Twas the night before Mixmas and the house was absolute chaos because everyone was dancing their little clogs off to Neon Pumps hour-long genre-melting party mix.
Take a listen as you read this interview. It’s such a vibe it scored her the title of winner alongside Jawrs in our second ever festive DJ competition.
Whether it’s those opening house party / breaksy vibes and bouncy bootlegs (including our very first free download Kontra:Flow’s Boots) or the gradual climax to dnb (peaking with Lakeway’s Broken Soul) or the cool wind down back to cool, sexy house music, there’s something about Neon Pumps’ journey that really draws you in and keeps you locked.
With such a rich selection, a well-chiselled knack of sonic storytelling and many tunes dating back over 20 years – Azzido Da Bass anyone? – it would be easy to assume Neon Pumps has been DJing for decades. But no, she’s only been on this for a few years… Yet has already created Big Sis DJs, a non profit platform and programme to enable other aspiring women, non binary and female identifying music lovers to become DJs. What’s more, she’s getting them regular paid gigs.
This is an amazing and super inspiring story. It’s proof that it’s never too late to get into something you’ve always wanted to do, no matter how many barriers society, systems and your own circumstances throw at you. Lucy’s not just not making up for lost time, she’s taken her passion to levels many with decades of tenure have been able to muster. And this interview only really covers the DJing side of things. Lucy’s dived so deep into this late-start chapter that within less than two years she’s also taken up production and released an album (Cat Nav), an EP (Mobwife Vacay) and a selection of singles and remixes. In fact her first interaction with 1 More Thing was as a producer on our first ever Demo Drop.
Get to know…
How did we end up on your radar?
I had some friends in Bristol through Full Spectrum, and I think we had some crossover there. They’d shared some stuff and it was like “Oh, this looks interesting.” So just like a general interest follow. Then I spotted the Demo Drop and sent in Gallop and found it really interesting, the whole community aspect of checking out different tracks and giving feedback is just super supportive for a new producer.
It was really good to get feedback on what landed and what didn’t and what caught people’s attention. It went out on my Mobwife Vacay EP, last year. Then I think it was Max, Fireworks Factory. I met him two days after he first moved to Bristol, and I was excited to see his journey and what was happening. When Mixmas came around again, I wondered if it was for me. I watched the video where you’re describing the type of mix you want to hear and everything you were describing resonated with how I approach DJing.
Love to hear this!
You basically said not to hold back on your weirdness and that’s me all over. The best things happen when I don’t hold back my weird.
I love that phrase. Same with genres, right?
Yeah, for sure. When I started producing, people would ask what genre. I’d just tell them the tempo and the kind of sounds that were in it. Like, “Okay, it’s 160 BPM. It has acid sounds. It has jungle breaks. And it has a bit of 4/4.”
I have to admit, when I was starting off, I was asking myself and my close mentors, “Do I need to pick a genre as a DJ/producer and stick to it?” My personality is extremely multi-genre. I have had so many jobs in my life. I’ve been a milkman. I’ve been a conference producer. I’ve worked in the power industry. I’ve worked in teaching. I’ve been an equine therapist. I’ve done a lot of different stuff. I draw from lots of different places.
My early sets are exactly this… A bit of hyperpop here, some Britney Spears here, some drum and bass here. What happens if I run some hip hop at 100 BPM with 200 BPM? Or what happens if I slow some jungle down to 90 BPM and run it over some R&B?
YES! I can relate! The deal sealer for you winning was hearing Lakeway’s Broken Soul and how you took it up to dnb and back down again. That’s a flex. Anyone can take it up, taking it back down is a whole other challenge. Is that something that you do regularly?
It’s something I do regularly and intentionally. The crowd might need a bit of a breather, or the last DJ has gone balls-to-the-wall too early and you need to bring it back down. Creating energy is not always about going faster. You can really shift and refresh the energy in a room by slowing things down. I remember a set I played once in a local pub and it was absolutely popping off. People of all ages. Really all in. It started off with some UK garage and then went into a bit of breaks, then went into quite a lot of drum and bass and they were really loving it. And then I just dropped it down into some really euphoric soulful house tunes. And it just released so much euphoric energy. Like a really groovy energy from a very pumping one. It’s really reenergising.
LUSH! Let’s get your DJ origin story.
When I was a kid I did a lot of recording mixtapes off the top 40 on cassettes and since then I’ve always been interested in finding music I love, playlisting it and arranging it. I’ve always been a broad collector. And there was the classic story of being in university where I tried it but didn’t have the confidence or feel part of it to continue. I see it all the time from a lot of female DJs. It’s like, “Oh, my boyfriend was a drum and bass DJ for seven years,” or “My husband used to DJ,” or “My son DJs.” And it’s like, “I never thought that it was for me.” And that was true for me. I tried it, I enjoyed it but it didn’t enter my mind that it was for me. Nor was I ever invited by anybody. Not that you have to be invited to do a thing…
Definitely helps you feel like you’re welcome or not though, right?
I think so. And then the push for me began with a friend who now works in the music industry. At the time he was listening to one of my playlists on Spotify and said, “I’d love to hear you do a DJ set.” I was like, “God, I would fucking love that!” But I still didn’t see how that would happen. I worked as a producer in festivals for quite a long time and we had a Disney hour in the programming and, long story short, I ended up looking like I was DJing a Disney playlist to an audience. There were so many things pointing at me becoming a DJ but I didn’t know how to access DJing equipment in order to learn. It’s big, heavy and expensive! But then I discovered the Pioneer DDJ 200. I didn’t know this equipment existed. So I got myself that for Christmas just the year before I turned 40.
Then in the spring, they were running DJ courses for young women aged 16 to 30 at this arts centre where I work. I was like, “Oh, God, I’d love to do that, but I’m outside the age bracket.” I emailed them and organised some private lessons. Prior to that, everything I’d found for DJ courses was in London. This guy was just five minutes from my house. His name is Robbie Duncan by the way. He’s incredible. He’s a very hidden gem of the music world and an amazing teacher and mentor.
Legend. When was your first gig?
It was on a Saturday afternoon in a record shop in town, Sound Records. My friend Tom runs it. It was to my mentor Robbie, Tom’s parents, my friend and my dog. I played my first 45-minute set. It got me over that hump of doing it in public. And that was it. I was just saying yes to everything.
So to get a timeline on this now, so you said you got a controller just before your 40th. And you’re not that much into your 40s now I don’t think…
I’m 42. So I’ve been DJing about almost three years.
That’s amazing. This has been an accumulation of a passion for music all these years hasn’t it?
I think so. And I’ve been raving and going to clubs and festivals my whole adult life. I say this to a lot of my students who come to me aged between 30 and I think early 60s is the oldest student I have. They come and they’re like, “Oh, I never thought I could get into this in my 40s.” No disrespect to the 20-year-old DJs who are out there smashing it. But you have got two decades’ worth of dancefloor experience of like what feels good on a dancefloor. You’ve got all of that experience and embodied knowledge waiting to be unlocked when you start mixing the tunes. I’m just showing you how to use the tools.
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Yes! So when did Big Sis DJs come into the picture?
Our first party was February 2024 .
Wow, just two years ago then.
Yeah! My tutor was running this group for women aged 16 to 30. So I was learning on the same timeline and I was friends with a couple of them and would go to their gigs and support them. There’d be three or four of them in the booth, having the time of their life, doing their first gigs with their mates around them who are going through the same thing and know how it feels. They’re doing it together and backing each other up and helping each other out. It felt so much lighter than me turning up to gigs on my own. I thought, “I want that for myself.”
Yes! A much more supportive and social experience
Totally. So I connected with a friend who, like me, is lifetime lover of dance music and wanted to DJ but had never touched the decks. I said, “We’re going to do a thing.” And she was my first student. I said, “You’re playing a gig on the 13th of February, and we’ve got two months to learn, and we’re going to play, and it’s going to be fucking great.” And it was such a blast. The room was just filled with so much like joyful, loving, connected energy.
That is so cool!
It was very multi-generational. Stroud is really good for that as well anyway, but it really came out in full force for this event.
Is Stroud that type of town?
Yeah. I’ve lived here for 10 years and it does feel like most people are open, curious, and want independent creative ventures to succeed. They want to get behind it. And there is a real community of backing each other’s projects giving it more of a collaborative energy than a competitive energy. Lawrence at Stroud Brewery is a good example. He’d hired me for a couple of Sunday afternoon DJ slots as I was just getting started. I told him, “I’m doing this thing. It’s called Big Sis DJs and we want to put on a big party. Can we do it at yours?” He hired us on a fee basis and ran the door so we didn’t have to take on the financial risk of promoting our first event. That was really supportive and he offered us a discounted space to host the courses there too when we started out.
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This all sounds like a dream. Everything in the right place.
Yeah and it’s snowballed. So now we’ve got six gigs between now and the end of March and multiple DJs. I always pay the DJs. They play their very first gig that I get them as a showcase at the venue where they’ve learned. I coach them through their first time playing a gig. I’m stood next to them, and it’s part of their thing. Then after that, they get paid every time they play, unless they choose to play a fundraiser for free.
Paid too. This just keeps getting better and better.
It’s part of my thing. I’ve had so many people being like, “Oh, do you girls want to come and have a go on the decks? We haven’t got any budget.” I’m like, “Of course you want unpaid labour for your event. That’s not going to happen.” That’s my personal boundary though. I say to every DJ, “As yourselves, play what you want for free, for practice, for experience, for exposure, for fun. I’m not telling you what to do. But if I’m booking you for something, I am going to negotiate a fee for you because I think even if it’s like £30 you should be paid something for your time if everyone else is getting paid. It’s just to set them up with the mindset of like, “Oh, this is also work, this can be a job.” It is essentially my full-time job now, so I do have to be tough in that way. I still play fundraisers for free. I still play like mates’ house parties because I want to, because I can.
Totally. It’s such a fine line isn’t it! So Big Sis sounds amazing and your whole journey does. You’ve mentioned mentors a few times, can you shout out the people who’ve been big sisters or brothers for you?
So my first mentor was Robbie Duncan, h e runs the ElecSoul podcast and also Sonar Sessions, which is a live electronic music event. He runs Ngoma, which is a beautiful musical collective and event series in Stroud and in Bristol, and is also an incredible DJ and teacher and promoter in his own right. What I appreciate most about Robbie is he has got as much of an interest in my well-being and groundedness as he has in my music career. He’ll often ask if I’ve been going out for walks, am I taking time off with my girlfriend etc. He reminds me that it can’t be my whole life. And that comes from experience. So he’s an incredible mentor.
Also, Tom Berry at Sound Records, who gave me my first gig. He runs a record shop and record label and is a really great friend and sounding board for me in terms of production and releases. He did the remix competition where I got my first official release. Sound Records is a really cool label and record shop in its own right. I run some of my Big Sis workshops there and we’ve run events together as promoters. So he’s really taught me a lot through doing things together.
And then there’s Max Jones aka Polo Lilli. I was connected with Max through a mutual friend as I was looking for a production mentor in Bristol to teach me. My friend suggested him. I play his music all the time! I thought, “Shut up!” but we had a Zoom call and he asked me a really interesting question. He said, “Tell me about your relationship with music throughout your life and what that’s been?”
I told him my musical journey and he said, “Great. I can hear all of that in the music that you’ve sent over to me, which shows me that you’re making music from a place of like a genuine connection to music. So I’m really up for working with you.”
Nice question.
Nice question. Yeah! So we worked together on my Cat Nav album. Basically, I took the tracks to him and what we do is he’ll give me feedback on stuff, but he also mixes the tracks down. So I’ve been learning how to mix my tracks by doing it together with him rather than like sending them off to him for mixing. I’ve also had digital and vinyl DJing classes from him. He’s a really great DJ teacher as well. So that’s been like two different strands.
And then another mentor I’ve had is Echo Juliet, who’s a live electronic performer. Emily mentored me for my first time playing live with Ableton and controllers. Things like how to put a live set together. And then Joni aka Outsider Sound, from Saffron Records, she taught me a lot when I was releasing Cat Nav. I had some mentoring on how to carve my creative identity and go about releasing my first album. And she was an incredible coach. And then Lawrence at the Brewery has taught me so much as a promoter. He’s the event manager at Stroud Brewery and has really provided an incubation space for my events and really had my back and guided me.
And then also Steven Vitkovitch, who runs the Byrd Out record label and programmes events at DEYA Brewery in Cheltenham. He’s given me some of my first gigs and some of my biggest gigs. He’s put Big Sis DJs on opening for Oxide and Neutrino on Jan 30th which will be such a blast..
Awesome!
So yeah, that’s the lot of them. I’m really grateful for all the advice and support I’ve had.
I’m very inspired by mentoring. We’ve had a few mentorship students come through 1 More Thing and they’ve all had such a positive impact on what I’ve been building. I think it’s important at my age to do that or it’s greedy and lacks foresight. And now you’re obviously mentoring your DJs with Big Sis. That’s quite a quick turn around!
Like you I think it’s really important and it’s such good fun. When we’re playing together. It’s not something I could have ever imagined. Even just a few years ago. And it’s so nice seeing everyone interact in our WhatsApp group. Someone will ask a question and I might be stuck in a meeting or something but by the time I’ve come back, the rest of the community have answered or they’re booking Pirate sessions together or helping each other out with advice. This is exactly what I wanted to create and the kicker for me is that they’re playing out all over the place now!
Yeah it’s not just theory – you’ve taken them through to actual gigs.
It’s the most important thing. I could never be like, “Okay you can mix now, go out and get those gigs!” because a lot of them might not know how to do that in the beginning, and that would be such a shame. So to go through the journey with them, get them their first sets and be there by their side. Yeah… It’s a really nice thing and I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved so far.
Now let’s see what Neon Pumps can achieve next. Stay tuned throughout the year as we follow Lucy’s next chapters, including her Mixmas prizes. To be continued…
