One of London's biggest techno exports, Ben Sims, has been DJing and producing music for a number of years while also touring the world playing at legendary clubs and parties like the Shinjuku Liquid Room and Womb (Tokyo), Rex (Paris), I Love Techno (Belgium) and of course Tresor (Berlin).

Spinning from an early age at after hours clubs, his early influences came from disco and hip-hop with an early DJ career helped along by his involvement in pirate radio. Ben now runs labels Theory, Hardgroove, Killa Bite, Native and Symbolism and has forged a distinctive sound with each particular project.

Probably best known for tracks like "Manipulated" along with his Killa Bite productions, his re-edits of warehouse classics have been hammered by DJs like Carl Cox, Kevin Saunderson and Rolando. His material has appeared on many other labels such as Pure Plastic, Phont and Tresor. His dedication to underground music has won him recognition the world over whilst also attracting crossover appeal with numerous releases even being played by the likes of Judge Jules!

RA caught up with Ben Sims on the night of his gig at the Forum in Waterford, Ireland to find out more about his musical influences, various projects and recent events in the life of an in-demand performer.

You've just flown in from London but where have your gigs taken you recently?

I just got back from Japan yesterday. I played at Womb in Tokyo and last weekend was in Australia, and the weekend before that: Holland and
Spain. So I've been a bit all over the place at the moment but I am keeping busy and playing good parties....so still happy.

You started DJing quite young, getting your first decks at 10. Were you always interested in music growing up?

As I was growing up my parents used to listen to a lot of Ska and kind of Trojan-era Reggae stuff so I guess I got into dance music through that. But it was really the hip-hop and break-dancing explosion in the early 80's that really got me hooked. I tried every aspect of this: rapping, graffiti and dancing, but it was only the DJing that I was good at.

What was your first exposure to DJing and who would you say first influenced you to mix?

There was a guy called Froggy who at the time was one of the biggest soul DJs in England and his daughter was also in my class at school. Even though he was one of the the biggest soul DJs in England, he was doing our school discos. To me that was the thing that made me think, "this is what i need to be doing". Seeing someone manipulate the music like that did it for me as I had only heard this music on the radio and bought a couple of records but never saw anyone present it like he did. He made his own special edits and had a show on Capitol radio at the time.....so he was the most influential to me when I started out.

What music were you involved in at the beginning?

Reggae, disco...the first thing that hooked me was hip-hop and through that I discovered funk, mainly '70s and '80s black music.

So was it the influence of the rhythms in that music?

Yeah definitely.I'm a beats man. I've always liked the energetic stuff be it hip-hop, reggae or whatever.

Did you ever play any instruments before this?

No...I did have a go at playing drums when I was young but I was just rubbish at it! It didn't really work out. Now that I've been making music, I wish I'd stuck it out and learnt something.

When and where was your first gig?

My first gig was actually a school disco, three weeks after I'd bought turntables. It's funny because it wasn't really normal for most people to have turntables at home in the eighties, so because of this and the fact that I was so young, I met nearly everyone within a 10 square mile area that had turntables so I found out about a lot more records and the different ways to mix.

When did you decide to take up Sims as a DJ name?

It was mainly because of pirate radio, I'd always used the name Ben S....for ages. In the late eighties, early nineties everybody used their first name and an initial of their second name and it just sounded shit! Over the space of one weekend, all of the guys who were on this pirate station, decided that we were going to change our names...so I just came up with Sims.

In the early days when acid house and dance music in general kicked off, who were your DJ heroes and what kind of clubs did you go to see them in?

I used to go to a lot of the kind of rave parties and aircraft hangar parties and at that time I really liked Carl Cox and Grooverider. They were playing acid house and some of the techno stuff -- very different to what they're playing now -- and also guys like Trevor Fung who I think is still around now but he does a more balearic kind of thing. Paul Oakenfold
used to be a great acid house DJ too. A lot of those guys are really big now, but they put their work in and did a lot to get where they are now.

So pirate radio played a big part in your early DJ career. Tell us more about this.

When I first started playing I was really young so it was my main access to the music. My aspirations weren't really to be a club DJ. I just wanted my own show and the first chance I got was in '87 or '88 when I met someone who got me involved from there. I really liked that way of presenting music and it wasn't so tempo orientated so you didn't have to worry about whether someone was going to dance or not; you just played what you like -- it was more personal.

The Berlin booking agency Dy-Na-Mix then took you on. How did this help your career?

It helped me out massively because before that I was working with a couple of different promoters and agencies and it was at a point where I was just starting to get a decent reputation but I didn't really have the people that I needed to push me. I met Natasha from Dy-na-mix and I was playing in Berlin and it was I think, over the period of one summer, that everything just came together. Up until that point I had a normal job and DJed at the weekend. My gigs went from 3 a month to 10 and I got an album for Tresor. It all happened in a short space of time.

Your early gigs on the road...where did they take you? and who did you work with early on?

Initially the first thing that got me noticed was the gigs in London as before this it was difficult to get gigs in other countries with this music. My first gig outside of England was in New York and that was just through a mixtape i gave to someone...that was a great experience. Initially it was just doing a lot of groundwork and I started playing around the UK but when I started making music I got a reputation abroad. I put my phone number on the first records that I put out!

Your early production excursions, what was going on around you to
influence you to get you into the studio? Between Chicago and Detroit influences where would they have fit in?

There were a handful of DJs I really looked to if I was just going out to parties or clubs and those were Jeff Mills and Derrick May, a lot of the Detroit guys and some from Chicago. They had a reputation for mixing things up and introducing old records as well as new ones. I was trying to make stuff that would fit in my box as well as theirs I suppose.

Setting up a label. How did you make that step?

I'd been collecting records for 20 odd years so it was quite a logical step. I really wanted to put out things I liked or stuff I would play and again it's a very personal, selfish thing. When I started a lot of people were buying records during the glory days of record sales and there was a lot of interest in the releases. I'd met Mark Broom and I knew Claude Young through my original label partner Tony Dax, and they helped with the first release so it wasn't a hard slog for years to get noticed. I was lucky in that sense!

You seem to have a fairly prolific production rate and you have said that some of your most well known tracks actually took the quickest time to make - would that have been "Manipulated"?

If I try to do something a little bit different then it tends to take me a long time but I mean the stuff I like playing is more suited to the DJ and is more a tracky kind of DJ-tool and is accessible. I find this kind of thing quicker to make. Nowadays I travel with a laptop so I am always messing around be it in a hotel room like over the last couple of weeks, trying new things and sometimes ending up with tracks that i would play myself.

You now have 4 or 5 labels on the go. Are you trying to represent different sounds?

I suppose I had too many ideas and too many artists that I wanted to work with on just the Theory label, so I started trying to work with different distributors and start different labels. Four or five years ago it was still a good time for record sales. At the moment I can't really justify running that many labels as sales are not as good so you have to think a little more about the record you put out, which I think is a good thing as there's more good music around and you don't end up repeating yourself. I'm gonna start shutting down a couple of labels possibly at the start of next year.

Your tracks find their way into many DJs' boxes......Heiko Laux, Christian Smith, Beyer, Deetron and different guys like Technasia. Do you try to cater for those different styles. Have you ever made a track and then said, "Now this one will suit Deetron or Carl Cox"?

I wouldn't kind of sit there and think I'm gonna make a record for Christian Smith. Much as I like the guy, I tend to make stuff that I feel I need for my own record box. When I send music out to different DJs I then look at who I think would play it or who wouldn't. I've been very fortunate that a lot of big-name DJs have pretty much supported my music.

Are there any labels/projects outside your own labels that you look to work with on a regular basis?

At the moment, not really. I did a remix for Jeff Mills and hopefully that's something that could continue and it's great to work with someone who has been one of my heroes. I've sent him some more music and I think next year I'm gonna focus more on making my own music rather than releasing music by other artists. I want to get some of my tracks out on labels I really respect: Detroit labels and European labels like Kanzleramt. I want to get back to being more of a producer/artist and spread my music around on labels that I respect and always support myself.

You've just finished a mix CD for Womb Recordings, the latest mix of yours to come out. How did that come about? Is it a certain style you wanted to showcase or is it just a regular club set?

I played there for the third time last week. I've been going to Japan for maybe 6 years and I love visiting Tokyo. For them to even ask me was great and it was something I was really happy to do. With the style of the CD I think it represents what I'm kind of doing now and it's still got the 3 deck, tricks, kind of DJ-tool angle, which I think people sort of expect from me. But I think it shows that over the years I've progressed a bit more and that I think a little more about the programming of my set now as there's a definite start and finish to it. I think previously I would just go at it and throw records about but i'm proud of the Womb CD. It definitely showcases how I play as a DJ now.

You said recently that your girlfriend co-promotes with you in London....is that still the case?

Yeah We've been doing it for a couple of years. I realised that I was playing sporadic gigs in London but I didn't really have a place I could call my home and do something other than just guest slots so we started doing the Retrovert parties in London and that has led onto doing Split which is a collaboration with another night. It's interesting to be on the
other side, bringing artists over and I enjoy doing it...working out who's going to DJ and who will play first and so forth.

So your girlfriend's obviously very into techno music.....has she plans to DJ herself?

She's more into the organising of events. I met her in Japan 3 or 4 years ago. She'd been organising events over there. It was my passion for music and her passion for organising things so it really worked, but she's no plans just yet to DJ.

You have collaborated quite a bit with Mark Broom with stuff on Pounding Grooves and Player etc. How did you guys first hook up? Did you find your styles suited each other?

I met Mark when I was playing at the Electric Underground party in London and he was just a friend of a friend but he seemed to have a very similar heritage to me. He was born in Essex outside London, the same as myself... and was into hip-hop and acid house. We got on really well so it just seemed a natural progression.

Do you see a lot of change on the London scene? Do you think techno will always get the recognition it deserves in the clubs or are there obstacles about?

London is very fashion orientated and I guess the biggest cities in all the countries are like that so if something new comes along, whether it's minimal or electroclash or whatever, you do get a percentage of the clubbing population just jumping ship. You find that the smaller towns just tend to stick to what they like. Sometimes it can be an uphill struggle doing things in London as it doesn't stick with things too long. Techno's got its cult following but it's not necessarily the biggest thing in England.

Do you see yourself slowing down on the studio work/touring? Does it effect your daily life with any major stresses involved?

I don't really like the travelling side of it although I go to different places and meet different people. Last week I did 45 hours of flying and that's just not bloody normal and I wouldn't miss that part of it. But whether I was DJing or not I'd still go to clubs or parties so I suppose I've had that kind of lifestyle for years now but even if I wasn't a club DJ I'd still want to be involved with music to a certain degree.

Has digital mixing changed techno in general or your approach to performing?

I definitely involve the use of CDs today whereas years ago I would have been totally against that. It seems to have changed the way a lot of people play and I do think that Ableton Live and people playing off laptops has definitely made more ways to manipulate music that you just couldn't do on turntables, and that does interest me.

I haven't spent too much time at it myself but people like Surgeon and James Ruskin - the way they're introducing it to play techno is very interesting. It's definitely got something to offer, unfortunately or fortunately my reputation has been built on playing on 3 turntables, throwing records around. If I suddenly turned up at gigs with a laptop I'd just lose all my audience in a couple of weeks. I think it's something I'd like to experiment with but probably only for production or on the radio, something like that. I saw James Ruskin recently playing at a gig on turntables while having a laptop set up to jam off every now and again and that interests me.

Where's your next port of call on the DJ circuit?

I have two parties in London next week - one is a warehouse party and one at Fabric. I've a couple of things in Spain and FUSE in Belgium. Then I've got a few parties over New Years Eve/Day in Austria and Spain and then I've got 2 months off, which is something I need to do (laughs loudly). January is a good month to take off, a lot of people haven't got money to go out. It's a good time to just refresh, detox, stop drinking and smoking and get ready for the next year!

Thanks for taking time out to speak to us Ben and we wish you all the best for the future.