Sasha (DJ) - Early Years

Early Years

Sasha was born in Bangor, Wales on September 4, 1969, but spent most of his youth with his mother in the Welsh town of Sandycroft, Flintshire, North Wales. Sasha's mother, taught French at Hawarden High School. Sasha's early musical taste was primarily Top 40 pop music like The The and The Police. After an "idyllic childhood", he passed the entrance exam for Epsom College at age 17. However, he did not like Epsom and left before completing his Advanced Level (an academic qualification in England, Wales and Northern Ireland). Instead of continuing his schooling, Sasha moved to Bangor to live with his father and stepmother. Sasha's stepmother forced him to take piano lessons which, although he disliked them at the time, Sasha ultimately found to be beneficial to his music career.

Sasha became aware of electronic dance music in 1988 at The Haçienda, a Manchester dance venue. Drawn to the rough sound of acid house music and the rebellious attitude he associated with it, he visited Manchester weekly and soon moved to nearby Disley. Sasha purchased many acid house records and began to teach himself how to mix. A local DJ at a club Sasha frequented announced that he was looking for other DJs to travel with him on a regional tour. Sasha volunteered and made his first live appearance in nearby Stockport. Sasha recalled of his debut, "I'd never even touched a Technics: I thought the pitch control was the volume, I didn't even know where to plug my headphones in! I'm sure I was absolutely horrendous."

Sasha soon found himself in debt due to low-paying performances and the many records he bought. To finance his record collection, he performed at illegal warehouse raves in the Blackburn and Blackpool areas. With the assistance of another local DJ, Jon DaSilva, Sasha secured work at The Haçienda, where he learned key mixing (matching melodic keys) from DaSilva and refined his ability to beatmatch (to synchronize the beats of two simultaneously playing records). Though he enjoyed playing at The Haçienda, in 1990 Sasha left for a club called Shelley's Laserdrome in Stoke-on-Trent. There, he established part of his signature sound by mixing euphoric Acid House music with Italian piano house and emotional a cappellas. Because of his increased popularity and visibility at Shelley's, Mixmag featured Sasha on its first cover, under the headline "SASHA MANIA - THE FIRST DJ PINUP?". While continuing to DJ, Sasha began to produce several of his own dance tracks. This, he later noted, was contrary to the career paths of many successful DJs, for whom it was more common to start out as producers. Upon signing a recording contract, he also set up an entire recording studio at the same time, which led to a "painful learning curve" at the outset. He released his first single, "Appolonia", under the name BM:Ex with producer Tom Frederikse on Union City Recordings. After DJing at Shelley's for several years, Sasha left his position because of increasing gang violence in and around the club. As a result of his growing reputation, Sasha was offered work in several London and Australian clubs. He accepted, instead, a spot in the DJ rotation at Renaissance a club night started by Geoff Oakes at Venue 44 in Mansfield, England.

Later in 1993, Sasha produced "Together", his first single under the name Sasha. "Together", which he produced with Danny Campbell for Pete Tong's FFRR, peaked on the UK Singles Chart at #57. With this success, Sasha began a series of records for Deconstruction Records with the singles "Higher Ground" and "Magic" (for which Digweed produced a remix) and The Qat Collection with Frederikse and vocalist Sam Mollison.