I was born in Huntingdon, a village outside Cambridge and from the time I was two it was just my mum and me and we’re really close. She had loads of records — John Martin, Cat Stevens and folk. I used to love all the guitar effects. When I got into DJing I couldn’t afford new records so I just used to mix my mum’s — experimenting from the start.

When I was 13 I found out what dance music was. That day I walked into the common room and someone was playing their brother’s DJ Hype mix CD. It was an epiphany. It wasn’t even the music, I just couldn’t believe that it was mixed! I started to make my own tracks by overdubbing records, making crude bootlegs. It took me a long time to get any good at it.

Living in Cambridge I wasn’t very popular. Most kids I went to school with came from 2.4 children families. I just had nothing in common with them so a lot of my friends were the kids from the estates and we used to get in trouble all the time. When we moved to Colchester I made a conscious decision to fit in. I was so jealous of the people who had lots of friends. I was so shy and I never had the confidence to talk to girls! Plus I was getting slack for being a grunger because I was into Nirvana, The Smashing Pumpkins and Swans.