Interviewing Drum and Bass DJ; Frenetic

Frenetic means ‘fast and energetic in a rather wild and uncontrolled way’. Well, listed as one of UKF’s “Ones to Watch” 2021, Frenetic is a DJ who certainly lives up to her name. With residencies at Rumble in the Jungle, Weird Science and Broken Minds to name a few it will come as no surprised that this Birmingham-based DJ has already supported the likes of Andy C and High Contrast. We decided to ask her a few questions about her career so far, and she didn’t disappoint…

 

You’ve already smashed so many gigs so far in your DJ career, do you have a dream venue that you would like to be able to play at in future?

Thank you so much. It’s been such an amazing journey so far, I can’t believe how much has happened in the past 5 years and I’ve tried to savour every step as I’m a big believer that it’s all about the journey rather than the end goal. I’ve always wanted to play at Fabric – it’s such an iconic venue and more recently I’ve been eyeing up that main room at Printworks – that looks unreal!

 

Do you find that there is a significant lack of women in this line of work, and have you had any difficulties if so?

When I first started out, there were barely any women on the scene, especially in Birmingham. I was the only woman mixing jungle/dnb in Brum which was quite intimidating but I was actually made to feel really welcome by all the local DJs and promoters. I think, even if there ever was any initial hostility towards me, as soon as people understood how much I love and respect the music, they just let me get on with it. Now there’s a really good number of women coming through in Birmingham and all over the UK and it’s amazing to see. Event line ups have still got a long way to go but it’s so much better than 3 or 4 years ago.

 

Is there any other style of dance music you’d like to experiment with or does Drum & Bass feel like it’s here to stay in your sets?

I’m a junglist through and through – there’s just something about the energy in jungle/dnb that cannot be emulated anywhere and I’ve been obsessed with this music for so long although I would love to get booked for the occasional dubstep set as I’ve got a folder full of 140 tunes that rarely see the light of day!

 

Is there an artist you’d like to collab with in future?

DJ-wise I’d love to work with Mampi Swift or A.M.C (but a few years down the line when I’ve earnt my stripes!) as they are both absolute legends in the game for their mixing. Both of them have inspired me so much in what I do and in my mixing style so it would be an amazing full circle to work with either of them one day.

In terms of production, my dream would be someone like S.P.Y or Bladerunner – they are both incredible at what they do and I love their sounds. There’s also a load of up-coming producers who are making some incredible jungle who I’d love to sit in the studio with one day – artists like Napes, Diagnostix and Toby Ross keep me really excited about the future of jungle.

 

 

Do you think there’s a big difference of Bristol and Birmingham’s music scene, is one better at one thing than the other and vise versa?

I think Bristol has an incredible culture for dnb – you can go down for an event on a Tuesday night and Crofters, Lakota and Motion will all be sold out and then they’ll be 5 massive raves going on the same weekend. The crowd in Bristol tends to be young and studenty whereas the Birmingham crowd does have students but also has a lot of older ravers. Arguably, due to the sheer amount of events and line ups that Bristol has you could say it has the better scene but I personally prefer DJing in Birmingham because the vibe is a bit moodier which suits the sort’ve music I play. I’m also a sucker for dropping in a few classic dnb tracks from the 90s/00s in my sets and they always go down a treat in Birmingham because of that older group of ravers who are always there. But I have a huge love for both cities and am really lucky to feel so integrated into both scenes.

 

What’s your next move for the next few years, would you like to be full time DJing?

I’d definitely love to go full time in the next few years. I’ve managed to work my way up so I only work 3 days a week at my day job so we’re getting there slowly. I’ve been really trying to push the technical side of my mixing – getting a 4th CDJ to my setup has been a game changer and I’ve been bringing a whole lot more technical mixes and energy to my sets now. It’s really hard to market myself in this scene without any of my own tracks and whilst production is definitely a big goal in the next couple of years, I’m really proud of the reputation I’ve built on mixing alone and I never want to drop that element so I’ll always keep pushing to become a better, more technical DJ.

 

Catch Frenetic b2b with Hollie May at Nozstock The Hidden Valley this year, you won’t want to miss it!