Billy Nasty is a London DJ, born in 1969, who works mainly in techno and electro. He begins DJing in the late 1980s, after spending his earlier years listening to rare-groove, go-go and funk before house music breaks in the UK.

DJ career

He starts working at the Camden record shop Zoom in 1989, which brings him into close contact with figures from London’s club scene and helps build his reputation. In 1990 he takes his first residency at The Exploding Plastic Inevitable night at BrainClub in Soho, alongside Steve Bicknell. The residency runs for two and a half years and his set style there points towards the progressive house scene that follows.

By 1991 he records the first mix in the Journeys By DJ series. That mix includes artists such as Leftfield and Eagles Prey, and it leads to his entry in the Guinness Book of Records for the first commercially available DJ mix. He later remixes St Etienne’s Join Our Club and serves as tour DJ for the band on their 1992 Japanese tour.

During 1992 and 1993, bootleg tapes of his sets circulate widely in the UK and help generate bookings at nights including Venus, Renaissance and Back2Basics. In 1993 he is a regular at London clubs including The Drum Club, Open All Hours, Final Frontier and Strutt, while also touring across the UK and Europe. By the mid-1990s he is DJing several times a week in the UK and abroad.

He appears on the DJ Mag Top 100 on a regular basis and is nominated in 1996 for best national DJ and best Radio One Essential Mix at the Muzik magazine awards. He also plays at the Tribal Gathering festivals in the UK and Germany. By 1997 his style has shifted towards hard-edged techno, which he documents on the mix CD Race Data.

Labels and record projects

He establishes Tortured Records in response to the lack of UK labels supporting the techno he plays. The label becomes his main outlet for favourite producers and later issues the mix CD The Torture Chamber in 2000. Tortured also develops into a banner for parties around the world, with events at Miami WMC, New York’s Arc, and festival tents at Impulse and Dance Valley in Holland.

He also launches Electrix, Tortured’s sister label, to release experimental electronica ranging from dubby material to 808-led dancefloor tracks. The label gains support from Dave Clarke, Laurent Garnier, Andrew Weatherall and Freddie Fresh, and releases album projects by Transparent Sound and The Advent. In 2002 he compiles BN01, a techno-focused mix, and BN02, which draws together his favourite electro tracks, for trustthedj.com.

His third label, Painkillers, starts in 2002 and serves as a home for remixes of tracks previously issued on Tortured. Its first release includes a Ben Sims remix of Ben Long’s Imperial Leather and Oliver Ho remixes of Umek tracks under his Mumps name.

Collaborations and side projects

He records with Dave Wesson, owner of Zoom, as Shi-Take, releasing six singles on the shop’s in-house label. He also works with Steve Dub, later known for his engineering work with the Chemical Brothers, under the name Vinyl Blair; this project leads to releases on Leftfield’s Hard Hands label.

He also founds the DJ agency Theremin, which books established techno figures and supports newer artists. The roster includes UK DJs such as Jim Masters, Mark Williams and Phil Perry, and later European names including Adam Beyer, Marco Carola, Umek, The Youngsters and Oliver Ho. Theremin later closes, after which he signs with Decked Out.

International work and later profile

He tours widely in the United States from 1998, playing in Chicago, Detroit, Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto, Seattle and across Canada. He also performs in Brazil, Colombia, Australia and Singapore, including a stop at Zouk. By 1998 he is voted the second most popular international DJ in Holland.

His recorded output includes a number of DJ mix albums and compilations, including Journeys By DJ, Race Data, The Torture Chamber, BN01 and BN02. He continues to combine DJ work with label activity through Tortured, Electrix and Painkillers.