DJ Phantasy - Profile

Eclipse favourite DJ Phantasy, real name Stephen Hannon has been DJ’ing for just over 19 years now and his vibe and determination has not hindered since the day he first touched the sacred 1210’s. Coming into the music when acid house was at its foundation roots, he soon found that his love for the music was too strong to ignore. When phantasy started DJ’ing back in those hazy days, the scene was still so fresh that the DJ’s could get away with pretty much anything. The one thing that Phantasy concentrated on was his mixing technique, which was one of the things that got him noticed. DJ Face and Mickey Finn were some of the first DJ’s to recognise his ability and they soon started letting people know about him, as well as recommending him to various promoters for bookings. Shortly after that Carl Cox decided to sign him to his agency. This was a massive step for Phantasy who soon found himself playing at the maddest towns and cities all over the world. Places that you would drive through and it would be so empty he used to wonder if he was in the right place. But when he got to the party, oh my gosh, he soon found out where the whole town where. They were in the rave!!!

Phantasy recorded his first record in 1989 called ‘Jepron’, which was a mix of piano, big bass and a programmed 808-drum break. It was Phantasy’s love of the breakbeat that propelled him to the nether reaches of the earth. When he made the club classic ‘Never Try The Hippodrome’, with long time DJ partner Gemini, it was a fusion of hip hop meets jungle techno which to the masses was a breath of fresh air from the 4 to the floor sound that was around. The whole jungle movement was to be born from tunes like this, with only Top Buzz, Mickey Finn and Phantasy himself playing this new sound that was about to take the world by storm.

In 1994 when the ragga element came in, Phantasy, as always, wanted to be playing something different and not running with what was happening now and always trying to find a new way forward. It was then that he discovered drum ‘n’ bass ‘hardstep’. It was a clean sound for drum ‘n’ bass and not like the clangy beats of jungle. This was hard to break through with only Grooverider playing the same kind of stuff. It wasn’t until Groove made a statement that the music was called ‘hard step’ that the scene decided to take it seriously. At that time Phantasy’s phone started to ring with promoters saying to him “You play that hard step, don’t you?” This was rather annoying, as it seemed that no one wanted to make a judgement for themselves but follow the scene like a lost sheep! That was in 1996 and his links with Alex Reece, Phantasy had all those massive drum ‘n’ bass classics like Pulp Fiction, Feel The Sunshine, and the like.

Over those few years it was Phantasy who helped pave the way for drum ‘n’ bass to explode in countries like Canada and various parts of Europe. Phantasy was the man that brought DJ Hype, Andy C, Flux, Randall, Fearless and many more to the shores of Canada and those artists are sill going there to this day.

In 1997 while out with fellow DJ and personal friend Hype they were discussing tunes and why Hype always played commericial tunes and never dug deep to play more daring tracks?Hype’s reply was that he always played to the crowd and that he job was to entertain and not educate. This made Phantasy decide that he needed to change his outlook. He had always been there banging on the door trying to break new music, but he had been the big tunes out for a while that the crowd were responding to. That night Phantasy changed his whole view on the scene and the new DJ Phantasy was born.

Determined to start playing to the crowd and entertain instead of educate, he soon saw his bookings start to rise again. Playing a lot of ‘old skool’ parties over the years, Phantasy soon found he had a tag as an ‘old skool’ DJ. This annoyed him as he was still playing drum ‘n’ bass, but it was the old skool parties that were drawing the biggest amount of ravers and reviews. Phantasy has a quote about this, which goes “I am not old skool, but true skool”. Stating that he was true to the drum ‘n’ bass sound and wasn’t one of the people that ran to another music when drum ‘n’ bass went through a bad patch. He stayed true to the music, old and new, in all forms.

After having big successes with various acts like Hype, Pascal, Probe and MC Fats as well as a single with Sonia Redd, Phantasy went on to sign one of the UK’s hottest producers, Shodan. Together they have gone on to release massive tracks on his imprint, Easy Records whilst still managing to squeeze in a 12” on Hype’s label Ganja Records with UK Apache, and they have also done a host of remixes for various labels and artists.

The future is looking great for Phantasy and the team of people who he works with behind the scenes. With his club night Devotion doing really well around the world, particularly in the Greek town of Kavos, he has another new venue in London that he is breaking the drum ‘n’ bass sound in. He also hosts monthly club nights in Brighton and Germany, and will be going back to Ibiza for a series of parties throughout the summer. He also helped to set up the first drum ‘n’ bass show on MTV in 2002, as well as a similar show in the USA. With plans to do a lot more various projects in the near future, you are definitely going to see much more from him and his associated labels.

Courtesy of Easy Records.

When asked if he had any memories from Eclipse, Phantasy recalls one embarrassing moment.” On one occasion I was booked to play at Eclipse and my set was at 2am. So I got to the club at 1.30 and was chatting to some people. At 1.55 I went to the decks and as I was getting my tunes out I saw Jo Jo Rock going to the decks. So I turned to her and said ‘Hi, I’m supposed to be playing now’ to which she replied ‘No, I am supposed to be on now’. So I said to her ‘Look, I gotta go to another gig after this set and I’m supposed to be playing now. Can you go and get the promoter and find out what’s happening’. So she took her headphones out and went of to find Stuart. So I put mine in and started my set. Anyways, during my second track the promoter Stuart, came up to me and said ‘Phantasy, what are you doing. Your not on for another hour’, to which I replied ‘No, you told me my set was at 2am!’ He then turned to me and said ‘Yes that’s correct your set is 2am. The clocks have just gone back and its now 5 past 1’.

So I took my headphones out and apologised to Jo Jo Rock. I nearly died of embarrassment!”