Sonny Wharton Interview: Wickerman pretty much tops the bill

The 59th edition of our Weekends Matter podcast came out this week, mixed up by our old cohort Sonny Wharton prior to him starring at Bitch in Manchester Saturday 29th March. Seeing as he's our mate, we got on the phone for a quick chat...

Thanks for the mix Sonny (listen above)! Is this pretty much where your head is at musically in 2014?

I guess so, I literally just hit record and put the mix together as I went along. I suppose I did try to aim this towards the sort of vibes i'd be playing at Bitch later this month so that probably defined the direction of it more than anything for me, but ultimately its just lots of strong tracks that I'm personally into right now. 

Can we expect more of the same in your set headlining Bitch?

Yeah definitely, even though this is my first time for Bitch I've been lucky to play at Venus a few times and its always such a great atmosphere in there and so I certainly had that in mind when I put the mix together… I've also just finished some new tracks that will released later this year so I'm really excited to test these out there that night too!

When did you realise that your future was in music? Was there a particular record, or night you went to that made you think ‘yeah, this is what I want to do’?

I never really knew whether id end up doing this as a career but the particular moment that made me think "yeah this is what I want to do" was when I watched The Hit Man & Her show live from the Eclipse in Coventry with Carl Cox – I was instantly hooked and that fixation with dance music has never really left my head since.

How is Whartone records going? Have you any new artists on the roster that have you particularly excited?

The labels going great thanks, we've just celebrated our 100th release which was a collaboration track from myself and X-Press 2 - which is a massive milestone and I'm excited about the direction its all going this year. We've just launched our new London events at Gigalum in Clapham (the next one is Sunday 30th March) as well as beginning the labels first international residency in Stockholm so things are developing nicely on that side along with the releases.

As for artists to keep you eye out for this year there's some great stuff coming from Barcelona based Dany Cohiba, London's Cole Jonson and also Digital Impression is doing some amazing stuff on our Whartone Deep imprint so look out for that!

What direction do you intend to take the imprint in?

It kind of stays true to my original plan for it really – its always been about music that I personally believe in. Whether that’s from new undiscovered acts or more well known names its always been down to the quality of the tracks and that’s what I feel most comfortable with moving forwards. 

You’ve played an enormous amount of huge festivals and dance music events. What has been your stand out moment? Where is your favourite place to play?

Skiddle's Bass Camp at Wickerman is definitely one of my fav places to play and has so many random stand out moments… everything from Skiddle director Rich proposing to (his now wife) Emma mid-set to DJing after X-Press 2 back-to-back on six decks with two of my best friends to me getting stuck at the top of a very long ladder and accidentally dropping the giant mirrored Skiddle sign from the roof of the tent. Sorry guys, I still feel bad about that!

Wickerman pretty much tops the bill for me and I genuinely love playing there as well as places like Nozstock and Isle Of Wight which are also big favourites year in year out for me!

And finally what lies in the future for Sonny Wharton? Do you have any new releases or remixes we can look forward to?

I've been working heavily on new music for the last few months so this year the main focus is going to be on my next few singles. I've really enjoyed pushing the boundaries a bit with my productions and trying to develop my sound a lot more from previous releases so I'm excited to see what people think when it all finally comes out. Next up is my new single "I See U" on Skint Records featuring the legendary vocalist Roland Clark who I feel really lucky to have got to work with on this. 

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