DJ Spotlight: Interview with SAINT

8th February

If you’ve ever been put on hold, chances are you’ve endured some kind of awful muzak. Obviously, we couldn’t let that happen at Gymbox. In a place that’s usually home to London’s hottest DJs most nights of the week, smooth jazz was never going to cut it. Thankfully, SAINT (a.k.a Rory Anderson) has lent us his unreleased track ‘Entanglement’ to make every Gymbox caller feel more at home, and less stuck in a lift.

We caught up with Rory to hear more about his music and work as co-owner of record label In Our House.

Rory, you produce music under the alias SAINT. How long have you been producing and how did you get into it?

I’ve been producing on and off for about 7 years now and have really found my love for it again, especially during lockdown. But I also DJ and been doing that for roughly the same time.

It was a natural progression that once I learned to mix tracks I also wanted to learn how to create them - I feel it helps you understand the music better.

What type of music are you looking to create as SAINT and who inspires you?

Essentially, it’s House Music at its core, but there’s so many sub genres - I guess you would say Tech House mainly. Some of the producers I really appreciate at the moment are Patrick Topping, Hot Since 82 & Archie Hamilton.

How did the decision to start ‘In Our House’ records come about?

Before the virus, we wanted to start our own house music brand (@inourhouserecords) in our local city of Southampton.

Myself (@musicofsaint), Paul (@bear_like_music) and Billy (@woosah_music) wanted to share our passion for the music and hoped to evolve the brand in a city that definitely has love for it.

What genre is your label's focus and what type of artists are you looking to add to your roster?

House Music is the core focus on the label. We want to take an edgy/cool underground approach rather than be too mainstream. Trying to avoid the dreaded ‘pop’ word which is thrown about so often... whatever that is.

Tech/Deep/Minimal/Acid would be some of the sub genres you would expect our sound to fall under, although we’re not completely against vocals if they work! Ideally, we’d like to have our own sound that you could familiarise with our brand instantly when listening.

If you could sign any artist, who would it be?

I personally would love to sign Jaden Thompson, a young tech house producer/DJ who has been dropping sick vibes recently, especially his latest release “Closer”.

Last year was bleak, but 2021 suggests there may be a light at the end of the tunnel with the potential for live gigs later this year. What are some things you’d like to achieve at ‘In Our House’ before the year is out, and yourself as an artist?

Not only do we want to release music by ourselves and other talented producers/DJs from the area, but the plan was (and still is) to eventually present our own unique night of music and vibes. Potentially at Switch Nightclub, which is the biggest club for the genre in our city. From there we’d love to branch out with the brand, whether that’s nationally or internationally.

You recently released your second single ‘Allure’ and it’s making me miss going out even more. If you could pick anywhere you wanted, what would be your ideal venue to play once the pandemic is over?

I’m glad it makes you wanna move! I would love to hear it play out at a beach party somewhere. Space in Miami would be the perfect scenario.

You can stream SAINT’s music via all good streaming platforms and keep up with him via his Instagram.

Words by Kat. Find her on Instagram or Twitter.