Frustrated with the cookie-cutter two-hour sets that he is often forced to play at bigger clubs, Danny Howells revolted and created his own party – Dig Deeper – as a venue for him to explore longer sets. With the stamina to do up to 12-hour sets, Danny will be bringing Dig Deeper party back to South Beach for Winter Music Conference this year. Known for his Global Underground and Azuli mixed CD as well as numerous productions/remixes, Danny is planning to bring his original productions to his sets for live DJ gigs as well as a new mixed compilation due this summer.
DJ Ron Slomowicz:: So, tell us about Dig Deeper.
Danny Howells:: Well, it started a few years ago. I can't remember
when, probably about three or four years ago, because I was getting
very, very bored; not bored, but frustrated, with what I could do in
DJ sets and what I couldn't do in them. I was feeling like it was just
kind of bog standard, you know? Just turning up for two hours and
doing pretty much what everybody else could do. There was no real
flexibility. So it was born out of that, really. Starting off, we'd
been doing big parties in London, the Ministry of Sound coming up;
Tokyo, Glasgow, Ireland. Amsterdam's been going really well. It was
just an opportunity for me to sort of stretch out a bit, and go to
various clubs around the world that I really do like, and where I have
a good rapport with the crowd – sort of take control over the whole
night and be a bit greedy. It's been really good fun. I've been doing
Montréal, which is like ten hours or twelve hours; New York could be
six or seven hours; Tokyo can be seven hours. It's a good chance for
me to dig a bit deeper into my box, and not only focus on the peak
time bombs. It's a sort of warm up and winding down, and all the parts
of the night, that I really enjoy.
RS:: How long is the set in Miami going to be?
Danny Howells:: It's going to be seven hours. It's the first time on
South Beach for a few years as well, because we were at Pawn Shop last
year. It's a seven hour set, and it should be really good because its
in a great club. We're going to do a lot of work in making it look a
lot darker, with the sound as well. I'm very enthusiastic about it,
and so is the guy who is organizing it, which is a positive sign.
RS:: What do you have planned? What's going to be magical about the night?
Danny Howells:: Well, I put a lot of the same sort of effort into all
my gigs but with the Miami one, you can stretch out a bit further.
For the last month I've been looking at tracks that maybe are going to
be working well on that particular night, earmarking certain tracks at
the start of the night, and the beat time; and working on some
re-edits. Hopefully I'll have some new tracks done as well, which you
can rotate on the night, which will be quite exciting, too.
RS:: What kind of stuff are you working on these days in the studio?
Danny Howells:: All sorts, really. I've been working on a few that have
really nice, little deep bits, which will be nice warm-up tunes. We've
got a couple of bits that are nearly ready to go. I'm working on a
couple of peak time tunes as well. I'm also remixing one of my old
records from Bedrock, that came out about seven years ago, doing a
remix of that to re-release. So hopefully I should have at least three
of these finished before the Conference, fingers crossed.
RS:: Which track on Bedrock are you redoing?
Danny Howells:: It's a track called Repercussion, that came out about
seven years ago. We're doing a remix of that, to sort of freshen it
up, and make it a bit more club-friendly, because the original wasn't
very playable. The production on it wasn't too great. So hopefully we
can polish that one, and make it sound good again.
