Darius Syrossian: The Undefeated

It’s 1am outside Birmingham’s Rainbow Venues and Darius Syrossian is lying face-down on the curb. He’s taken a spill running for a taxi shortly after stepping off stage at the club and, after toasting another successful Do Not Sleep event – the party he started at Privilege’s Vista Club last year – his night has turned to disaster. As he looks up, blood pours down his face. But he doesn’t look fazed. If there’s one thing Syrossian has grown used to, it’s bouncing back from a fall.

With Do Not Sleep, he was responsible for one of the big Ibiza successes of 2015 with a summer of packed nights at Privilege that showcased his B2B2B sets with fellow residents Sidney Charles and Santé, the music ranging from from deep and groovy through to tech and US house. Do Not Sleep went up against Solomun’s +1 at Pacha, Luciano’s Vagabundos at Space and Steve Lawler’s VIVa Warriors at Sankeys Ibiza on Sundays, in a club many have struggled to fill. “On paper it should have failed,” Syrossian says over lunch the afternoon before his party at Rainbow Venues. “But it’s not exciting if something isn’t a challenge.”

The reward is the chance to shape Sundays during the final season at Space, with 10 weeks of parties on the terrace, four in the main room, and two old-school evening parties on the Sunset Terrace. Wearing a crisp white T-shirt, Persol shades, black jeans and leather boots, Darius looks every part the Ibiza DJ, cutting into a steak on the terrace of Marco Pierre White’s English Chophouse. Sipping from a glass of Malbec, Syrossian says the party’s success is down to a no-frills philosophy where there’s strictly no VIP. “There’s enough of that shit on the island,” he explains. “Ibiza started with the hippies, so we wanted to emulate that spirit: inclusivity over exclusivity.”

His passion is obvious. In his Yorkshire accent, Syrossian talks at a hectic pace, apparently wishing he could get his words out even faster as he remembers the moment he realised Do Not Sleep was beginning to make waves. On deck at their fourth party, he saw Richy Ahmed walk up to the DJ booth. “I just told him to get his headphones out,” Syrossian explains. “He played for free because he loved it so much.” At the end of the set Ahmed took to the dancefloor for the last track. “At that point I knew we’d done something special,’ he continues. “And that lifted a huge weight off my shoulders.”

Things haven’t always been so bright for Syrossian, though. Only a month before opening his planned Tribal Sessions residency in Ibiza last year, he was publicly fired for “bringing the brand into disrepute” over a five-month old tweet. The social media shitstorm that ensued saw five other regular DJs sever ties with Tribal in support of Syrossian, including Sidney Charles and Santé.

“I was hurt, but didn’t want to retaliate,” says Syrossian. “I just wanted to channel that frustration into something positive.” He was already booked to do a Road To Ibiza tour with Sidney Charles and Santé before the season started, a commitment the trio upheld. After staring down the barrel of a gun, Do Not Sleep was born.

Syrossian says that being able to tackle adversity comes from his upbringing. Born in Iran in the 1970s, he grew up with three brothers during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war which would eventually kill over one million people. His dad was a doctor and mum a teacher, and the area where he lived in Tehran was regularly hit by air raids; towards the end of his time there, a bomb landed next to his house. Fortunately, it failed to detonate. “I’ve had a lot more shit than the Sankeys thing,” Syrossian laughs. “When you look at it against the fact that bomb should have killed me,” he pauses, “it’s just not important.”

Iran was where he was introduced to synthesized music too, listening to Eurythmics and Human League on road trips with his uncle. He’d later get a tape-to-tape recorder in 1985 and start making his first mixtapes. But as the war worsened, his dad was offered a job at a pharmaceutical company in Manchester in 1987. “We suffered a lot of racism when we moved,” Syrossian says. “Suddenly I didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere.” Two years later his dad became a lecturer at the University of Bradford and they relocated to Leeds. There, he would find solace at his first rave at York Racecourse in 1991. “I felt a part of something again,” he says. “There was a togetherness there I’d never experienced.”

In 1993 his family moved to Canada, but Syrossian stayed on to study at Leeds School of Art and Design and invested in his first pair of decks the same year. Desperate for new music, he worked for vinyl on Saturdays at Global Beat Records in Bradford. He went on to become the shop’s manager, eventually counting Nick Warren, Sasha and James Zabiela as customers.

It was through Global Beat that Syrossian got his first taste of Ibiza, too. Skint, he’d fund holidays there by driving a van packed with crates of stock to the island (there was a lack of record shops at the time). “DJs would meet us in Café Mambo’s car park,” he explains. “We’d just open the boot and start haggling.” He moved to Leeds’ Crash Records in 2004, but as the wax industry slowed towards the end of the 00s he focused his attention on DJing after years of playing around the city. “I was about a decade too late to get a design job,” he says. “So I turned my attention to production.”

Despite music, and his subsequent relationship with Ibiza, saving Syrossian from alienation, it very nearly killed him too. En route to his first ever Tribal Sessions on the island in 2014, his tour manager, Adam Anderson, insisted Darius sit in the back of his Land Rover, joking that he was Syrossian’s chauffeur. Shortly after, a Harley-Davidson crashed into the vehicle. “Adam had a bruise shaped like a Land Rover logo on his wrist from the steering wheel, it hit us so hard,” Syrossian says. The motorcyclist broke both arms and legs, and the car was a write-off, while the front passenger seat took the brunt of the collision. “If it weren’t for Adam’s gag that night I’d have been seriously fucked up,” Syrossian concludes.

Fortunately, he survived. And although things with Sankeys soured, Syrossian’s relationship with Ibiza blossomed, something that hasn’t gone unnoticed. Recently, Do Not Sleep posters were torn down across the island while everything else on the billboards remained untouched. “We’ve ruffled a few feathers,” Syrossian smiles. “A small group of people control things there. That’s why I started my own party – to get away from the politics and have my own team.” Despite this attempt to avoid controversy, Syrossian’s career has been littered with high-profile feuds and whodunnits, such as BPM Festival in 2014, at which he claimed he was beaten up by the event’s security but the organisers denied it. “There are instances where if I’d kept my gob shut I’d be fine,” he says. “But I stand up against bullshit from people in positions of power. That means I’m not liked by many in the industry, but I don’t give a fuck,” he laughs. “Because of that there’s still an agenda to shut me up.”

If it’s true, it isn’t working. Sidney Charles and Santé step away from Do Not Sleep this year to focus on their own party, Avotre, whilst Nick Curly joins as resident from Tribal Sessions alongside Alan Fitzpatrick. These inclusions join the likes of Derrick Carter, Kölsch and Anja Schneider to create a wide palette of house and techno.

Syrossian has hit a rich vein of production form, too. After his tech-funk-fuelled ‘Back To Truth’ EP landed through Definition:Music in February, he joined Schneider’s crew with Leena Music’s ‘LEENA051’, made up of the groove-laden ‘My Expression’ and main room-ready ‘Beetham Tower’. Jittering tech workout ‘My Favourite Riot’ followed on a split EP from Circus Recordings, each of these demonstrating Syrossian’s dynamic range.

A gig with Doc Martin in 1997 inspired his refusal to stick to genre boundaries, and the mentoring Steve Lawler provided early in his production career was invaluable. Syrossian also cites Derrick Carter, Armand van Helden, Derrick May and DJ Sneak as vital to his sound’s formation. The latter’s influence came full circle in 2012 when Sneak revealed he’d built ‘Fabric 62’ around Syrossian’s remix of Hector Couto’s ‘Creampie’; the pair later producing ‘Power to the People’ in 2014. “That’s what it’s all about,” Syrossian exclaims. “Giving something back to the dancefloor. Because of that, people have stuck by me.”

He’ll need to hope that continues if he’s to boss the final season of Space’s iconic terrace, but says any success won’t be bittersweet. “People keep asking what’s going to happen, but fuck next year! Let’s just enjoy this season,” he says, picking himself up from the ground outside Rainbow Venues. “I only hope this isn’t a sign of what’s to come!” he jokes, clutching his bloody face as he shuts the taxi door. If it is, he’s bounced back from way worse before now.

Do Not Sleep is at Space every Sunday until September 25