Billy Nasty has long been surfing dance music's vanguard. He has a passion for quality dance music but also realises the importance of a party, of a packed room where everyone's letting rip. His career consists of three vibrant stages. The third is just beginning and Billy is primed, mischievous as ever, ready to go.
STAGE 3: Now based in Brighton, but with dates immediately forthcoming all over the world, Billy's keen to make his presence felt at home in the UK. We live in exciting times for electronic music and Nasty's regular performances at Fabric reminded him lately of his ever-changing role. 'Fabric know I can come up with a valid contemporary angle,' he explains, 'I play techno, minimal and electro but I'm at my happiest fluctuating between styles, a million miles away from that bang-bang unforgiving techno'.
Indeed, Billy's sophisticated recent single with Gregor Tresher, 'The Mad Real World', was Electro Single of the Month in Mixmag, referred to as the future of electro. He's also been hooking up with fresh Serbian talent Marko Nastic and releases his debut under his own name, 'Imperfections', punk, label of electro kingpin Anthony Rother who Billy tours with when he plays live. From Alkan to Vath, electro is now club land's cutting edge and it's a sound Billy knows backwards.
'Its time,' he points out, 'for the more open-minded DJs of my generation to evolve'.
STAGE 1: Nasty crash-landed in the post-acid house scene, starting the Exploding Plastic Inevitable at The Brain with fellow enthusiast Steve Bicknell. The club was a success and its mix of flavours can still be sampled on Billy's seminal 'Journeys By DJ Vol.1', the Guinness Book Of Records-listed first commercially released mix album. Before long Billy was at the forefront of the progressive scene, one of the hottest DJs in London who also produced and remixed as Shi-Take and Vinyl Blair.
STAGE 2: Wanting to showcase the new sounds of techno Billy started the Theremin agency in 1995, introducing a roster of European talent (Adam Beyer, Marco Carola, Umek, etc) to a wider audience. He established himself as a leading proponent of harder-edged techno, releasing mix CD 'Race Data' and setting up the Tortured label which became a go-to imprint for the likes of Dave Clarke and Laurent Garnier. Its success was matched by Open To Torture nights in London and the US. The new millennium saw Billy's love of electro represented by his new label Electrix which released critically acclaimed albums by the likes of Transparent Sound, The Advent and Sons of Slough. Billy's DJing, meanwhile, had gone convincingly global.
STAGE 3 AGAIN: Nasty is a musical wanderer by nature and became frustrated by the time spent administrating his labels and DJ agency. Electrix was releasing tracks by the likes of Carl Finlow, Mr Velcro Fastener and Phil Kieran that anticipated the way the dance scene was heading, but Billy wanted to get back into the frontline, producing and DJing. Thus he withdrew from Theremin and has now begun to wind down all the labels. He's out there with one foot in the future whilst retaining the lessons of his lively history, playing the most futuristic sounds - but on vinyl.
'I love vinyl's history as the centre of music culture,' he admits, 'Like the old battle between analogue and digital, there'll always be a place for vinyl'. He gestures across his flat at the racks of 12's waiting to be transported, slapped on decks to cause typical Nasty havoc on the dancefloor.
Dance music is back on the up'n'up in 2011 and so, it appears, is the irrepressible Billy Nasty.
