Hayley: From what I can tell, you spent your formative years in Perth, Australia. Our instinct is to assume that each country has its own distinct musical character, but in your experience, is the scene in Oz that different to the scene within the UK?

Jase: Definitely. There was a minor undercurrent of electronic music back when I was in Perth, but it certainly wasn’t to the level of anywhere within the UK. It’s a very, very small scene. It does exist, but it’s compact and the events that happen are quite sporadic. Whereas in Manchester you’ve got someone touring every week and there’s no shortage of events going on, in Perth, the big names—the big calibre artists—might come around once a year, once every three months, depending how big they are. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I kind of see it as a positive, because when events like that do happen, people go absolutely mental for it. I remember Bicep, for example, came to Perth—god, it would’ve been at least ten years ago—and it was an absolutely incredible night. Like ‘Wow, this is my city going absolutely crazy for this’.

I went back recently for the first time in a long time—in December last year for Christmas—and the scene has changed [while I’ve been away]. But it’s certainly still not as well formed as the UK, for electronic music anyway.

Is that the sort of thing you’ve always been into?

For the most part, yeah. I mean, growing up it was a mix of everything really. I certainly confused my parents, going from death metal to pop [and everything in between]. I’d levelled out on electronic music by about 16, 17 I think. I was listening to a lot of the music coming out of Sheffield in particular, like Gatecrasher. I had no idea where [the music] was from, but I was obsessed with it! That kind of merged with the break scene in Perth. Our nightclub there, Ambar, was voted [one of] the top 50 nightclubs in the world because of the breaks movement back then. This is going back like 20 years. So yeah, it’s always been electronic for the most part. I don’t just listen to that, but it’s always been electronic heavy for me.

And was DJing your route into the scene or did you ever dabble with making music?

I did actually. My high school offered a music programme and you got to select an instrument to learn. I wanted to learn the drums but my parents wouldn’t let me, I wanted to learn the guitar but there were too many people learning the guitar… The next best thing was the trumpet, so [that’s what] I learned to play. I haven’t played one in a good twenty odd years [though]. Part of me wants to pick one up just to see if I still can, but at the same time, it’s the most annoying instrument to play or practise for anyone around you. Stupidly, because I didn’t see it as cool [to play the trumpet at the time], I thought ‘Ah, I’m just not going to do that anymore’. I’m kicking myself that I stopped now.

Was it always your plan to go into the music industry?

Not really. In the back of my mind, I’d always wanted to be a DJ of sorts, but I never really pursued it, at least not in the beginning. I only really started DJing maybe twelve years ago and it was very much a light touch sort of thing, playing [for myself] and then playing some parties and so on. I never thought it was going to be my thing from the get go. I suppose that was probably symptomatic of [my] parents being a little bit overbearing. ‘No, you need a real job’ and that sort of thing. It was very much straight into a career.

A proper job!

A proper job! Thanks Dad.

So how did you end up in Manchester?

I was made redundant from a long term job and in Australia you get a long service leave payment, so I was paid that as well as a severance package. So I had no job, a chunk of cash and I’d always wanted to move to the UK, so it was the kick in the pants to finally do it—and here I am eight years later! It was only ever meant to be two, but Manchester… It wasn’t a complete stab in the dark, but there were certainly a lot of questions about whether or not I was going to fit in here, but I didn’t want to move to London and end up in Clapham with every other Australian that does so. Nothing wrong with London obviously, but I wanted to do something a bit different and I did have a few friends here before we moved. 

Was the music scene here part of the reason you chose Manchester?

Definitely. It was very high on the list.

Tell me about how Bent got started.

I never really saw myself as an event promoter, but I always liked the idea of giving something back to the Manchester scene, because the Manchester scene itself—and not just the queer scene, but the music scene in general—is so supportive. It certainly adopted me as a DJ. A lot of people gave me gigs and were just very welcoming from the beginning, so it was nice to be able to give something back. 

The catalyst was probably the venue that we run our events at, The DBA, putting out that they were looking for people to run events there. I was like, ‘Well, it’s down the road, I know the venue, it kind of sounds cool, I could do that’. So I approached them and they said yes, and then away we [went].

I suppose the guiding light for me is that, at some point down the line—many, many years down the line, when I have enough money to—I’d like to run my own event space. So in my head, this is going to give me a bit of experience in doing that [and in the meantime] I get to give something back, I get to play music and continue partying without partying if that makes sense! Because I’m getting a bit older now, I don’t party as much—nowhere near as much—as I used to, so running an event is almost my way of still being connected to the scene without going out and dancing all night. Especially when your event finishes at midnight! Everyone’s usually like where are you going now and I’m like ‘I'm going to bed!’. 

So I guess the catalyst was the venue dropping that [call out], which kind of got the cogs turning.

“I suppose the guiding light for me is that, at some point down the line—many, many years down the line, when I have enough money to—I’d like to run my own event space.”

Putting on your own event is something that a lot of music fans talk about, but very few actually do, so hats off to you for making it happen, first of all. Do you think you might have been a bit more hesitant if you’d been dealing with another venue?

Probably, yeah. I’d say so. I mean, I knew The DBA was already quite queer-focused, queer-centred, supportive, it had a bit of a foundation already. That’s not to say in any way that the venue was organised at that point, because it was very much still forming an understanding of how to move from being just a pub to being an event space, which was part of the growing pains. But I’d be remiss to think or say that The DBA was in no part a part of our success, because it is and hopefully it’ll continue to be a core venue within the scene.

I probably would have been a little apprehensive if it was elsewhere, because I used to DJ in the gay village for a long time and I was a little bit disheartened—probably more than a little bit disheartened—about the whole space when I first moved here. A lot of friends talked it up and after three or so months of going out in the village, I was just like ‘I don’t like this. It’s not my thing’. Maybe that’s another reason why I wanted to start the event, because certainly when I moved to Manchester, going to that sort of area didn’t really align with what I was into. 

You mentioned earlier about the timings. Was having it as a ‘day party’ a logistical constraint of the venue or an intentional choice on your part as a promoter?

It was certainly led by the licence. I mean, in my head… I’ve probably missed a bit actually. The first outdoor party that I went to at The DBA was a Supernature courtyard party, and I thought ‘This is great. I'd love to do something here’, which is probably why I jumped at the chance to run an event there. I never saw [Bent] as being anything other than outside in the courtyard during the day. I [thought] ‘No one wants to be dancing in a pub during the day if the sun’s out outside’. Obviously, I was very wrong!

Do you think that’s the Australian in you?

Probably! But then we did some stuff inside when we couldn’t get a TEN [temporary events] notice to run outside and I was like ‘Oh no, no one’s going to come to this’. And again, I was wrong! 

We’ve pretty much always been done at midnight. We do some events—like for Pride, for example—which have a later licence. Initially, I thought that the Manchester scene—or certainly the queer scene—was becoming a little bit saturated after COVID. There were a lot of nights on—and I love them all, they’re all fantastic—but maybe it was the business woman in me [that thought] ‘If the market’s already saturated, let’s maybe do something a little bit different’. 

I [didn’t think] it was so bad that it’d be done by midnight. It can almost tie in with some of the other events [in the city], which it does. Like when there’s something on at The White Hotel, people generally go to both. Which is long, I don’t know how they do it! But yeah, initially it was just a limitation, but we went with it and it seemed to work. There was a little bit of getting used to [the idea] that the last entry time was going to be 6 o’clock, but people know now that it’s going to be a day party, that it’s going to be done at midnight and it’s nice to see people receptive to it, still doing what they’d usually do on a night out, just earlier.

I’m sure there are people that the event appeals to precisely because it’s finished by 12 as well.

Generally, friends that are about my age think it’s great. Like, ‘I can go home, have some ramen and go to bed, then be up fresh and still do my stuff the next day’.

Tell me more about the name.

It’s kind of a legacy thing. When I moved to the UK. I was out of work for a good couple of months and I needed something to do with my time. I was obviously going out a fair bit, sampling the nightlife and finding it incredible, so I thought I might just make a nightlife blog to pass the time. So ‘bent’ is obviously the derogatory term for people that are queer, which I didn’t really know until I moved to the UK… 

Oh, is it a British thing?

Yeah, I think so.

How nice for us...

How lovely! So The Bent Hedonist was the Wordpress site. God, I hope I’ve taken that down! It was just an enduring presence on social media [through which] I catalogued nights out. Occasionally, I’d post something to it. I suppose that helped in itself when the event started, I already had a little platform to go off, which was nice. I just needed to change the name a bit.

So there was already a community forming who would likely have been interested in the event?

Yeah. I'd generally post videos from a night out and tag who was [playing] or the track ID… You know, the usual stuff that most people do. It was just kind of a labour of love to catalogue all the stuff I'd been doing. I’m sure my Mum doesn’t have access to it, because she’d be like ‘You’re partying again? You said you were looking for a job!’.

How did the idea of donating your profits first come about? Was that the case from the beginning too?

Yeah. I noticed that Manchester—certainly the queer scene but also further [afield]—is incredible for giving money back to charity and I just loved that concept. I was warned about not doing it essentially by a friend who runs parties [for charity] in Perth. He said it can become quite draining and I do see what he means, because obviously when people are working for your event and they need to get paid, you’re always thinking ‘We need to make money for the charity, where can we penny pinch in certain spots?’. It can become all-consuming. There are a lot of things to think about, but I suppose it’s not really that different to running a for-profit [event]. It’s lovely that we’re able to run a profit quite consistently and give it to charity, and to see people receptive to that is quite lovely too.

I love the juxtaposition of fun and philanthropy. Sometimes, charity events can feel a bit earnest…

I suppose it’s nice for people to know that some of their ticket price is going to a charity that’s of note at the time, because we generally select them quite live, so if there’s something going on that’s quite prevalent—like the stuff going on in Gaza or Ukraine—we switch to donate to them. I think people like knowing their money is going somewhere of use, and that they’re not just going out to get battered for no reason—which is fine as well. [Raising money for a good cause] is just the cherry on top.

How do you decide which causes to donate your profits to? When I was researching which organisations you’ve supported so far, there were so many offering specialist services that I wasn’t even aware were available…

Absolutely. It's been a learning curve on that side of things. The charity donations is one thing that we’ve certainly [involved] the wider Bent team in. After the first couple, I started to become a little bit uncomfortable that it was solely my decision where the money went. Like, ‘It is going to a charity and that’s lovely, but why do I get to make that choice?’ Now we get a shortlist together and put it to the community to decide. I feel as though everyone needs to [be a part of] making that choice, because obviously they’ve provided the money for it, and people have come up with some fantastic [suggestions] that I had never heard of. 

And so far, you’ve donated more than £11,000 to LGBTQIA+ and humanitarian causes, which is an incredible contribution!

Pride certainly helped that, which is great. And the Pride event allowed us to finally pay off all of our artists that weren’t paid initially. That was one niggle—that we hadn’t paid [some performers] from the very get go. Again, because Manchester’s so lovely, people were like ‘Oh, it’s for charity, it’s fine’ and I may have taken advantage of that at the beginning, but it’s uncomfortable when people are providing [a service] and they obviously spend a lot of time on what they’re doing. They’re artists. They’re probably giving up a gig in another venue that they’d actually get paid for, and they say it’s fine but it’s like… It’s nice to be able to offer them payment, especially because [they’ve] essentially got us to this point by providing [their] time and energy for the event. A few people were like ‘No, no, no, it’s fine, put it back in the pot’, but it’s nice to be able to offer them a very, very late wage for their time!

It’s nice that you shared that information with the wider Bent community too.

I think [there’s an issue] across the board with DJs or artists not being paid properly and I think the bigger the venue or the bigger the event, the smaller the payment in some cases. That’s not to say that we’re paying people enormous amounts of cash, but it’s nice to be able to at least give them money for their time. I had to chase a couple of people because they’d moved away or some were in Australia. Like, ‘What currency do you want this in?’ 

I see it now with friends who run events and one piece of advice I’ve given them is make sure you’re upfront about the payment situation. If you’re not going to pay someone, that’s fine, but say ‘Look we can’t afford to pay you, is that OK?’ Make sure that’s [clear] at the very beginning. Because, certainly, naive little me just thought ‘Oh, it’s a charity event, some people are going to provide their time [for free]’. And it’s like ‘They might play for free, but are you going to ask them Jason? Because you should’ve done that at the beginning!’ You live and learn, I suppose.

More broadly, what goes into planning an event like Bent that most attendees will never see or think about?

Oh god, how long have you got? My partner would ask ‘So, what have you done today?’ when I was unemployed and I’d be like, ‘I’ll have you know, I’ve been flat out!’. 

I mean, for bigger events, there’s obviously artist liaison to sort out. Hotels, flights, visas or certificates of sponsorship, all the niggling hospitality and technical riders, the sound technician, the door people, the safer spaces people that we have now as well. That’s probably all the stuff on the day. I suppose selecting the line ups and the DJs, making sure they’ve got all the information they need, getting all of their information from them, which can be very difficult. Working with creatives… I love them a lot, but they’re not the most organised bunch! We’ve certainly got a process now where I’ve streamlined as much as I can though and I'm trying to [coax] everyone into using email, even though they hate using email. Like, ‘This is the way that I work, please just meet me here! I don’t want to be chasing you [via] Instagram messages or WhatsApp.’

There’s a lot of stuff I probably labour over that doesn’t need to be laboured over, but I’ll continue to do it anyway. It’s all part of the fun, I think—all the bits and pieces you have to tie together—and like I said it’s all great experience for when I eventually, hopefully, touch wood, maybe do this for a living in ten years time when I have [my own] venue.

“There’s a lot of stuff I probably labour over that doesn’t need to be laboured over, but I’ll continue to do it anyway. It’s all part of the fun”

Are you largely a one man band at the moment then?

For the most part. My partner certainly helps with some bits. Like he’s great with the visual stuff, for example—any kind of user experience or social media stuff—and he’s also great at proofreading my social media posts. I [feel] like I’m repeating myself [a lot of] the time, so I'm [often] like ‘Can you please make sure I don’t sound like a robot in this?’. He’s fantastic with a lot of things, he’s a great help. Obviously on the day as well, I’ve got the residents there who help and there are probably more people as well. Like the photographers, they help the brand exponentially by making it public, and they’re all very good at what they do. I don’t pay a full fee because we can’t really afford to, but we pay for their film and a fraction of their fee and if it’s a bigger event, I’ll certainly pay for their time. 

For the most part, we have a no photos on the dancefloor policy. That’s not to say there are no photos allowed, it’s just that we don’t want cameras all over the dancefloor, [as it] kind of takes away from everyone’s experience. I didn’t really ever have the idea to have photographers there full time, it’s just that people have asked.

I really like the no photos policy. I think stuff like that makes such a massive difference to the atmosphere at live events. I think it almost makes people feel freer. 

I suppose it’s been a delicate balance to strike, because I want people to feel relaxed there, so I don’t want to police them in what they're doing, which is why it’s just no phones on the dancefloor. If you’re on the side of the dancefloor, that’s fine. If you’re at the back of the dancefloor, if you’re outside, go nuts! I didn’t want to be controlling, I wanted to give people freedom. Freedom in two ways: freedom to express themselves and feel like they’re not being photographed [but also] the freedom to take photos if they want to. 

I think one of the most formative nights I went to at the beginning [of my time in Manchester] was Kiss Me Again at Soup Kitchen, where there’s a strict no phones policy. I think that’s assisted in their longevity for the most part because people still don’t know about it [as an event], especially within the queer scene. It’s a tight knit community but you always know there’s going to be fantastic music, great atmosphere and no idiots, and I think that’s because there’s a no phones policy.

I also think you have a really great approach to your safer spaces policy too. It’s authoritative without being finger-waggy, which I think is a really hard balance to strike, and you’re firm in encouraging people to adhere to it. I’m interested to hear your opinion on venues or promoters who implement these policies—or are seen to implement them, at least—without practically following that up.

Oh, I’m so glad you asked! I [actually] wrote my dissertation on The Efficacy of Diversity and Safer Space Practices in Queer Spaces Across Manchester and essentially the outcome of it was that so many places are good at formalising and advertising their policies, but when it really comes down to it, there’s a massive disconnect between either the venue or the promoter actually doing anything to implement it. 

And I'm not saying that we’re perfect at all. There was a lot of learning involved—[both] within studying the dissertation and afterwards, running the event—to try and understand how I could tie some of those bits together, because in a lot of the interviews that I ran with some big venues across Manchester, it was immediately apparent that they didn’t really follow… Like, they had this policy, yes. This policy may have been visible, either on social media or on the front door, but the connection within the venue to staff—the main, core, fundamental [group] that should be implementing or supporting that policy—just wasn’t there. It was a little bit tokenistic which was… It is what it is. I wanted to make sure that we at least attempted to bridge that gap. Again, not saying that we’re perfect at all, it’s certainly been a learning curve, making sure that we have proper representation for the people who could potentially be discriminated against in the policy within the team and having their input too. We’re always working on that stuff. I suppose it was a hangover from the dissertation. Like, ‘Maybe we should try and get this right!’

Are the policies themselves something that you’ve seen become more of a focus in recent years?

I couldn’t tell you when I first started seeing it, but certainly after COVID, you’d see it everywhere, particularly with queer nights but almost anywhere of note. Any venue of a certain stature in Manchester would have a policy and would be expected to have a policy. But yeah, going back five, six, seven years, I don’t really remember seeing too much of it to be honest, unless it was a larger space or a sex positive kind of space, [where] you kind of have to have that in place.

It’s certainly something that’s become more noticeable over the past five or six years I would say. It’s nice to see that a lot of places are taking notice, so it’s only going to get better and better I would have thought.

Is there anything in particular you think that a lot of places could do better?

This is probably the corporate world trainer in me, but I’d like to be able to put together some kind of pack for promoters, especially new promoters, who are wondering what they need to do to run an event. Some sort of central resource that they’re able to pick up which details the things that should be established at the very beginning, from the outset as a minimum. Or ‘If this is the crowd that you’re expecting, here are some things you can probably use, read, and potentially implement in your venue or your space.’

I don’t want to seem like I’m the guiding light for all this, because we’re certainly still finding our way. I know The DBA were talking about doing something similar for their promoters, but I think it was more from a foundational set up perspective and not so much safe spaces. Maybe that already exists somewhere, but I certainly haven’t seen it. I suppose learning first hand is always a great way to pick these things up, but it would’ve been helpful for us in the very beginning. [Although] now that I think about it, would that be a bit too prescriptive? Could someone who’s not really too invested in or too worried about patron safety pick that up and go ‘Right, I see, we do this, this and this and then it’s sorted’? It’s a tough one.

I think a lot of promoters would find it helpful. I think they’d appreciate it, even as a starting point, especially if they’ve never considered that kind of stuff before.

I think that probably is the apprehension for a lot of people. They just don’t know where to start.

Obviously, we’ve talked about a lot of serious stuff so far, but Bent events themselves are fun and joyful! Let’s talk about some of the other stuff that makes Bent what it is. When you’re thinking about a line up, where do you begin?

We try to get in one ‘headliner’ that’s going to draw people in, because half the idea of the event in the beginning was ‘We’ve got this great space at The DBA, it’s great for showcasing local talent, but I also want to bring in a little bit of international talent too, so we have it all there at once’. We still try to keep that element of one ‘bigger’ name DJ, but [other than that] there’s no real theme to the line ups. I like complete contrast in everything. I can’t go to a techno night, [for example], and listen to techno for eight hours. A lot of people would love that but I like variation. If I get bored of something, I like to know that the next DJ will be giving me something a bit different. That’s one thing that Kiss Me Again are great at. There’s great variety in the artists that they book. 

For me, there’s nothing that really ties a line up together other than [the fact] that most artists are going to be local. We also try to make sure that all areas of the community are covered and we try to get a good gender split. That’s not to say that every single lineup has to be an even split. Sometimes there’s a bit of variation, but I want to be able to confidently say at the end of a year that that has been a completely diverse year of artists and DJs. Most of them are going to be queer, but that’s not to say that there aren’t going to be ally slots. We generally have one, maybe two ally slots every line up, because I don't want to close it off. Everyone should be welcome and we do have a lot of allies that are keen to play. [So the line up] kind of forms itself. But again, that’s what’s so great about Manchester—there’s such a diverse range of people here that I feel like there’s an endless supply of diverse artists to pull from and now I’ve got a massive spreadsheet of people I potentially want to book. It’s a nice position to be in. 

People also approach us to play and I really love that. I certainly wasn’t afforded too many opportunities when I first moved to Manchester—yes I was a DJ, but [bookers] didn’t really know my history, [which made it hard] at the very beginning—so when someone offers to or asks if they can play and I haven’t heard of them, I’m often interested because it’s a fresh name. The Manchester scene can get a little bit incestuous at times, which is good in a way, because a lot of friends and artists are getting the same gigs around the scene and it’s very supportive in that way, but you kind of want to keep it fresh at the same time. We have an earlier slot that we generally give to newer DJs. [They know] it’s not going to be as busy, but they’re absolutely gassed to be playing on a big system and they do get a decent crowd by the end of their set, because that’s when the last entry time is.

And then they can stay and enjoy it!

And then they can stay! I make sure to get them some content too, because obviously everyone wants stuff for social media, especially playing on a big sound system. 

Thinking about it, there have been a few [line ups] where we’ve had a headliner booked and I’ll form it around that, but as long as it fits the criteria [I’ve mentioned] and there’s no heavy amounts of techno [for example] or heavy amounts of house, it’s a bit of a free for all really! I do get a lot of recommendations from the other [Bent] residents as well and I outsource a lot of the support slots to them, because, again, it shouldn’t just be up to me. I like to use them as a sounding board for a lot of this, otherwise it just feels like a lot of me [impressing] things [upon] people—which, if anything, just creates more work!

Speaking of more work, you’re also a resident. At what point in the process does your DJ brain take over from your promoter brain? How does that work?

It’s difficult. It probably stems back to a book I read years and years ago, Ram Dass’ Be Here Now. I’ve learnt to disconnect from my ego, especially with DJing. Generally, if they go on a night out, most people aren’t there to see you. They just want to hear pounding music and get drunk. I learnt that a long time ago. So I think, for me, it’s about making sure that the slots I play are just fill-in slots. Wherever there’s a gap, that’s where I go. The times when I’ve finished the night, for example, it’s because we’ve either had a DJ drop out or have to leave early. But I kind of like that, because it gives me variety. I don’t know when I’m going to play. Obviously, most of the time, it’s just wherever fits. I need to be available for the main artist at the end, I need to get them comfortable, so I can’t be DJing at that time, and I [also] can’t be DJing at the beginning because I need to make sure everything’s set up. I just have to fit in somewhere in the middle. Certainly at our last event, because it was our biggest undertaking, I took myself off the bill completely. I wasn’t dealing with that stress on top of all the other stress!

Do you still enjoy the DJing side of things generally, especially when it’s not your event your playing at?

Oh, definitely. I fell out of love with it a little bit when I was DJing a lot in the gay village. They have certain music policies you’re expected to follow and I just didn’t really enjoy what I was doing, which is kind of why I disconnected from it for a while. The DBA thing came up, and obviously the event [itself] built and built, and all of a sudden I was playing the music that I wanted to play and I started enjoying it again. It was lovely to reconnect with it. I feel privileged to be able to play music for people and get paid for it at the same time. It still feels wrong. I’m not saying I’m earning heaps of money but like… ‘You want me to come to your event and play music? Of course!’ As long as it’s before 2am.

“I feel privileged to be able to play music for people and get paid for it at the same time.”

What’s the stuff you enjoy playing?

It varies year on year. I’m heavily into breaks at the moment. I listen to a lot of—broad term—IDM, so very esoteric soundscapes that you don’t tend to play out too much, because most people don’t want to hear that, though if I can slip some into a set, I’m very happy. House is usually a staple, and always has been for years and years and years. I’ll feel as though I’m getting over it and then I'll find another label or another artist and I'm like ‘Ugh, this again’—but in a good way! I think that keeps the passion alive. There are so many different genres and movements, there’s an endless supply of music, whether it be old or new. Much to my detriment, when I was [first] DJing, I thought I needed to have ‘all the hits’ and you consume yourself with that and tire yourself out because it’s [an endless pursuit]. That’s probably a large part of the reason that I didn’t want to start producing my own music. Like, ‘Why would I need to when there’s all of this?’

When I started DJing initially, [I played] a lot of 70s disco and 70s funk, late 80s house music, 90s house... All stuff that was produced twenty, thirty, forty years ago and is still brilliant [today]. I’m sure [soon enough] I’ll be down another rabbit hole, looking for more records that I shouldn’t be buying.

So you’re a physical record person?

Yeah. Lockdown certainly accelerated that. I inherited about 2,500 records from my grandmother when she passed away. I told myself I was going to catalogue the entire lot at some point. I went home for Christmas last year and spent a good day and a half sifting through the entire lot, putting the ones I wanted to keep to the side. We sadly let go of a lot, because they were taking up a lot of space in my parents’ house. So there’s all of that and I've probably got another thousand at home, which is a relatively small collection for a DJ. One of our other residents, David, he’s got around 7,500 records. Essentially a [property]-price’s worth of records!

What sort of music do you enjoy outside of a party environment?

I’m heavily into polyrhythms, so a lot of it’s completely undanceable. Or it could be, you just need to find where the recurring beat is, which can be quite difficult with a lot of it. These artists are fantastic at what they do and some of the soundscapes that they create are just so lush and layered, you can get completely lost in it all. And, again, it’s essentially all music that’s made on a laptop. A lot of that I wouldn’t play out. I mean, I told myself the next event I play at, I’m going to lean into a bit more of that, because I [usually find myself] thinking ‘No, the crowd’s going to want something like house music to dance to, so I’m going to play them some house music’. But I'm almost going to be a bit selfish next time and play a little bit more of what I generally listen to.

Do you feel like the radio shows that you’re part of are an outlet for that side of your taste at the moment?

I think it could certainly be more of an outlet. [At the moment,] it’s very much curated with listeners in mind. I still feel quite fresh on the radio front, I think. Sometimes I lean into [that side of my taste] a little bit more, but I could certainly do so more often. I’d probably feel more comfortable doing that if it [weren’t on behalf of the] brand. We’re very much house-focused, we’re very much breaks-focused, we’re very much club- and bass-music-focused, so what I play generally comes under those brackets. I’d feel a bit selfish if I was to play something under the Bent brand where it’s just like ‘Here’s my taste’. But maybe I need to be more selfish, I'm not sure. I’m probably just overthinking things.

With you talking about the brand, I love your social media! The photographs that you post have such a joyful energy to them.

That’s purely Xavi and Will to thank for that, they’re such brilliant photographers. They’re fantastic.

How would you want someone to interpret the Bent brand?

It’s something that I've become more aware of now that we’ve got a few more followers than we did last year. I do wonder, obviously a lot of people don’t have social media, so how do they find out about us? Do they just search online? I mean, we have a bit of a website now and there are some photos up there… 

[When] putting photos up, I probably ask myself what I want to put online to make sure that [the event appeals] to people. But I suppose the answer to that, for me, is that they don’t really need to meet any criteria. If it’s a good photo, I’m just going to put it up. As long as it’s showing the diverse range of people that we welcome and those people are having fun, then I suppose it's up to other people if they want to come. As long as [what we put out there] is representative of our events in the round—they can see what music we play and have a look at our Soundcloud to see if that fits their taste, obviously the safer spaces policy is on there as well the ethos and the causes that we’ve supported—I’m quite relaxed if that makes sense. Like, ‘This is what we are, if you want to come, then great!’ Everyone’s welcome, obviously. 

The stuff that you posted from the Pride event at The Yard was so fun. People dancing in the rain!

I couldn’t believe they were still going to be honest, it absolutely pelted it down! I was up in the green room—I had to look after the artists, you see. The venue were kind enough to run some umbrellas out, so a select few got an umbrella.

How was that event for you, as your biggest one yet?

I’ll be honest with you, it was a lot. The venue’s still very much finding its feet with events of that size, so again it was a big learning curve for everyone involved. It was a lot of—a lot of—stress. I did outsource, I had an event manager come in and he was absolutely incredible. I don’t know what I would’ve done if he wasn’t there. I naively thought it’s just a few more people, right? Wrong. There’s so much admin that goes into it. We’d got three more international artists than usual, all of them getting in at different times and they obviously needed an artist liaison to make sure that they were comfortable. That’s a job in itself really, so I had an artist liaison for that. 

I think I had maybe an hour and a half overall in which I had free time. It was fantastic, it paid off, but it was a lot, a lot, a lot of work and I’m not sure if I’d do it again. Every time people ask me ‘Same again next year?’, I’m like ‘Please don’t ask me that question, I'm not ready to answer that’.

Taking into account all of your events so far, are there any moments that stand out as having been particularly emotional or euphoric or affirming?

I have to keep going back to our first birthday with Mystery Affair, a lovely Mexican DJ—quite a big name, I didn’t expect her to say yes to the booking—and a tiny little thing. We had to get her some cases to stand on to reach the decks, it was adorable. She played an incredible set. It was so, so hot in that back room—to the point of like, I'm not sure if this is safe!—and she closed with a Madonna record. Us three residents love Madonna and everyone was screaming at the top of their lungs. The video! I don’t know how many times I’ve watched that video. Someone tagged me in it two days later when I was in London for work and I cried on the Tube. Very, very happy vibes.

That was probably the most emotional moment—a lovely, lovely moment—and I think a large part of that is [the fact] that all of our core friend group are in the video. My partner’s cousin was visiting too and she’d never been to the event before, and she still talks about it today. 

More generally, even just meeting you today, it seems like a lot of you as a person is in Bent. Do you feel like the event and the work that you’ve done and the people that you’ve met through Bent have had any effect on you in turn?

I think it just further reinforces how lovely not just the Manchester scene, but the wider music scene is in general, because I have London DJs that want to play at the event and quite often they want to play for a reduced fee. They’re like ‘It’s fine, I love the ethos and I'd love to come and play’. That’s really lovely. It just pulls out the best in people.

And I’m sure it’s nice to see that the community extends not just to the audience or the events, but further out into the scene as well.

I’m still surprised when people say they’ve heard of Bent. That’s really lovely to hear, especially as someone who didn’t have many friends as a kid. No one wanted to come to my birthday parties! I was a bit of a loner, so now it’s like ‘Wait, you want to come to my party?’. It’s lovely. And hearing that people from Berlin were flying over—not just to come to Bent, but coming to Manchester for Pride weekend—and coming to my event, that’s wild to me. That’s crazy.

You mentioned eventually wanting to open your own event space earlier. Do all of these experiences shape what you want that to be?

Absolutely. I have no idea what it’s going to look like, but I’d love to have my own event space. I’ve done a lot of work with Partisan Collective over the years and some of my most formative experiences at that venue were through the nights, the days and the collective workshops that they held there that did so much for the community. I’m hoping I can morph all of this into some kind of constructive business model that will support itself essentially and still provide things for the community, whatever shape or form that might take. I don’t want it to be just another event space, where there’s nights on and you can get a drink. That’s fine, but obviously all of these nightclubs and nighttime venues are empty during the day and there are so many other things that they can be used for. But I'll worry about that once I've got the funds to do it, and that’s a long way off!

Has your work affected how you engage with other venues or nights? Or do you just switch off when you’re out?

There is a level of switching off, I suppose, because it’s nice not to be stressed in an event atmosphere! But that’s not to say that I don't pick up on certain things. There’s an element of not wanting to be too preachy though. If I go to an event and see that there’s something they could do a little bit better, it’s almost not my place to say anything. I don’t want to go full Mother! As much as I want to help people, I’m wary that it could come off the wrong way and I don’t want to do that. If someone asks for my help though, then I’m more than happy to help out. 

[For instance,] I’ve got a friend who started an event at The DBA called Shimmer a couple of months ago. He asked me if I’d got any time to help and I was more than happy to. I didn't really have that at the beginning, and even little bits of information can be really helpful for someone starting out, especially when you don’t know about financials [for instance] or even fundamental bits about a venue. 

So yeah, maybe there is a level of switching off. It certainly doesn't stop me appreciating or enjoying myself at other nights, that’s for sure. I suppose one thing about running my own event though is that I appreciate [now] how many variables there are, so something that seems out of place for you [as a customer] is probably just something that’s gone wrong on the day—because something always goes wrong on the day. Every single time. I’ve learnt to disconnect—or at least I try to disconnect—now from the stress of trying to plan everything, because there will be something wrong on the day and it’s how you react to that [that matters].

You just hope it’s something small…

Like not having a sound system for an event—that’s happened to us before! It was my fault as well, I didn’t confirm. Anyway, we got one in the end.

Is there anything you’d do differently if you were starting again today, and do you have any advice to anyone else looking to create a space for their community or a space to create a community in?

I’d say if people are offering to help, bring them on board. In the beginning, extra help can only be a good thing. I did try and take on a lot at the beginning, because obviously it’s your baby and you want to try and get everything right, but that leads to copious amounts of stress. I was a little bit guarded when people offered to help. I was always like, ‘What do you want from me, do you want to DJ here?’. And again, it was just Manchester being so lovely. People actually wanted to help. A lot of the time, as long as you’re upfront about saying we can’t offer you payment for this—or we can at some point, but we can’t right now—[it’s a case of] the more people, the better. It’s a community event, so involve the community. Let them have their input. Doing that earlier would’ve alleviated a lot of stress for me in the beginning, certainly for the first three or four events, when I was trying to deal with things that other people probably had the solutions for.

[As for] advice for other people creating a community, I suppose just making sure that you have input from every part of the community you’re trying to serve. Every expected part of the community that is going to be at your event, make sure you have their opinion and that they have their voice heard, otherwise [whatever you produce] just isn’t going to fit the bill. It seems quite obvious when you say it out loud, but make sure everyone has input. [That way, the event] is going to form itself eventually. You may have some squabbles and fights along the way, but that’s all part of the fun. It shows that people are passionate for the most part. Just fight it out and you’ll get there in the end.