There's a whole generation of electronic music fans who cite Colin Dale as the reason they got into clubbing. A lifelong champion of the underground, Dale's early contributions to house, techno and experimental music were as significant as those of any UK artist. As a broadcaster and a fierce club DJ, he spun hard-edged sets on three turntables with an MC hyping up the place.

Growing up as a soul boy in South London, Dale started out on pirate stations playing funk and boogie, while also working at Croydon's storied Mi Price record store. His radio career kicked off when he moved to the then-pirate KISS FM in 1985. Every week for 16 years straight, he presented a two-hour Abstrakt Dance session, exploring the futuristic depths of dance music, then finishing on the Outer Limits hour, which plunged into cold, industrial atmospheres.

Dale broke many techno records in the UK, especially titles sent over from Detroit, and hosted interviews with the artists behind them. He always gave out the track names and shouted out the events happening in London that week, tirelessly pushing the scene forward alongside his partner-in-crime on KISS, the late Colin Faver.

All the while, Dale became one of techno's best club DJs, playing up and down the UK and at his own nights, like Knowledge and Deep Space. As the internet developed and tape collections of his otherworldly radio shows could be shared more widely, his reputation went global.

Dale's sound has gone through phases of EBM, acid, industrial and gabber, alongside his trademark house and techno. These days, it's firmly in the realm of smooth and groovy tech house, eschewing the searing urgency of his early sound but spun with the technical prowess of someone now four decades in the game. He's released plenty of records and remixes over the years, but there's no doubting where Dale is at his best.

I visited the humble gentleman at his home in South London, ate some home-cooked jerk chicken and traced a path from his legendary radio years to his current sound, which Dale describes as the "perfect place."

Let's start with the technical questions. What's your current DJ setup and why?

A pair of Pioneer CDJ-2000 NXS2 and an Allen & Heath Xone:96. I'm a big fan of Allen & Heath mixers, just because I love the sound quality. I also have a Pioneer RMX-1000 and Eventide H9 Max for effects. I have a couple of turntables too, not that I use them much anymore.

When would you get the turntables out?

These days, pretty much never, to be honest. I find the CDJs much easier to use, I have all my library on there. I have tens of thousands of records in storage and it's costing me a lot of money. I should sell them, but I can't. Like the old photos, the records have a lot of history for me.

I was an early adopter of digital DJing. KISS FM were very on-speed with it, so that was the first place I had access, and I loved it. I love new technology and geeking out in general. If I can’t afford it, I love to read about it.

Do you ever find that CDJs make it too easy?

Well everything has gone that way as we have progressed with technology, like driving an automatic car. Maybe for some it's too easy, but for me it mainly makes it a lot more creative. When I was using vinyl, I was always concentrating on doing these perfect, on-point mixes, but with the CDJs I have the visual cues, the BPM and so on. I don't sync though! That takes the enjoyment out of it.

I'd been waiting for this technology for 20 years, thinking what it's going to be like. It's even further forward than I imagined.

How do you push yourself within these comfortable settings?

I use the effects for that, and also the CDJ's effects. You can get really creative, especially using Rekordbox to plan your sets with cues at the parts you want to mix. It's almost like remixing records on the fly.

Can you walk me through a typical transition?

Nowadays, I'm much more about a slow, long blend. Almost to the point that you can't hear one track going into the other. I like to take my time and let the tracks play out. If I want to tell a proper story, it shouldn't be rushed. This has always been a part of my style but more so since I've been into digital. It's not complicated, really.

You like to use the crossfader a lot, something I'd normally associate with quicker blends.

The Allen & Heath has a fantastic crossfader which is really gradual. If I'm doing long mixes with the crossfader and the up-and-down fader in unison, it helps to blend the tracks together. It's probably also a habit from my early days when I was cutting a lot.

You have been focused on 4/4 music for the majority of your career. Is there something about 4/4 kick drums that you love to mix?

That all stems from the music I was first introduced to when I started clubbing: disco. Very much like house music, it's four-to-the-floor and made for clubs. On a club system, I think 4/4 music sounds the best. It's simple but effective, that relentless beat. It's almost trance-like. You must have seen it before, when a track breaks down to just a kick drum on its own, people go nuts.

When you are asked to do old-school sets nowadays, aside from the different choice of music, do you go into it in a different technical mentality?

Yeah, definitely. I suppose mainly because the way a lot of those older tracks are made, you have to cut a lot more. The mixing style is more… frantic.

You're still big into a spinback in your house sets now.

It's one of my favourite things. I remember when Kevin Saunderson, Blake Baxter and Derrick May first came over to promote an album in the late '80s, and they were doing these mad spinbacks all the time. From then, I was hooked. Those guys were on that frantic tip, too, a lot of tricks and showmanship.

I’ve noticed that you like to flip the CDJ into reverse quickly too.

Love that!

How did you use the three turntables together, back when you used to do that?

Most of the time, it would be one track, one locked groove, and one acapella. In clubs now, when there are three or four CDJs, I still use the extra ones in the same way.

Let's go back to the start. What was your first DJ setup?

It was a Citronic, with the two belt-driven turntables and mixer built into one unit. This was 1982, I think. Shortly after, I got a pair of Technics and a Rane mixer.

Tell me about your musical education.

I was just collecting records, since I was about 13, before I ever thought about being a DJ. I'd buy records at my local Woolworths. Then I got into doing pirate radio, community radio, hospital radio and that kind of thing.

I used to follow Paul "Trouble" Anderson, Steve Jackson and Gordon Mack to clubs all over London. Gordon started KISS FM and knew I had a good radio collection, so that's how that all kicked off.

I also worked at various record shops. I spent the most time at Mi Price Records in Croydon. It's kind of a famous record shop, especially in the tech house times, as a lot of people consider tech house to have come out of that shop and that area. My history is record shops, DJing and radio, they all tied in together.

What was the weekly process of doing the Abstrakt Dance radio show?

It was mainly just listening to a lot of music. I like to think that I had this ear for music which would sound good on radio, which was quite easy back then, as not a lot of people were playing house music on the radio.

A great thing about radio is that you're given so much music. I had access to a lot through working at the record shop but for the radio I was given so much new stuff, or stuff that's coming out in a month or two. Sometimes, I'd go down to KISS for the show and there would be people waiting for me outside with records.

At the time, KISS was very, very popular. I used to get nervous but with time started to relax more and found a niche for myself, which was important on a station with only dance music DJs. I wanted to do something a bit different, that's why I called it Abstrakt Dance. The show was quite loose, even in my techno days. It was the sound of everything put together, left-of-centre dance stuff and a section at the end, Outer Limits, where I played ambient, EBM, industrial, really dark, grimy stuff like Nine Inch Nails and Skinny Puppy. No one else was doing that at the time. I couldn't really mix that cold, industrial stuff with techno in clubs, so I did it on the radio.

If you were always so keen on playing new music, what did you do with all the records people had given you?

I kept them. I used to have about 40,000 records, but I've cut it down a bit now. After a while, they became a pain. When I moved somewhere, I had to get a room, just for the records, and check that the floor could even take them.

How does it work with digital promos now?

I listen to them all. Even if I receive 100 emails of new music in a day, I will listen to every single one, even just for a few seconds. That's usually enough to tell if it's what I'm looking for. I play everything from deep house to the funkier side of techno now, so I'm looking for stuff in that whole, expansive spectrum.

Going back to the radio show, how did you find playing without anyone there in front of you?

The trick is to act like you're just talking to one listener, and then it becomes a lot easier. We always had a special guest as well, to get people involved. Sometimes I'd get on the phone and call up Juan Atkins or someone in Detroit, then when KISS got bigger and had a license, it became easy to get people down to the studio. If someone was in London, they'd come down. Prodigy, Laurent Garnier, Coxy, Aphex Twin. Everyone you can think of.

There's an amazing recording of you interviewing Underground Resistance online.

That was the hardest interview I've ever done. I think there were like 18 of them. They were all stood around the desk just looking at us. It was a little bit intimidating, all my heroes in one room. 'Mad' Mike, Suburban Knight, they were all there. It was one of the interviews I'm most proud of, too.

Was the interview and speaking side of the show as important as the music?

Yeah, it had to be informative. You could hear about everything happening in London.

The last ever Abstrakt Dance show is also on the internet. It's pretty emotional.

It was very emotional. I'd been going down there every week for 18 years. Prior to the last show, when KISS got their license, they changed dramatically and half the DJs, the specialist ones mainly, got sacked. I carried on for a couple more years but I could see the direction the station was going in and, honestly, that last show was me getting out before they likely got rid of me.

I felt like I had done everything I could there. It's not a decision I regret, and since then I haven't done much radio. It was just so good at that time, that any show I do now won't be the same. Now there are thousands of radio stations so I wouldn't hit anywhere near the same numbers.

How many people were tuning in at your peak on KISS?

Between 50,000 and 75,000.

Wow. How much would you feel that real-time engagement?

Not half as much as I could do now, as the internet hadn't come into play so much. People could just write messages or phone in, so it was more delayed. Now, all these years later, people tell me all the time that they used to listen and record all the shows to tape.

Radio has evolved into something else, a more interactive and often more visual experience.

Absolutely it has, but we started livestreaming the show on the internet in 1994. KISS had just got their license and kitted the studios out nicely. They had a webcam and an ISDN line in there for fast internet, which was really rare unless you're some top performing company. My producer Dave Rattray said one day that we could film the shows and put them on the internet. We did it for quite a while, a few years, but most people in the UK didn't have the internet speed to watch it. We mainly had dial-up internet here, but some people in Europe and the US could stream it. The visuals weren't very good, mind.

Let's move on to your club DJing.

I come from a soul and funk background, and I started playing that in clubs. But when house music came along, I was a really early adopter, especially as I worked in a record shop. I remember thinking, "This is it, this is the music of now."

The whole club thing was a bit strange because, within a year, I went from being stuck in the corner of a club to house music taking off and being onstage in front of tens of thousands of people. It was a huge explosion and DJs became idolized. That's not why I got into this, but I began to think, "I could do this for five years, maybe." I never thought I would still be doing it now.

When I got to 40 I thought maybe it's time to give it up, and I thought the same at 50, but I'm 58 and I've come to the conclusion that I'm not going to give up.

At the peak of your techno days, what BPMs were you playing?

I used to play hard techno but there were some clubs I'd go in and I couldn't play hard and fast enough for them. They were up to 190, silly numbers. I might get up to about 140 or 145. I really loved those techno days. It was so new and exciting. I was a lot younger. 30 years ago those BPMs were nothing. 145BPM is nothing at your age.

I was trying to push the music I was into as far as possible, to find the limits. At times, I found myself playing really hard, almost verging on gabber. I remember going to play gabber gigs in Rotterdam, which is really what put me off playing that music. It was too much.

You often played with an MC around those times, right?

Back in those days, drum & bass, techno and house music were all played under the same roof, so you would have MCs on everything. I used to really like it if it was a good MC, but it had to be a certain one who knows what they're doing, otherwise they can try to take over and make it their show. MCs really fitted that time, especially with the whole UK thing, just listen back to those old cassettes.

How much were you communicating with the MC to transition between records?

Sometimes, you would get nights when there would be telepathy. When I had my own MC, like Lucky or Flux, they knew what I was going to do and play, and when I needed help with a transition. It would be like adding spice on top of the track, best used sparingly, similar to how I use effects now. They were good for introductions too. The only communication would be that I'd sometimes have to tell them to stop talking for a bit.

Do you still feel the same energy in clubs as you did then?

Without a doubt. If I didn't, I'd have given up by now. I've also found that you don't need thousands of people to get a really good energy and atmosphere. I like intimate crowds, where you can look into their eyes and connect.

The music you play has got a lot softer with time, is that a natural process?

Well, yeah, it wasn't intentional. While I was doing techno, I did a lot of tech house gigs as well, and found myself being more drawn to that melodic, musical side of things, and less to the linear thing.

I'm subconsciously drawing on all the music I've listened to, my soul and funk roots, my jazz roots, everything. I've been doing it for 40 years, but if I look back, I can say where I am now is the perfect place. People might find it strange that I used to play really hard techno and I've ended up here, but it's not. That progression has happened over 20 years, and my age and maturity comes into it too.

Do the different physical demands of playing different kinds of music come into it?

No. Actually, the shift from techno to where I am now began when I started to produce music myself. I found myself making the kinds of music I'm playing now. I've never really made a techno record.

Have there been some difficult moments in that transition?

Not really. A lot of techno DJs have started to get funkier and are now playing softer stuff. I'm pretty sure I lost a lot of work, but I didn't mind, as I'm not doing it for money and I'm not afraid to change. It's a road I’ve travelled. Also, now, if I wanted to draw out some techno, people wouldn't be shocked. They know what I'm capable of.

What do you say to purist fans who criticise your progression?

You're always going to get that. People are entitled to think what they want, but it's techno music for christ's sake, it's gotta move on or it gets stagnant. I personally never walk around like some judge, turning my nose up at what other people like.

Do you still consider what you do as rooted in UK music culture?

I don't think I’ve ever considered myself as a UK DJ, or a London DJ. I don't even know what those things are. It would be a lot easier for an outsider to look in and judge London as a sound, but I live here.

Are there parts of your career which you consider the peak, and the low point, creatively?

The low point is easy, that's been the past year during Covid. It's been hard to be inspired, it's almost like I'm making music for a scene that doesn't exist at the moment.

My favourite time was the mid-'90s when the whole techno thing was big and I was travelling a lot. I was doing two or three different countries a weekend, or going up North. Everything was so fresh and new, the raves and warehouse parties.

Also, I'm an optimist, so I'm excited by the fact that I'm still doing it at my age and what's to come. I'm glad to be a part of the scene and I can't wait for the clubs to come back. I'm a raver at heart, if I'm not playing, I'm raving.

I'd love to know some of the most memorable moments in your DJ career. What stands out?

Haha! That's hard. I guess one that stands out is when Joey Beltram's "Energy Flash" first hit. Playing that in clubs was something else. It was a totally new sound. Another time that stands out is playing one of these big '90s raves, there must have been about 35,000 people there, and they put us DJs in some kind of cherry picker machine right up and out above the crowd. That was incredible. In the '90s, the production was fantastic and so new.

How about your residencies?

I ran the parties Deep Space and Knowledge. They were really important, as we could curate the whole atmosphere, the branding, even the type of people you want there. We built up a rapport with the crowd who came to see us every week, and really put our stamp on the music over a length of time. We took our time to get everything just right.

It's interesting that now most artists are well-known for a specific sound through the music they make, rather than residencies or radio shows.

That's the new way. It seems to be said now that if you’re going to DJ then you should make music too. I don't really agree with that, it leads to there being substandard music out there, but that happened to me too, with my first releases in the '90s, so it's kind of expected.

You have also started a management agency. What advice do you give to the younger DJs on there?

I guess my advice would be to try and create your own following by starting a little party, that your friends, and your friends' friends can come down to, as they will be your base.

20 years ago, I would have just said be really passionate about your music, it's a craft, stuff like that but nowadays the focus has shifted. It's a lot more social media driven, and about how you look. There's a lot more selling yourself. When I was coming up, you gained a reputation by going down to the club and smashing it up week in, week out.

It feels like DJing was more like a regular job then, travelling up and down the country, out buying records. In comparison, it sometimes now seems like a celebrity hobby.

I saw this happen. It looked like a lot of people who got into DJing had lots of funds behind them, which obviously made it a lot easier.

Do you like to listen to your old recordings?

Not really, I prefer to look forward than back. I'm very proud of what I did then but I also feel like I have left it behind already.

So you never get tempted to go down to the storage, grab your heaviest techno 12-inches and shell down?

Haha, no. I get invited to do old-school sets all the time, but I'm kind of caught between two paths, because new music, and breaking new music is my thing, it has been since I was on KISS. In the old-school scene, it can be a bit rigid. A lot of old schoolers don't go out very often so there are tracks they expect to hear. It's only natural I get offered those gigs though, 'cos I’ve been in the game so long. I'm part of the old guard.

Is such a long career and reputation a weight on your shoulders?

I actually think it makes it all the more easy. Because I've been doing it so long, people usually don't expect me to be rigid. They know there's 40 years of knowledge in there. A lot of people who have followed me have probably come through the same evolution themselves, and a fair amount of my gigs have an older crowd.

How do you feel about being part of this old guard, and the recognition you do or don't get?

Well there's lots of us, I could go on and on about really good DJs who don't get the recognition anymore but you wouldn't know who they are.

For example, Jazzy M, a London guy, who started playing house music in 1985, on a rival pirate station to KISS FM, called LWR. He was one of the first people I heard doing a regular house show, as well as running record shops in London. Or there's Eddie Richards, doing his tech house thing, and Fabio & Grooverider in drum & bass.

My old partner Colin Faver, too. He was really up on techno, mixed with alternative music, almost New Romantic. He was ten years older than me. A true legend, and I was so honoured to work with him. I worshipped the guy. Him and Trouble Anderson were the first people I saw doing a whole set of mixing the music rather than talking between each track. That was a revelation, and younger people don't know about them anymore.

But, it's natural that the media focus on the new people coming through, the same thing happened for me. It should be about the new kids. I remember when I came along with the house music, soul and funk were in all the clubs, then house took over as the predominant force on the dance floor. A lot of those soul and funk DJs disappeared. So, I can totally understand that when the new generation comes through, they wipe away the older people.

Still, I don't think we should just forget about the old guard, the people who have been doing it for years, and years and years, because they're like pillars of the whole thing, holding it up so that new people can come through on top.