Jackmaster: Addicted to DJing

Being a well-loved DJ comes with its fair share of perks. The crowd adulation, the respect of your peers, the attention of the opposite sex, the seemingly neverending flow of free alcohol and fancy dinners with promoters keen to impress... the list goes on. But the 9am wake up call isn’t one of them. It’s a grey Sunday morning in June, and a gleaming black Mercedes has just pulled up on a litter-strewn North London street to pick Mixmag up. Following a little over-indulgence during the opening weekend of the Euro 2016 football tournament, we’re feeling a little the worse for wear ourselves. But our hungover plight is nothing compared to that of the Merc’s cargo.

“Awright mate, I’m fucking hanging,” comes the gruff yet animated Glasgow accent of Jack Revill from the back of the car. “We had a pretty big one yesterday.” If Jackmaster’s feeling a little jaded, he has every right to be. The previous day began with a lunchtime back-to-back set with Gerd Janson at Field Day in East London, before heading South to play at Disclosure and Rudimental’s Brighton based shindig, Wild Life. Then it was back to London to play one of his famous Tweak-A-Holic sets in XOYO’s second room, before a back-to-back with Tiga in the club’s downstairs main room. And that’s before we even mention his Friday night headline set at Sheffield’s Night Kitchen.

Now, having had just two hours’ sleep and with approximately four hours until his next set (a back-to-back with Joy Orbison), we’re on our way to Manchester’s Parklife Festival. “Pull over, mate,” he says as we approach a petrol station to the Blackburn-based pal he’s roped in to drive for the weekend. “I’ll get some waters for the journey.” Returning to the car with an armful of Evian and a litre bottle of Lucozade, he settles into the back seat and concedes that he needs to get some sleep. “D’you like a drink, mate?” he asks in Mixmag’s general direction. “We’ll have to get some Jäegerbombs to pick ourselves up when we get there.”

If zig-zagging across the country (or continent) playing seven, eight, nine or 10 DJ sets a weekend seems hectic, it’s something Jack Revill has long been used to. Since his early teens DJing has been almost his sole focus in life. After his mum suddenly passed away when he was 14, he found solace in some house records passed down by his older sister; Daft Punk’s ‘Homework’, the first Basement Jaxx album and a Pete Tong compilation among them. After that he sunk his small inheritance into some entry-level decks and held back £200 to spend on records (all of them “shit trance”, he now jokingly admits). A work experience stint at Glasgow record shop Rubadub turned him on to Detroit techno originals like Juan Atkins and Underground Resistance, and one of his best mates (and Numbers co-founder) Spencer taught him how to DJ. While he quickly built a reputation in Glasgow and beyond for his quick-fire style of DJing (something he initially employed because Glasgow’s 3am curfew meant each DJ only got to play for an hour), it’s in the last five or six years that’s he’s really become a constant presence at festivals and clubs across Europe.

Fast-forward four hours and Jack’s about to get back in the saddle for the first of three sets at Manchester’s Parklife Festival. “I’m not fucking ready for this,” he concedes as he frantically digs through his metallic pull-along suitcase, hastily grabbing his MacBook and a cotton Sunspel bomber jacket to throw over his turquoise Nike T-shirt. Instructing Mixmag and Ben, his tour manager, to ‘go and check in’, he dashes off in a panic through the sodden ground of Manchester’s Heaton Park in a bid to make the start of his set in 15 minutes. But when we catch up with him two hours later, just as he’s got going on his second set of the day, the transformation is remarkable. Gone is the weariness not even a bottle of Lucozade and an hour of Smooth Radio could shift this morning, in its place a beaming grin and intensely focused demeanour. Hugs are joyously shared with Oneman and Artwork who come by mid-set to say hi, fags are bummed from DJ booth hangers-on as he works the packed crowd at the brilliantly exuberant Elrow stage into a frenzy. From tribal house bangers to Masters At Work-style piano anthems to the unmistakable opening refrain of New Order’s ‘Blue Monday’, he effortlessly sound-tracks Elrow’s frivolous festival of fun, turning to Mixmag mid-set to say, “This is on such a different tip to playing with Joy O earlier.”

Clearly enlivened by the experience, Jack’s in fine form when we make our way to the artist village post-set. Sneakily swiping a cup full of drinks tokens from the bar while buying a round, before taking part in a post-festival interview with Artwork, one friend quips, ‘Oh no, schoolboy Jack’s out!’ In over a decade of almost constant DJing, you’re bound to make a few mates, and everyone from MK to Tiga comes by between the Elrow set and his back-to-back with Armand Van Helden to say hi, while Annie Mac even gets an Instagram shot of herself with Jack, Tiga and Armand with the caption ‘Thank you Parklife for letting me see all my favourite DJs!’

Whether it’s 3am in a dark basement, 2pm in a muddy field or 11am in a chalet at a holiday park weekender, Jackmaster always seems to have the right set to suit the occasion – and that’s definitely the case an hour later as he holds tens of thousands in his sway playing an up-tempo house set alongside Armand in the Bugged Out! tent. The biggest crowd of the day is treated to everything from Armand’s class mixes of Tori Amos’ ‘Professional Widow’ and ‘Sugar Is Sweeter’ to Spiller’s ‘Groovejet’. Jack may have started the day struggling to face up to the task ahead, but he ends it by diving into the crowd to hug people in the front row and arguing with Bicep about being able to play a couple more tracks.

“That’s why I’m addicted to DJing,” he admits when we meet a week later in Barcelona. “You were there at Parklife, mate: I wasn’t ready. But as soon as I get behind the decks, everything just disappears. The guy behind me who’s doing my nut in. Some girl who’s annoying me. It’s the only place I forget everything and just become completely zen.” Dressed in an open-necked silk shirt reminiscent of something a Northern Soul dancer or a particularly suave darts champion might wear, Jack is on livelier form today. Well rested, clean-shaven and giving off the distinct scent of Le Labo aftershave, he’s enthusing about his upcoming Sónar set and dinner at El Bulli offshoot Tickets when we settle on the roof terrace of an upmarket Barcelona hotel.

Music has long played an important part in his life, he tells us. “When my parents split up, my dad moved into a council house in Maryhill in Glasgow. He didn’t have much money, but what he had he sunk into an audiophile-quality sound system. Dad was very much about educating us about music, so we’d just stay in listening to stuff.” Citing a life-long love of Prince, Otis Redding and Average White Band alongside the likes of Oasis and The Verve as early musical interests, it was when his mum’s death coincided with him discovering house that music really became crucial in his life.

“If my mum was still here, there’s no way I’d have been a DJ,” he admits. “My mum was a teacher and I was top of every class at school. But when she passed, the music just provided so much solace for me, and it was ultimately the things she left behind that enabled me to buy the equipment to become a DJ.”

After learning the basics of DJing from Spencer, then getting a crash course in the history of underground house and techno from the people at Rubadub, Jack and Spencer set up Glasgow club night Seismic. Then, after building a solid following in Glasgow and beyond, his 2011 Fabriclive mix took him to the next level. “I’d started getting some gigs in Fabric’s third room with Rustie and Hud Mo,” he explains. “Then one day I got a call to do a Fabriclive mix!” Coinciding with the demise of a long-term relationship, the mix gave Jack something to focus on other than heartache – and it massively increased demand for him as a club DJ. “After that I was getting booked every Friday and Saturday, so it was lucky I didn’t have a girlfriend,” he laughs.

Describing the two poles of his DJing style as “playing Lionel Richie, coming out of the DJ booth and instigating a conga” and “playing hard-as-fuck old New York banging techno”, he took inspiration early on in his DJ career from mid-noughties Diplo, whose genre-hopping mixes and DJ sets were proof that being a straight-down-the-line house and techno DJ wasn’t the only way to go. “When I first heard him mixing baile funk into Tears For Fears into Cajmere’s ‘Percolator’, it was almost everything I’d wanted to do as a DJ subconsciously,” he explains. “That jumping between genres thing really resonated with me. Unfortunately, what he does now – jumping on the decks table and waving a flag around – is everything that’s wrong with dance music.”

While he built his reputation on an ability to be equally at home playing Cyndi Lauper or Whitney Houston tracks as Dance Mania or Underground Resistance records, often stating that he doesn’t believe in such a thing as ‘uncool’ or cool’ music, he’s beginning to shy away a little from the breakneck party style of DJing, telling us that playing DC10 and seeing DJs like Dixon and Ben Klock has started to shape the way he plays. “When I first saw Dixon in DC10 mixing two tracks for three or four minutes at a time, I was really impressed,” he admits. “I wouldn’t leave the dancefloor once he got going. The magic of DJing for me is taking two records with two different energies and creating a third energy plane in the mix. Not many people do that better than Dixon.”

Early the next morning we’re side of stage at Sónar as Jack awaits his 4am start time. Full of nervous excitement, as much brought on by his deep respect for the festival as the 10-minute changeover between Boys Noize’s set and his, Jack turns to Mixmag and says, “I think everyone’s going to fuck off before I get on,” then adds, “I’m just going to play ecstasy music. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to hear here!” But as soon as he gets behind the decks it’s clear any trepidation is unwarranted. Generally on a straightish house and techno tip, Jack keeps a near-capacity crowd at the cavernous open-air stage dancing until sun-up, playing house and techno rollers peppered with party classics like ‘RIP Groove’, ‘Psycho Killer’ and a slowed-down and strung-out version of ‘Man With The Red Face.’ Playing on a vast main stage, away from the usual hubbub of DJ booth hangers on, Jack’s focus on the mix is intense, only breaking concentration to occasionally ask for a light from those gathered side of the stage, or grin broadly at the ecstatic crowd. And it’s a similar story at DC10 two days later, when he arrives 90 minutes late for his gig in the garden after a flight delay.

Playing an early evening set directly after San Proper, Jack transforms the DC10 garden from a smattering of people head-nodding and dancing politely to a sea of hands-in-the-air and incessant whooping from those packed in at the front. Jack doesn’t believe in “only being a six out of ten in anything”, and is never content to have a crowd languidly enjoying themselves when he could have the whole dancefloor eating out of the palm of his hand. Afterwards, he’s in the mood to enjoy himself and heads to the DC10 office to watch a lacklustre nil-nil draw between England and Slovakia before getting a round of tequila shots in for Mixmag, Heidi, his brother and a bunch of friends he’s picked up between the DC10 office and the backstage bar. Bouncing between the bar and the DJ booth, where Seth Troxler is overseeing proceedings, Jack’s in the kind of mischievous mood that’s got him a reputation for being something of an over-indulger through the years. But is being seen as the DJ people most want to party with ever something of a burden?

“For me, it’s getting annoying,” explains Jack. “I want to be remembered as someone who plays good music, not as some fucking party boy!” Going on to tell Mixmag that turning 30 earlier this year “flicked a switch” in his head, Jack explains that 2016 has seen a slight change in his approach to life as he tries to curb his drinking a little, exercise more and take up NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming), a form of self-help that aims to help eliminate negative thought processes.“If I carry on at the rate I’m going now, I’ll have a problem in 10 years,” he says. “I want to be able to have a glass of wine with my wife and kids when I’m sixty!”

Telling us he wants to focus more on bringing new Glasgow artists through in the future – having already given the likes of Jasper James and Denis Sulta a leg-up – he envisages a future where he’s built enough of a legacy to be able to “just play two or three gigs a month”, rather than the 10 to 15
he’s doing right now. Having said that...

“Y’know, if it all dried up, I’ll play at the end of a bar in Glasgow on a Friday night for fifty quid,” he admits. And given how much this guy loves DJing, you probably wouldn’t get him off until Sunday night, either.

Jackmaster’s new MASTERMIX event series kicks off on Sunday 2nd October at XOYO in London and continues in clubs around Europe until Christmas