Music
7 things you should know about Ghostboy ahead of Longitude
The renowned Dublin DJ returns to the Red Bull stage at Longitude this year with his usual eclectic playlist - here's what you need to know about him
He's one of Ireland's most celebrated club DJs and has been a resident at Dublin club Mother for the last eight years – and this year, Phil Boyle aka Ghostboy will be ensuring that the Red Bull stage at Longitude goes out with a bang.
Ahead of his Sunday night closing set, we caught up with the Dubliner – who also produces music with Rob Welsh under the Ghostboy moniker - to chat about his influences, what makes him tick, his experience on the Irish clubbing scene and what we can expect when he plays Longitude on July 15th.
1. HE BEGAN HIS DJING CAREER AT A (REALLY) YOUNG AGE
"As a kid, I was lucky enough to have a couple of older brothers who were mad into music – and both my parents were, too, so I was surrounded by music all the time. Even as far back as the early 1980s, I remember my parents had a great vinyl collection and I remember staying up late at dinner parties they would have with their friends and playing some of them. It was a way to just stay up late and have fun when we should have been in bed, but without even knowing it at the time it was an early introduction to DJing (laughs). I remember being surrounded by music in the car, the vinyl records at home, even watching Live Aid on the TV."
2. HE GOT INTO THE DANCE SCENE AS A TEENAGER
"My older brothers were initially into the indie and rock scene at the time – early REM, Sonic Youth, that kind of stuff - so I think for a kid my age, I was probably exposed to things that were way cooler than I probably should have been at the time. Then when the dance music thing kicked off in the early-to-mid '90s, one of my older brothers was in college and he started going to rave gigs, and he'd bring back music. So again, I'd have early exposure to the first Prodigy records and the Chemical Brothers and Underworld and stuff like that. I was maybe 15 or 16 and still in school, and a lot of my peers were into the grunge and indie-rock scene, but I was drifting off to the dance scene at that point. And back at that time, everyone was swapping cassette tapes – so it was 90 minute tapes of all their favourite bits and pieces. People were getting tapes off me with this dance music on it, and going 'What the hell is this?!'"
3. HIS ETHOS AS A DJ IS VERY SIMPLE...
"My own view on music has always been 'Listen to the things you like: don't worry about genres, or age, or styles.' As I got into college years and started to get into DJing, I said 'Okay, so if I wanted to run a club myself, what's the key thing I'm into?' And that kind of eclecticism – much as it seems like a dirty word at times – allows you to pick bits out of the stuff you like and try to make something work from it. That's always been my ethos when it comes to DJing; there may be a core style to what you're doing, but a lot of the fun for me has always been 'Okay, how can I throw a curveball here?' or 'How can I do something that wouldn't be expected?' In the late 1990s, I started running my own club on Wednesday nights in an old venue called The Funnel, which is long gone – it was called Sweet Shop. It was basically me and a few student mates, that eclectic idea of having a playlist that was slightly unpredictable; it might be The Beatles, it might be Leftfield, it might be whatever. Not a million miles away from what these days would be called an 'indie disco', in a sense – everything from old funk and soul records to hip-hop. Play what you like, but still make it work as a DJ set."
4. HE'S BEEN A RESIDENT AT RENOWNED CLUB NIGHT MOTHER SINCE THE BEGINNING
"Of all the different residencies I've done over the years, a lot of the time the steam runs out of them after three or four years - so for any club to last eight years just seems bonkers to me in the first place. But it's been great. We've had unbelievable experiences with it. We focus very much around the resident DJs and then every now and then, have special events. We've had Nancy Whang from LCD Soundsystem in to DJ; Shit Robot's been a regular for us as well, loads of interesting people, Jacques Renault.... we've also had the opportunity to play lots of festivals on the back of Mother, as well. It suits me because the music policy is really eclectic and you can jump around in styles. There's always everything from the latest electronic stuff to bits of Fleetwood Mac, or whatever. It's just got that fun vibe to it. It's lasted this long, so something about it works."
Ghostboy
© Ghostboy
5. HIS FAILSAFE CROWD-PLEASER IS A GOOD 'UN
"There's always a few tracks that you fall back on. The one that springs to mind immediately for me – and it's a really old track – but it kind of came back again through playing it at Mother. It's a bootleg mix of 'Sing it Back' by Moloko, bootlegged by Boris Dlugosch, a dance music producer. He did a white label version [below] that put the music from 'I Feel Love' underneath 'Sing It Back'. It got really popular again in the last couple of years, and every time I play it – every time – it just goes off. It's a great party tune and a great party starter."
6. THE RED BULL STAGE AT LONGITUDE IS HIS IDEAL FESTIVAL BUZZ
"My favourite clubs to play in over the years have always been the smaller clubs, where you're almost right in the face of the crowd and you can reach out and touch them. It's that kind of immediacy of knowing that whatever you're doing, you have that kind of feedback. Sometimes the bigger the venue, it can be a little bit distant. That's why I love playing the Red Bull stage at Longitude; you're in this kind of enclosed woodland area and the crowd are right up in front of you – so you can literally see the looks on peoples' faces as you're changing from one song into another. That's where I get the enjoyment from – knowing that there might be a sea of people behind them, but if you can tell that individuals are enjoying themselves, you can probably be sure that people beyond them are, as well. That's the real joy of doing it."
7. AND HE'S LOOKING FORWARD TO PLAYING THE FINAL SET OF THE WEEKEND
"This will be my third year playing the Red Bull Longitude stage and it's always been that end of night set – but as long as you remember that the punters are there to have fun and enjoy themselves, you will, too. When that comes together, it works really well. I remember the first time I did it I expected half the crowd to leave and go off to whatever was on the main stage, but when you have different venues at festivals, people are there for a reason. People want to be at Red Bull. There's amazing talent on the rest of the line-up, especially the local DJs, and they always have some cool international headliners as well – so there's plenty of people that go there and have it as their number one space to stay in for the weekend. So the pressure on me is not so much to keep everyone there – it's more about being as good as everyone else on the line-up over the weekend (laughs). Being a part of that and being able to top off the weekend is a privilege, and something I'm really looking forward to."
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