Promoter Focus: Andrew Hill of Abandon Silence Interview

Abandon Silence is rapidly approaching three years of game-changing parties in the city of Liverpool. A highly twenty first century affair in style and origin (the event was initially a blog focused on new music), they’ve become one of the most talked about parties in the city simply off the strength of their acumen in identifying new talent, giving Liverpool debuts to the likes of Bicep, Bondax and Disclosure and making Thursday night an essential rave part of the week for many.

With the event set to host a stellar third birthday at the end of the month with Joy Orbison and Midland manning the decks, we thought it was high time to speak to someone at the event about what made the clubnight so special. Promoter and resident Andrew Hill seemed the obvious choice, and he filled us in about the plans to break out of the mold of searching for the stars of tomorrow, the pressures of running an event alongside your studies and the honor of having Kieran Hebden email you personally asking to play.

Hi Andrew. In a sentence describe Abandon Silence.

Liverpool based clubnight, bringing the newest and best electronic music artists to town twice a month.

When did you start the event what was the original goal? And do you think that has changed since you began?

I started the club night aspect of Abandon Silence in June 2010 after running it as a music blog for 6 or 7 months - the original aim was to transport the content and feel of the blog into a club night setting through bookings and atmosphere. At the time we didn't aim to book artists who were just about to 'blow up', but that became a common theme throughout the 3 years.

These days I still aim to book artists in a similar situation (this season we gave Liverpool debuts to Bicep, Huxley, Disclosure and George Fitzgerald for example) but with added capacities come added pressure to book larger names, that is something we've had to bleed in to our bookings as we have moved into larger spaces such as The Kazimier and The Masque (now East Village Arts Club).

You’ve had the likes of Disclosure, Bondax and Huxley on prior to them, as you state, blowing up. Has it always been a desire to get to names before they go stratospheric or is it simply to get the names that you want to hear?

This is something I touched on in the previous answer. Disclosure, Bondax and Huxley are all recent bookings that we have brought to Liverpool for the first time before the chart success and all, though that is an ethos that we had from the very start. In our first year we booked SBTRKT (twice), James Blake, Mount Kimbie, Joy Orbison, Mele, Blawan and many more who were just about to go massive. It is something that we had to do in the early days due to the simple fact that I was still a University student and was very limited by money, capacity and time constraints, plus the basics of being a brand new promoter in a very healthy city.

It isn't the full aim of the night to book people who are just about to blow up, as that would give us a bit of a glass ceiling. In this year's season I have tried to mature our bookings towards artists who are established names rather than all just newcomers. The two main examples of this change were our shows with Four Tet and James Blake. James is one artist who we have regularly booked throughout our time, but being able to put him on in a 200 capacity venue when he is one of the hottest acts in the World was a true honour.

The booking of Four Tet was another big one for the night, as he personally contacted me to see about playing at our little clubnight - I had to pinch myself once or twice after reading the email, but the show was one of our best ever, he even played a 50 capacity in store show at 3B Records for us. 

The club has three residents, Harry Sheehan, Rich Furness and yourself. Can you tell us some information about what each of you bring to the table as well as something maybe we might not know about them?

I’ll take each of us one by one...

Rich Furness is a Liverpool legend, he has promoted and DJed in the city for over a decade, with residencies at clubnights such as Chibuku. A little known fact about Rich is that he is the one other person, apart from myself, who has been associated with Abandon Silence since the very beginning. Indeed it was after an interview with him for the blog that I was inspired to start the clubnight way back when.

I am Andrew Hill, I double up as promoter and resident for Abandon Silence, though my residency is very limited by my promoting responsibilities. For now I just DJ at the Resident nights and any festival bookings or collaboration nights that we host, quite simply due to the fact that I wouldn't have time to DJ and run the nights when we have line ups travelling up to Liverpool!

 

Harry Sheehan is the newest member of our group. He first started working with us 2 years ago as a promoter helping with postering and flyering, but over the 12 months he worked for us he showed such passion and hard work that I offered him a residency this time last year. 2012/13 has been his first season as a resident with us, and over the course of the year he has become one of the city's most talked about DJs.

Prior to starting an event what other parties and promotions did you look at as inspiration? And was there any you explicitly decided to rebel against?

In Liverpool there is a tendency for clubnights to begin rivalries and tension without there being any real need. We have managed in the city for 3 years without having any 'beef' with anyone, and I think a big part of that is that we have trodden our own path. We were the only clubnight to be putting on these kind of acts for well over 2 years, though of course as artists we have booked such as Disclosure, James Blake and Sbtrkt have become chart-toppers, there have been more nights popping up.

We relish the extra competition though, and it gives us great vindication for the hard work we've put in for the past 2 years that people are now deciding to start up nights similar to ours. We also like to think that our crowd remember where they saw these names first, and there is a level of trust between promoter and punter that we will deliver on the line ups each month.

What else lies in the future for both you and the clubnight?

I hope to see the clubnight continue its growth over the coming 12 months. Over the past year we have had shows spread across a number of great venues in the city, though over the next year or two I expect most of our shows to be taking place in the newly refurbished East Village Arts Club.

As for me, I wish I knew the answer to that!

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