list goes on) came to throw down in the city, having us off big time. Going to great parties makes you wanna throw great parties. We all DJ and Produce (Reece is on fire at the min) so on top of De:Bug we have been working on our own imprint too. Our label ‘No More Noise Records’ launches in May this year with ’the ‘Undercover E.P. from Dale Howard. Hit it up!

For the uninitiated (and unless you have anything you want to bury!), are you all new to booking a club and DJing, or do you have any notable previous?

SR: Well, there’s nothing shady on the CV, no weak Dubstep or Gabba nights to report here! None of us promoted or ran events before like, just messing about on the 1s and 2s! It was all new to us, and we had nowt, some CDJ 800s and a shit bar, with an even worse system. Literally the only place in Sheffield that would have us, so that was home! We built up a good following pretty quick and moved to DQ, and a year later to the refurbished Fez, our current home and cave for all things HAUS.

How much music do you collectively consume in order to keep the booking schedule as fresh as possible?

Steve Lynam: Basically we just geek out on music, and have done, like, forever! We’re absolute sad acts, loving nothing more than crate digging and finding new heat for the box. Hitting up podcasts, other events, radio shows anything we can get our ears on. We keep our eyes peeled to see which artists are breaking into the scene; it helps us keep a track of potential bookings bring fresh vibes to Sheff town. We enjoy bringing new artist to Sheffield so this helps massively with that. Our taste does vary between the three of us which gives us more scope to seek out new bookings that we feel fit the De:Bug ethos.

Your line-ups over the past year have been a fair balance between deep house and techno. Do you like to mix up bookings and genres on a night, such as the upcoming Shadowchild/Waze and Odyssey night?

Reece Johnson: We enjoy putting on a mix of styles at our events, we aim to appeal to different tastes - whether they want deep house or tech house bangers, like you say we like to mix it up. I believe the mixture gives De:Bug an edge, and is probably why we have such a strong following of loyal party goers that love the vibe at our parties.

Speaking of, they're pretty big names - expecting a good party?

SL: I know I speak for all the De:Bug boys when I say this, but shit yeah. COME ON that line up is sure fire bangers from start to finish. Dale Howard, Waze Odyssey, Shadow Child will blow the roof of the Fez Club clean off, guaranteed party time. We all get a bit excited in the run up to De:Bug parties… If W&O’s stints on Rinse.FM are anything to go by, and Shadow Child’s Show’s on 1Xtra, we’re in big trouble!

The Fez Club has a real legacy in Sheffield, so is it still your intention as originally stated to use more off the radar venues rather than established club spaces? Can you continue to do this as the nights and bookings get bigger?

SR: The Fez club has a long standing history in the steel city, and was THE place to hit up after hours… good memories! After being closed for a lil while and reopening after a refurb in late 2011, The Fez is back! And duttier than ever. It’s a wicked space, with the DJ Box right in amongst the crowd where it should be! It’s being used by some banging new promoters bringing the city more underground events. After the big 2nd birthday in May we are seriously going to start roaming round the city popping up in places Sheffield has never partied before!

On a similar note, how would you rate the current club scene in Sheffield? Is there anything in particular you wanted to bring to it that you felt was lacking?

SL: Going back two years Sheffield’s scene was just not happening, it broke our hearts! One or two pockets of parties knocking about, but nothing on the sort of scale that neighbouring cities were putting on. We saw an opportunity to get Sheffield back to what it once was. We’re bringing bigger artists to the city, time after time and it feels great to see the current state that Sheffield’s scene is in. Artists such as Dyed Soundorom, DJ W!LD, Tom Demac, Ben Pearce, Eats Everything, Huxley and more have graced the De:Bug decks which in itself, shows that Sheffield is back and back with a bang.

Can you give us a clue what to expect for the rest of 2013 in Sheffield via De:Bug?

SL: We are super busy, which we love! Events are being planned right through to the end of the year, and as we teased earlier the clubbing spaces are gonna get more exciting! You are gonna see De:Bug at some festivals this year too, news coming soon! May the 6th sees our record label No More Noise's first release with Dale Howard hitting digital download sites. So yeah big things happening in the De:Bug-NMN camp.

And finally, and decided amongst yourselves, track of the year thus far in 2013.

RJ: Well if Roberts, Lynam and I had to pick our ‘first dance’… it would be ‘Won’t Somebody’ by The Martinez brothers! Not new, but MY GOD! Track of 2013 is hard but for me it's Anil Aras '1994'. This tune gets rinsed in my sets of late.