Getting To Know You: Matt Tolfrey Interviews Gavin Herlihy

With Leftroom Records set to return to Farringdon this Saturday night, label boss Matt Tolfrey took some time out of packing his record bag and exchanged some words with his frequent DJ cohort and label signee Gavin Herlihy and this is what was said. Please let us know from the off what a normal normal day in the life is for Mr Herlihy... It starts off with yoga and a meditation before breakfast and then down to business in the studio. I try and start the day learning new skills and then launch into whatever music I’m working on. I break the day up by going through my Juno alerts for tunes or looking on Decks.de, Clone, Hardwax or Beatport. I don’t check promos as I find better music shopping but I’ll listen to something if I recognize the label or artist. I hit the gym for a little bit in the evening which is probably the best time to listen to mixes or more club tracks and then cook dinner for the missus which functions as a nice breather from music. We’re currently slaves to True Detective and Curb Your Enthusiasm so we’ll usually watch that then either go back in the studio or attempt to get an early night. Rock N roll. I used to go up to Leeds all the time when I was at university in Nottingham, and I know you've been there for a long time. How has it changed and has it been positive? It’s different in the sense there are new clubs and parties but a lot of the venues are the same. It’s still a microcosm of the scene so it’s musically very varied each weekend despite the city’s size . And of course the relentless crack on culture is still the same just with a new set of people doing it every few years. I know you lived in Berlin for quite some time, did you use it productively in the studio or productively to party, or both? I went to Berlin to go full time as a producer and DJ. It was quite a risky move looking back on it. I got to a ‘now or never’ moment with my day job at the time and decided to go for it but my skills were so raw I literally couldn’t even use a sampler. I’d gotten lucky with my first track Machine Ate My Homework which was well received and decided to use that as the spring board to go full time. When I got to Berlin it was great as the cheap rent allowed me to work full time in the studio but I was very poor in the process. The recession had kicked in and clubland had taken a hit and Berlin is a very competitive city for DJs so it wasn’t an easy environment to slip into. Ironically I did most of my hardcore Berlin raving before I moved there but I regularly popped into Panorama Bar or Club Der Visionaire on a Sunday to soak up some inspiration. And you lived in London before or after Berlin? You're a little traveller... I’ve always been interested in elsewhere. As a kid I used to take off on trips to Europe or festivals at a really young age and moved to the UK as soon as I finished school. I lived in London for 8 years and then Berlin for two. I also did a couple of stints in the US and in Holland while at University in the UK so yeah I definitely have the restless traveller bug. You recently you told me that Laurent Garnier wrote to you and told you that the first track you ever put out "Machine Ate My Homework,' was his tune of the year in 2006. Did this inspire you or accidentally put some extra pressure on you for later works? He said that in an interview in 2006 and he mentioned it to me months later at a gig I saw him play. I almost fell over both times. He wasn’t the only big name DJ to say that either! It didn’t put pressure on me however quite the opposite as I was never happy with the track! It always sounded half finished to me but when you release a tune, it’s not yours any more it belongs to everyone else. It did give me the confidence to keep cracking away and whenever things weren’t going well I’d tell myself if you can make that track and have so many people like it with the bare minimum of skills imagine what you’ll be able to do with a bit more hard studying and hard work. Room Three is such a unique space in clubland and I absolutely love playing there. Are you excited about playing up there after debuting in room one the last time you played at fabric? Room Three’s like a club within a club. I’ve had some great mornings in there raving and musically I guess you could describe it as a bit more hand to hand combat in comparison to the pikes and chariots that are required in the main room! It also has that competitive streak where the DJ needs to fight to keep the crowd so the energy is always good. What are you working on at the moment and what's up next release wise? I’m currently working on a couple remixes this week and next up is my Leftroom EP and then a couple of months after that an EP for Dogmatik and later in the year a collab remix with Laura of Todd Terry classic Bounce to the Beat. Next year is 10 years of Leftroom, what has been your highlight of Leftroom as a label so far? Apart from meeting me of course... Wow. Tricky question. I guess for the impact it had worldwide it would have to be Maceo Plex’s remix of ‘Love In Me.’ Beatport Number Ones are rarely played across the board but it had all sorts of people playing it and just listening back now it’s a great track. It captured the sound of the time before it was overly rinsed. If you could play back2back with anyone at fabric who would it be? I’d probably have to say Craig as it would save me having to bug him for the names of tracks afterwards. If you were given the task of playing the last record at Fabric ever, what would it be and why? It would depend on the situation and the mood of the crowd and whether it was a wind down after a long set or not but a good all rounder would be Black Dog 'Tactile.' Beautiful, strange, futuristic and a little weird. NIght NIght.