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The Early Years

Scott Hopkins DJ and production career commenced in Brisbane, Australia after taking out top honours in an interschool DJing competition in his senior year at the age of seventeen; however his musical evolution began a lot earlier in his life. At nine years of age Scott started his musical education by studying the violin, and not long after was recording Australia's Rage music television program onto reel to reel tape every weekend. He would then set about making up his own compilations in his bedroom. In tandem with his early mix tape exploits Scott was getting a solid grounding in all things electronic through nerding out and building electronics kits at home whilst trying not to get electrocuted. This would serve him well in the future enabling him to better understand and tweak the audio gear utilised in his own productions.

Scott incorporated his love of music with his secondary education when ever possible, hosting a daily radio show at school with a playlist made up of tunes like Stakker Humanoid and My Bloody Valentine. He played to some very bewildered kids and teachers at high volume across the school grounds. He was also DJ’ing at school dances and borrowing synthesisers from school over the holidays. Getting his first mixer and turntables at 16 was a turning point. "They were practically useless as they were belt driven. I thought they were wicked at the time though, I annoyed my brothers in the next room relentlessly with all kinds of music learning how to mix".

Scott then entered the aforementioned interschool DJ competition which had been instigated by his high school music teacher with the event being held at a club in the city. "I won, although I had by far the biggest number of supporters which is why I think I won. Not because of my then average DJ abilities. A lot of my friends had no idea about the music I was playing they were just happy to be allowed into a real nightclub".

After leaving high school he met up with a Scotsman Gracie, and a recently arrived Mark T both fresh from the UK, bringing a new wave of music to sleepy Brisvegas. "They had all these amazing records, and UK clubbing experiences that would keep me entertained for hours. We essentially started house music in our city, other people started playing rave but we were playing house". Talking about his love of music Scott goes on to explain what it was like for him buying records back then, "I would visit the record stores on Friday after work and go through the shipments picking up stuff I had ordered off the release sheets two weeks before that. There was no internet and you would order stuff you'd read about in Mixmag Update and the release sheets from the distributors. It would then come in two weeks later if they had any left. I would go home with 10-20 records which were really really fresh... you would be in the shop listening to every one of them in complete amazement… right there peaking in the shop!! Then over the weekend I'd playing them on a big system to all my friends and being completely gob-smacked by the music every week."

"We put on a night called The Chill Bar and then soon after that a proper club night called Icon playing deep US house and early progressive stuff like Limbo and Stress and loads of white labels on a big fuck off sound system in a very big dark room with little else... a few lights and a smoke machine…It was wicked. This then became part of a bigger club called The Site. Club culture had arrived... people were immersed in this club craze doing it for the first time... amazing times... every weekend 2000-4000 people would be going completely nuts for anything we played.... fantastic!"

"I had heaps of different residencies around the city... in those days a lot of my friends were a part of the scene so it was like one continuous weekend long party every week for a number of years". Scott’s intuitive ability to seamlessly incorporate a vast range of musical styles into his sets has secured Scott's place in the hearts and memories of the many who have heard him play, with comparisons flowing between Scott and the likes of Danny Howells, Sasha and Derrick Carter all in the one sentence.

Scott left Brisbane in late 1995 moving to Sydney on a mission to incorporate his love for DJ’ing with his ambition to remix and produce. An 18 month trip to the UK in 1998 enabled Scott to expand his list of DJ’ing credits having played at clubs and parties across Australia and the UK.

Productions

Returning from the UK in 2000 he brought back with him the beginnings of a studio, Scott’s studio credits are have grown rapidly since touchdown in Sydney. The last three years have seen Scott put his DJ'ing on hiatus to devote time to building some serious studio skills. "I dropped DJ'ing in favour of producing. My friends and fans didn't like me doing that (laughing)… the lifestyle wasn't doing it for me anymore and so I've been teaching myself how to engineer and produce music since then... it's not something I think you ever finish learning"

As August working with Pocket, who is now one half of Poxy Music he produced the huge Dark Tongues EP on Thunk Records. This caused a big storm locally and overseas back in 2000. "Voyager talked about sending us video footage of 10 000 people going ballistic in Brazil to this track (Tongue Tied). We never got the video… Voyager we still want it please". The Dark Tongues EP was still played by the likes of Luke Chable and Hybrid as late as last year demonstrating the strength of the record, making it a very sort after record for those who still enjoy chasing down rare quality vinyl.

"I've been writing since I first got my gear setup so that would be over 5 years now so I have as any producer does...a lot of unfinished ideas". Scott has collaborated extensively with Dave Edwards as Takster. They have been working together for a number of years doing dope beats, chilled out goodness and drum and bass madness. An album project has been forthcoming for a while, "When we sat down to look at what could put on an album we actually had three albums worth of useable material. We just have to get it all together. Soon we promise!"

In 2005 Scott Hopkins remixed Infusion's - Careless Kind into a main room late night stormer. "It doesn't look like it will get a release though. Which is a shame as it is a very solid remix". Scott also put out a massive bootleg remix of the classic Suncreem - Love You More which was the hype for months last year.

Scott then entered and won a competition with CR2 Records and Beatport.com to remix Danny Howells - Breathe. "About 400 producers around the world sent in their demos and CR2 selected four people to do a remix, then we got sent the parts and did the remix". Scott's remix was outstanding and caused a stir worldwide Scott adds "I was pretty excited when it came out, it charted for 4 weeks on Beatport's front page top 10 which was cool". Scott Hopkins has also completed his remix of Onionz - Burnin which was another massive tune with Dan Mangan (Trojan Records) stating "he sure knows how to mix a record for a big system".

Scott traveled to India last year and is now working on a new project, Maverick Souls with Craig Howard who is based in the UK. It's a long distance collaboration made possible solely by the internet. The mechanisms to make this collaboration work are explained by Scott "I do all the engineering and actual production here in Australia at my east coast studio, I then send over the tracks for feedback and input from Craig. It works extremely well and we are getting awesome results" Maverick Souls have just finished a remix of UK band The Future and have completed their first original called Chaos Field. Both of these are looking to cause a bidding war amongst labels as their mastering engineer Tony Mantz commented..."the choons are f--king MAD!!!! some of the best prog I have heard in a very long time".