One of the reasons DS spotlight people is to share a story with the rest of the world, on ordinary people driven towards a piece of the limelight. ‘The Saint’ is no stranger to the drug influenced party scene in Sydney, what it is, what it was and what it should be. This is his story, where rekindling his craft as a DJ allowed him to come full circle to shine through the darkness the drug culture created.

The Saint, how did you come up with that name?

Name came around about ‘96, due to the point that, personally and everyone around me there was a lot of issues with drugs in the rave scene culture. People out there say it’s not an issue, it’s a subculture. I don’t care what anyone says, there have been big namers, small timers, myself, you know everyone had an issue… or knew someone who had an issue with drugs.

Basically at the time I made a commitment to myself… stay clean.

More about the music than anything else, because it sort of became a problem for a lot of people, like their reliability, responsibility, and professionalism. You’d see a lot of headlining DJ’s in the rave scene around that time…. [Pauses in hesitation] F**k it I’ll say it, Rohypnol became a real big problem for a lot of people. Coz it was cheap, take two, scull a beer, just like an ecstasy tablet, so you can have more “get f**ked off your face beyond belief” for less the price. Some of those people with their background in the scene, they have a lot of problems now with short term, long-term memory, and just interactions with people generally struggle with normal conversations.

I had a problem… big problem 97 98, I woke up in a hospital bed it was like… aight, cut the shit, if I want to do this its about the music not the other side of it. The whole idea of The Saint apart from the mixing was trying to get the mixing ‘perfect as’, also PURE not chemically enhanced.

So that was the defining moment, waking up in hospital?

That was a big kick in the ass, it was one of those points that made me leave the rave scene. Stopped DJing for a bit, came back to the culture played more house and commercial stuff for a while, bailed to the States, came back hooked up with a couple of dudes (who were old mates) who were doing a hip-hop thing in Bondi, helped them out, moved to the city had a regular Friday night thing, helping at the door promoting. It wasn’t until February this year, 12 years later where everything came back full circle.

I could imagine that it would have been a challenge to get back into the scene, but then having the confidence to win a DJ comp after a few months. You made a comment on Facebook after you won, thanking ‘Bishop’ for giving you the ‘fire’. Can you elaborate more on that?

The whole confidence thing was a big issue for me, just because I’ve been away for so long. The whole music structure and culture has changed so much, it had changed to the point where I’m thinking of only playing my genre of music from the raves in the 90’s…

Big props to Bish (Bishop from The Vangarde), as you’d probably know, I’m real good mates with Bish, have been for a couple of years, I’ve been big supporters of Bish and The Vangarde, with the whole drum and bass thing, with my whole rave background, Prodigy, Metal Heads, love drum and bass, love jungle, old school rave, you know a big part of rave was jungle, love what their trying to do, love their feel, the barriers they are trying to push… they’re not Pendulum get that straight.

Having Bish always hanging out and (me) being out of the scene for so many years and not having that social interaction with the promoters, yeah man he was like “jump on the decks, get the practice in, do it, put yourself out there, do something, I can see you got this urge to get it out,” and for so many years it was, it was just killing me for so long, so I took the plunge…

… met up with some guys (through Facebook) who were doing a gig in Bondi (New Holland), who owned the brand, owned the label, had a long three-hour conversation. They said “look we know who you are, we know what you’ve done in the past, are you interested in jumping on? We want to see the brand grow, do bigger events in the future”. They said “look there’s a free spot right now. Do you wanna jump on?” So yeah…

… then May they had the first gig for me at Norton for Norton’s called Technofix. It was a great confidence booster for me because the people there, who were listening to Gabba, liked the style I like playin. Then the Atomic DJ comp. For a small competition for a local inner west pub it had close to 500 people. That gave me more confidence. The momentums rolling.

Apart from all the gigs you got coming up what else do you have planned for the future?

The main focus of my DJing right now is to play a few styles of music… right now I’m really really, getting into a lot of harder styles of Electro, some of the beats coming out from these guys from Europe and a couple of local guys, Tom piper bum rushing the scene pretty large, and an old DJ I know, Adam Elroy ( bam bam music ) yeah hopefully get to the same level where I’m able get into a studio and do some writing. I am doing a remix gig for Sony at the moment, it’s a bit hush hush. It’s due for release in the not too distant future, I’ll keep you posted. Hang on I think I’ve said too much already…

What kind of advice would you give young guys starting out DJing?

Spend your money wisely… get the proper gear. Hone your skills on the proper equipment… Just practice. Get your records. Learn how to beat mix, all these kids are just getting out, dropping a track and throwin it and then not really learning what the whole aspect of what mixing is. It’s about controlling the crowd. You are the Puppet Master to the crowd on the dance floor, you don’t play what you like, you play what they like.

So the whole point of being able to beat mix, (is to) know your music, know the breaks, know your crowd, know what brings the crowd up, what brings the crowd down, what’s gonna make the night exciting, keep everyone on their feet. That’s basically the whole thing to learn.

Play at peoples birthday parties, play where ever you can, get that experience, get that live experience, coz if you can’t play to a crowd, you can only play in your bedroom… quit.

You can catch DJ The Saint in this weeks issue of 3D World (Issue #981 Page 27) and on Hodgie’s ‘The Mix-A-Nation Radio Show’ Saturday night between 6-8pm on Bondi FM 88.0 or online at Bondifm.com.au.

Let the the visuals be the words, and the music be the emotions behind them.

This one’s for 9B… hope your uncle gets better!

Mannn, this label is killing it right now and has been for a while!! I’ve been a pretty huge fan of this guys ish ever since I found out about this real sick Leather Card Holder which was an instacop!

From the denim to the tee’s and all the leather that this dude’s been pushing out, I haven’t seen one thing which has really been a disappointment.. (besides the fact that you could probably put together a pretty mean gimp getup from all this black leather!).

Key pieces though, for me, has got to be the leather bomber jackets that he’s got out! these are realllll dope! And also the prison gang tee (that you can peep below) is a must! :).

But foreal if you haven’t yet heard of this guy and seen some of the pieces that’s he’s done then check it out! it’s got that real chola vibe that we all love!

So far the only places that I know you can cop is the EStore and at The Outpost here in Brisbane!

Yo! if you haven’t yet heard your man Monch is dropping by again for a number of shows in Australia at WA (4th Dec), QLD (5th Dec), SA (7th Dec), NSW (10th Dec) and VIC (11th Dec) peep here for more deets.

Pharoahe Monch has got be one of the illest MC’s around  with his buttery story tellin’ flows in ‘The Life’, to that nasty beat in ‘Simon Says’. So you gotta be a tripper if you’re thinking about letting this one slide..

You can read a mad interview with Monch here!!!

Picked up the latest Wu-Tang banger, Raekwon’s ’Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II’. It was about time that we got some of that genuine ’Wu’ back with real street talk in the form of deadly lyrical darts. Along with Rae this jewel features Ghostface Killa, Method Man, Rza, Gza, Masta Killa, Inspectah Deck, Cappadonna, Slick Rick, Jadakis, Beanie Sigel and Busta Rhymes.

For all you jobless people out there, check out what’s crackin at the Wu office.

With news of our troops getting dispatched to help countries like Western Samoa and Indonesia, suffering from floods and earth quakes, I came across a video on the latest Australian made armoured vehicle. The ‘Hawkei’ which is named after a stealthy species of Death Adder, is a light 4×4 that holds 6 soldiers. Its detachable blast and ballistic proof armour makes it highly maneuverable, ideal for transportation by air. We’ll have to wait to see if this becomes available for civilians… picture me rollin!