Zero To Hero

Talk about a lucky break. You enter a DJ competition in a dance magazine, and one year later, you’re opening for your idol. Three years later, you’re nearly as in-demand as he is. And, six-odd years on, you’ve survived the Great Dance Music Fall-Out of 2002 and are still making a living playing records all over the world. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you James Zabiela, envy of bedroom DJs everywhere.
Let’s flesh out the details a bit. While working in a second-hand record shop in his mid-teens, James entered a new talent competition, with the now-defunct UK mag Muzik. He won. He then passed a tape to Lee Burridge, who passed it on to uber-DJ Sasha, who called James – a huge fan – out of the blue.
He then became Sasha’s warm-up spinner, before graduating to the big league himself. Though he’s heading for bed after a gig in LA when HOTPRESS finally gets in touch with him (at 7am US time), Zabiela is still responsive to our inane questions.
And he agrees unconditionally that, yes, he was one of the last few to break through into the A-list before everything went a bit Pete.
“Yeah, I guess I got through before all that. In a way, it helped me actually get my name about more and get more gigs as other DJs were over-priced and I was charging very little in comparison!”
The 25-year-old is now represented by Sasha’s agency and is remarkably busy.
“I played five days last week, which is amazing and shows that dance music is as healthy as ever. There are still monster clubs around, I mean where would the big trance DJs play if there wasn’t? Their music really doesn’t suit a small room like, say, the Key in London for example. It’s a big room sound. I don’t play much of that so small venues suit me fine.”
It seems like Zabiela still can’t quite believe he’s here. His enthusiasm crosses all facets of his professional life – he recently released his debut 12” after “a few years” of tinkering around on his laptop.
He has also embraced new technology with a zeal DJs normally reserve for drugs – he was an early champion of the vinyl-aping CDJ decks from Pioneer, and is now such a whizz that live re-edits of other tracks on the fly are the norm during a set.
The latest fruit of these years of slaving over those expensive black boxes is an excellent new double album, Utilities, a mix of house, techno, breakbeat and this season’s hot sound – electro.
What’s the difference between the two halves of the record, entitled ‘Recorded’ and ‘Programmed’ respectively?
“Pretty much as the names suggest,” he proffers. “'Recorded’ was done live in one take with three CDJs, an EFX1000 and a sampler, while ‘Programmed’ was all done on the computer in Abelton Live, a sequencing programme.”
How long did it take?
“The compiling went on for months as I added more potential tracks to the list, but actually completing the CDs took a few days at home.”
To end, back to the start. How much of an influence is Sasha these days? “He’s an influence as a person and as DJ. From growing up listening to his CDs, to taking his friendly and welcomed advice, I have enormous respect for him. As I tell him frequently, he’s the man.”
Have you taught him anything?
“He says that I inspire him, which is amazing to me, but maybe that’s a question you should ask him!”