My Year In Hard Dance

Hard Dance Top Trumps

Gigs Played: 124

Tracks Released: 17

Countries Visited: 7

Biggest Crowd Played To: 40,000

Longest Set: 3 hours

Compilations Mixed: 2

Click below for my top ten!

Andy Whitby

What's been your biggest achievement of the year?

This year has been the most exciting of my career; launching my own label and signing several acts, putting on a sell-out event @ Ministry Of Sound in London, playing all over the world and mixing the latest Tidy Music For A Harder Generation Album have all been stand-out highlights.

What moments will you never forget?

Stepping up onto the Polysexual Stage at Global Gathering and seeing a sea of faces; the tent was absolutely packed to capacity and I remember pulling the channel down during a track and hearing everyone singing back at me.

Playing peak-time at Frantic's 11th birthday to a sell-out Koko in London was another amazing moment. There’s something about that club that sends shivers down my spine.

Wonderlake in Russia was another highlight as it was so surreal playing on a huge outdoor stage next to a lake at 5a.m in the morning to a packed-out crowd of absolutely crazy Russians.

Who's been your favourite newcomer of the year?

Mike Avery and Nathalie have both been constantly brilliant; I think 2009 is going to be a great year for both of them.

Who's been the artist of the year for you?

Matt Lee and Klubfiller have been my 2 favourite artists, I play ever track they have produced and they’re approach on Hard-dance is so different and refreshing, they really excite me.

What's been your favourite label of the year?

My own label AWsum, and Defiance for its range of bouncy and harder influenced releases.

What do you think has been the best track of the year?

Andy Whitby & Matt Lee feat. MC Whizzkid – Rock It! (AWsum)...slighly biased, but I wrote the words and message in the breakdown with Whizzkid. We aimed to put out a real message to those who doubt the passion and fun of our scene. I wanted to capture what I felt Hard-dance is truly about and it's been one of the biggeest tracks in my box all year.

What's been your favourite event of the year?

Frantic 11 @ KoKo was absolutely mind-blowing, as was HHA at Brixton Academy, but overall Global Gathering was the best event I went too.

What's the funniest thing that's happened to you?

Klubfiller and I spend week-long periods in the studio and most of the time end up in absolute hysterics about really silly things; stuff that would just seem totally unfunny here!

What do you have planned for the next year?

2009 is going to be about managing and building the AWsum brand, mentoring my new artists, putting on more AWsum events, writing lots more tracks and continuing to play all over the world to amazing crowds.

Hard Dance Awards