Steve Davis, 59, six times world snooker champion and music geek
Like most people, I fell in love with music as a teenager. I was really into prog rock, always more the leftfield stuff like Frank Zappa and Soft Machine rather than Yes, Genesis or Emerson Lake and Palmer. Then snooker came into my life and completely took over.
My life as a DJ is really a hobby that has spiralled out of control. It’s funny because in some ways I seem to have lived my life in reverse – I’m probably perceived as more cool now that I’m a 59-year-old DJ than I ever was a snooker player in the 1980s.
About 10 years ago I started doing a music show on our local community radio station in Essex, with a musician friend called Kavus Torabi. I called it the Interesting Alternative Show, playing on my 1980s nickname. We were happily bumbling along when someone asked us to do a set at the electronic music festival Bloc Weekend, which went down well. The BBC made a little documentary about it and the phone never stopped ringing.
Sometimes I can’t believe I’ve DJ-ed at Glastonbury for the last two years. It’s such a buzz. Initially, there is a novelty aspect to me DJ-ing, you’ll hear lots of people say, “is it really THAT Steve Davis?” But to keep it going for two hours you’ve got to know your stuff.
Every gig is a different experience. I’m not a “real” DJ in that I don’t mix or “jockey” the records. I’m more what the old reggae crowd would call a “selector”, and that’s fine with me. My skill is in picking the records, that’s my passion. At home I have around 5000 vinyl LPs and thousands of CDs.
I don’t do sets where people come along to stroke their beards. I want to get them dancing and having a laugh. My sets aren’t genre-based and I don’t play only dance music.
There is really no comparison between DJ-ing and playing competitive snooker, but you could perhaps compare it to playing an exhibition match, where you turn up, play some great shots and do what you can to entertain the crowd. Playing competitively is different; the players enjoy it and the audience gets entertainment from it, but it’s not the role of the players to entertain – they’re there to win.
DJ-ing – like exhibition match snooker – is about showing off. But at snooker exhibitions you never get the party atmosphere of a music festival, where everyone is right there in front of you having the best time.
Early on I played a couple of turkeys. At one gig someone came up and asked me to play Nickelback. I knew then it was the wrong crowd and it was time to do a runner.
Another time I did a gig on the ferry from Newcastle to Amsterdam. Most of the punters were hen and stag parties and soon they were so drunk they couldn’t stand up. By the time I got on at 11pm the place was empty because everyone had gone to bed.
I’m really looking forward to playing Doune the Rabbit Hole. People coming along to my set can expect a pretty eclectic mix, everything from The Beatles to Captain Beefheart to System 7 and a load of French prog stuff they’ve probably never heard of.
I love hanging out at the festivals because they’re so chilled out and you meet like-minded people who are really into music. And hopefully people enjoy what you do. That said, anybody asking me for Nickelback can do one.
Doune the Rabbit Hole takes place at the Cardross Estate, Port of Menteith, Stirlingshire, from 18-20 August.
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