Vandal

In 2007 Vandal has established himself as one of the most exciting DJs in UK dance music. As well as Djing at some of the biggest clubs in the UK & Europe, he has played London club Fabric 3 times (in the last 6 months!), one the most respected clubs in the world. This is an amazing break through for Vandal and has lead to him sharing bills with some of the biggest names in dance music, including the Stanton Warriors, Switch, Adam Freeland Hybrid, Plump DJ’s & James Lavelle.

Born in Sheffield, Vandal, otherwise known as Sam Evans, started his musical career in his very early teens, playing guitar in metal and punk bands at any dive that would have them. Around the age of 17 Sam discovered Underworld and his fascination with electronic music began.
Whilst studying at an art school in Cardiff Vandal became involved with the Plastic Raygun, a collective of dj’s, musicians, and film makers who went onto to form Plastic Raygun records. Sam eventually became Plastic Raygun’s label manager and from 2001-04 Plastic Raygun became a hugely respected, award winning label discovering acts like Baobinga, Napt & Jean Jacques Smoothie. In 2001 Plastic Raygun had a massive top 15 hit in the UK’s national chart with Jean Jacques Smoothie’s “2 People”.

It was during this time that Sam taught himself how to produce and 2001 saw his first vinyl release. Sam’s releases and remixes through Plastic Raygun received amazing support from the breakbeat fraternity and beyond. DJ’s like Andrew Weatherall, Paul Van Dyke, Adam Freeland, Daddy G (Massive Attack), Plump Dj’s and Damian Lazarus all raved about Vandal’s eclectic/electronic style.

In 2005 Sam sent Meat Katie a demo of future single ‘Mad As Hell’ and Meat immediately signed it to his LOT49 label. During the summer of 05 the track became the soundtrack of breakbeat clubs around the world with all the biggest names in breaks hammering the record. As with previous Vandal releases this amazing support wasn’t limited to the world of breakbeat it went onto become a smash across the board. This included support from arguably the world’s most influential alternative DJ Zane Lowe. Zane cained ‘Mad As Hell’ on his BBC Radio 1 Show and Zane made ‘Mad As Hell’ his “Hottest Record in the World” and “Single Of the Week”. Sam even got to do a live interview on his radio 1 show!! It went on to receive over 25 plays on Radio 1 which was pretty special for an underground dance track. 2005 was topped off with a nomination for single of year at the International Breakbeat awards.

Sam’s next release for LOT49 was the equally huge ‘Obey’ which again became another breakbeat smash, also receiving support from DJ’s from all genres including BBC Radio 1’s indie legend Steve Lamacq! A succession of remixes of some of breaks biggest names followed including Rogue Element and Metric and his huge remix of Meat Katie’s “Round & Round”.

The first half of  2007 was extremely succesful for Vandal. His last single for LOT49, ‘Idiots’, was one of the biggest breakbeat tunes of 2007 so far. Cained by the likes of Plump DJ’s , Hyper, Crystal Method, Rogue Element, Pete Tong & Meat Katie it went on to sell over 6,000 copies on vinyl & mp3.  Vandal’s recent remixes of Elite Force’s ‘Return2Mindfunk’ and the brand’ on Used & Abused and Mr Fogg’s ‘Seciov’ on Spinout have been huge releases, making their way into CD wallets of all the major players in the breakbeat community.

Also in August 2007 Annie Nightingale asked Vandal to do a DJ mix for her BBC Radio 1 show. This was his fourth DJ mix for Annie’s show.

He has three tracks and remixes on the latest Meat Katie mix CD and the forthcoming Hyper Mix Cd on Kilowatt and Elite Force’s next mix CD. Sam is currently putting the finishing touches to his debut album which will be coming out on LOT49 in early 2008.