Las Vegas Weekly

April 15, 2010 · 2:07 PM

Nightlife Podcast: Dieselboy

By Deanna Rilling

DJ/producer Dieselboy

Dieselboy (aka Damian Higgins): DJ/producer, 37, Brooklyn by way of Tarpon Springs, Florida. One of the most prominent and best-selling artists of drum-and-bass music, he’ll be in Vegas on April 21 at Forbes (3400 S. Jones Blvd.). Doors at 10 p.m.; $15, or $10 for locals with proper ID.

I started DJing in 1991, and back then there weren’t that many genres of electronic dance music. There was no drum-and-bass.

Most people, when they hear drum-and-bass the first time, they think that it sounds really fast. It’s at about 175 beats per minute; a typical house track is maybe 128.

When I used to DJ in the mid-’90s … my sets would go into techno, trance, house music, breaks. I used to mix it up a lot. Then, after ’96, I just started focusing strictly on drum-and-bass.

Drum-and-bass fans, most of them, tend to be really hardcore about knowing every single tune, every producer, when it came out.

I graduated from college and got my degree in information science. I thought I was going to become involved in setting up computer networks and stuff like that.

I never thought I was going to be involved in music for my career at all. When I realized that I was going to be a DJ for a living, my dad [singer/songwriter Bertie Higgins of 1982 hit “Key Largo” fame] was really excited about it.

When I’m actually home and not out at a club, I tend to listen to a lot of indie rock.

At the end of the day, my goal has been to play music that I like and hopefully people are into it.

Dieselboy chats about his new SubHUMAN label, Planet of the Drums and more in the free Nocturnal Admissions podcast available for download here.

Music featured in this podcast:

Dieselboy, Ewun and Evol Intent, "Midnight Express" (available on Beatport.com)

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