DJ Killa, at home behind the decks. (0581632)

AFTER buying the tape pack, Dance to the Max, when he was eight, Stuart Beausire knew he wanted to be a DJ.

Now he is well known as DJ Killa, playing at Baloo’s every weekend, supporting some highly successful Dub Sessions nights and most recently bringing over a big name in Dubstep – Cluekid. Oh, and he played at Guernsey Live.

As well as that, he has played to 10,000 people in Thailand, packed out clubs in Amsterdam and warmed up for Grooverider in Jersey at the tender age of 19.

‘I bought a tape pack when I was eight and one of the tracks was the Prodigy’s No Good,’ recalls Stuart.

‘After that I really got into the Prodigy and I explored dance music – listening to tunes that no one else was at my age.’

Before finding the Prodigy, Stuart had accumulated a wide outlook on music, listening to anything from Prince to Gloria Estefan. He vividly remembers the first vinyl he bought.

‘Timmy Mallet’s Yellow Polka Dot Bikini – I still have it.

‘But when I was 13, I started buying a lot of vinyl. I spent most of my lunch breaks and spare time in Hoe Records and Andre de Carteret’s Sure Shots. I was buying everything, from house and trance to garage, funk, soul, jungle, hip-hop and D’n’B. I still have all those records.’

While he was building his collection and trying to find which genre he felt at home with, Stuart started break-dancing with the Awesome All Stars.

‘At those break-dancing nights, DJ Solo would be playing – I’d just stand there and watch him.

‘I’d be asking him lots of questions about DJing. Those nights really opened me more to hip-hop as well. Around that time I was also helping Andre with his nights – working the door or helping set up – so I got to know quite a lot of people in the scene, like Ben Bates, Stuart Mair, Simon Prince and Dave Hyatt.’

He purchased his first set of decks when he was 16. Before then, he had been messing about and being shown the ropes by the likes of Pressure. Stuart was still buying a lot of vinyl and at that point had managed to narrow his purchases down to two genres.

‘I was buying loads of hip-hop and drum and bass,’ explained the DJ.

‘I wasn’t sure if I wanted to mix hip-hop or D’n’B. Then all of a sudden I was just mixing D’n’B. It wasn’t thought out, it was just a natural transition.’

Within 10 months of mixing, Andre, aka Oneofakind, asked him to play at one of his nights at the Fermain Tavern and not long after that he was running nights with 9mm under the name, Matrix State, and playing at Stuart Mair’s Dub Session nights.

‘Round this time, I was going to London at least once every month. So was Pressure. We were meeting lots of people in the scene like MC Joker-D, who has now appeared at a few Dub Sessions nights. The nights were going well, so we brought over Flight with Joker-D, which was pretty successful.’

Since then, Dub Sessions has brought some big names to the island, including Grooverider, Fabio, Friction and Goldie, all of which Killa warmed up for alongside Pressure.

‘For me, it was exciting and the Guernsey scene became a culture,’ Stuart said.

‘I was lucky I had peers who took me under their wing, but now it seems that the scene, locally, has turned into a big political war – too many people are moaning.’

Over time, Stuart stopped appearing for Dub Sessions and began running his own nights called System – with fellow DJ, Danger – focusing on a new genre within dance, Dubstep.

‘I had been producing my own material for a while, but I always lent towards weird, halftime beats that wouldn’t fit in with D’n’B,’ he explained.

‘Anyway, I spoke to Ben Bates, who had moved to Leeds, and he told me he didn’t mix D’n’B anymore but was messing around with this new sound called Dubstep. He sent me some tunes and as soon as I had listened to them, I realised it was the music I was always into – I just hadn’t discovered it yet. Everything I loved about music – halftime beats, stepping – all fell into one with Dubstep.

‘It couldn’t have been better timing. I was wanting to experiment and branch away from D’n’B as it had been done before and Dubstep was fresh and new. Slowly I started introducing it into my sets at Baloo’s and within a year so many people were getting into it.’

In the meantime, Stuart is working on the System-casts, which will be up in the next couple of weeks with links on MySpace, and he will continue playing at Baloo’s and he hopes to bring another big Dubstep name over. He is also heading into the studio with Cluekid and Chef, who was recently named the fifth best Dubstep DJ in the world.

‘People have been asking me why I don’t play D’n’B any more and I’m still up to date with all the latest D’n’B. I just thought I’d step back for other people to get on with and play it. I now have something else to offer people – Dubstep. As a DJ I have always gone against the grain.’

For updates or to listen to Killa’s tracks, head to www.myspace.com/killastu or search System-dubstep in groups on Facebook.