Nicky Holloway: "I Want to get Married and have Children"

Smooth talking veteran London DJ Nicky Holloway met up with Mezz's KL correspondent Angie Ng last week and as well as inviting her to Ibiza, revealed he's seriously starting to consider settling down. "If you asked me about having kids five years go I would've said 'leave off', because it would have stopped me from doing all these 'things', whereas now I'm not really doing those things," Nicky said. "It's almost like I've settled down, but without a wife and kids."



Mezz : You've been DJing in Asia, particularly Singapore, for years, what do you think of Malaysia's club scene-

Nicky Holloway: "It seems pretty fresh. To give you an example when we first played in Singapore, 8-10 yrs ago, it was extremely commercial, with music like MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice being big. You used to have to take your own records but to keep the dance floor going, you'd need to use the club's own records as well. But now you can play the same records you as you play in London. It's much more of a worldwide thing now. When a good record comes out, you get it either via the Internet or radio."



Mezz : Nicky, you're a genuine house pioneer, having holidayed with Paul Oakenfold, Danny Rampling & Jonnie Walker in Ibiza in '87, leading to the 'summer of love'…

Nicky Holloway: "Every summer is a Summer of Love, Love! (winking) Going back to the '87 thing, we sort of stumbled on this scene that was going on in Ibiza, so we just tried to recreate it in England- we didn't exploit it. Paul Oakenfold opened up a club called Spectrum, I opened one called The Trip and Danny Rampling opened 'Shoom'."



Mezz : What was it like in Ibiza, when you and the others 'stumbled on it' -

Nicky Holloway: "Ibiza's always had a reputation as being a hedonistic party island. It's not the just the English people who go there, you get Spanish, Italians, Germans, French, South Americans…it's seems to attract the same type of people from all over the world. I'd say it's really the party capital of the world. Every night there are 3-4 amazing clubs you can go to. I've been going there 18 years running, it's very easy to say 'it's not like it used to be or it's not as good as it used to be'. And in many ways it's not, but if you've never been there before, it's still fantastic and it always amazes me that every year you'd think 'this bubble's gonna burst' but it doesn't."



Mezz: I understand you're also now working in a office job for Trustthedj.com-

Nicky Holloway: "It's the first job I've ever had. I wake up at 7.3am, get on a train and I have to sit there like everybody else in a packed tube. Then I go into work, have lunch and now I've even got to book holidays in advance. It's all totally alien to me because I've always owned my own clubs and run my own businesses. I've DJed for 20 years now, but this is the first time I've ever been on anyone else's 'books', like where they pay the taxes and I'm all legal. (laughing) It's really weird."



Mezz : You've accomplished plenty in the last 15 years, what else would you like to do -

Nicky Holloway: "I think I'd like to get married and have children. Before now, it would've probably been a stupid thing to do; I was too busy staying out till all hours in the morning, but now, I'm actually getting a bit broody. Not so much so that I'd never go out again. If you'd asked me about having kids five years go I would've said 'leave off', because it would have stopped me from doing all these 'things', whereas now I'm not really doing those things. It's almost like I've settled down, but without a wife and kids. These days I do look at kids, whereas before it was a definite no-no. I can't believe I just said that! (chuckling)"



Mezz : Thank you for speaking to us, Nicky, we hope you're having a lovely time here in Malaysia and that you'll come over more…

Nicky Holloway: Tags

• Nicky Holloway