James Hype on going from Wirral nightclubs to Tomorrowland

James Hype is a superstar DJ in every sense: he plays an average of 130 globetrotting live sets per year, for example, performing in Ibiza, where he has a residency, and then immediately flying out to Las Vegas. He has over 10 million monthly listeners on Spotify alone, and on that platform, his track, Ferrari, is approaching one billion streams. Hype speaks to Headliner about his voracious early days of getting into DJing, his futuristic SYNC live show, his continued success with new single Waterfalls, and his excitement about the new CDJ-3000X from AlphaTheta.

Hype is a brave artist name to opt for when starting out, but it would be difficult to argue that he hasn’t earned it now. He was born James Marsland in 1989, coinciding with the late stages of acid house. Growing up in the Wirral, Merseyside, he would often ditch school and get the bus to Liverpool to hang around record shops specialising in dance music. As this passion blossomed, he secured a fake ID at 16 years old, so that he could be physically part of the city’s club music scene and keep a close eye on the DJs, whether they be residents or on tour. Before long, he was performing DJ sets himself in the North West of the UK, with Funky Box in Liverpool and Aura Bar in the Wirral being among the first venues to take a chance on the young Hype.

On that note of the insatiable appetite for dance music he developed from a young age, he begins the conversation by saying, “When I was in school, everyone listened to rock bands, me included. Then my dad brought home this bootleg CD of the top 100 albums. On it, I found The Prodigy and a drum and bass compilation. That was the first electronic music I became obsessed with, and it opened my eyes to a world beyond what my school friends were into.

“As a kid, I didn’t even know what a DJ was. Nobody around me was into it. But I skated, and sometimes DJs played at skate parks. I thought it was amazing, I actually believed they were creating music in real time. That’s what drew me in. At 15, I begged my parents for decks, and they got me a cheap set from eBay. From then on, I was mixing whatever records I could find.”

Hype was frequenting nightclubs long before he ever touched a set of decks at one, and he found that he enjoyed playing in Liverpool’s nightclubs in particular. “They were the best because they had the best music – piano house, funky house, even tech house. That was my musical education. When I turned 18, I started hustling for paid gigs. I took mix CDs to clubs, and one manager gave me a trial. I still felt young, but I didn’t feel out of place because I already knew the scene. I played Tuesday nights at an after-hours club, then joined a DJ agency that booked me around the north. That’s how I built connections with managers and experienced new cities. I played everything: house parties, student nights, even R&B and hip-hop clubs. Eventually, I realised I had to refine my sound so people knew what I stood for.”

Getting that solid foundation on the northern DJ circuit was one thing, but many would point to his collaboration with Craig David on the 2018 single No Drama as a significant breakthrough. “My manager and I had talked about working with him, but I wasn’t sure it would happen,” he recalls. “So I just DM’d him on Instagram. He replied straight away, said he loved the track, and wanted to do it. Hearing it from him made it real.”

In case it’s not already obvious, Hype has a natural entrepreneurial flair in his approach to his music and career, which is a powerful asset for him as the marketing side of music encroaches increasingly into a musician’s time nowadays. He set up his own label, Stereotype, in 2020, to give him firmer control of his own releases and, fascinatingly, more flexibility with songs he could play in his DJ sets. The inspiration came from his YouTube live sets during the pandemic, and when lockdown halted his in-person bookings.

“On YouTube, I was mostly playing other people’s music,” he says. “And they got the royalties. I realised if I could put out music from artists I loved, I could play it, promote it, and we’d all benefit. The best part has been creative freedom. I can make tracks designed for my DJ sets and release them straight away. Working with Major Lazer through Stereo Hype was a dream. I’ve loved them for years.”

After many incredible moments in his career, he had a similar experience to many fellow huge artists, with it all crystallising when witnessing a crowd en masse turning up to see him perform for the first time. For Hype, it was his first time at Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas.

“My first EDC was unforgettable,” he reflects. “I had an early set and thought nobody would turn up. But as soon as I hit play, thousands came running toward the stage. Within 20 minutes, there were 50,000 people. That’s when I realised something special was happening.”

In terms of EDM bangers, his latest single, Waterfalls, brings all the fuzzy lead lines, singalong verses and choruses, and glitchy vocals that you could hope for from the genre. On working with fellow producer Bobby Harvey, he shares that Harvey had been sending him songs for years. “I have always respected his consistency. One day, he sent me a track from Ibiza, and I knew it had something special. I took the parts, added my touch, and it became Waterfalls.”

Another recent project was bringing a fresh and contemporary take on a dance music classic. And it’s a remix that will bring fond memories for any fans of the Edgar Wright British sitcom Spaced – namely the episode in which Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and the cast are roped into a trippy night of clubbing. The hilarious depiction of UK ‘90s clubbing and those seemingly deep and heartfelt conversations that ensue when it's time for a water break was soundtracked with Let Me Show You by Camisra. It’s a timeless track from that pivotal period of electronic music to get your limbs gyrating to. And for Hype, it was a case of giving it a more contemporary sheen for his live sets.

“That track was massive in Liverpool when I was growing up,” he remembers. “I played it at Creamfields, and because I was in the North West, I felt like I should play some of those records that were so magical when I started going out. Clips went viral, and then Camisra reached out. I didn’t want to change it too much, just update it sonically for 2025 and make it hit like a modern record.”

Hype then talks Headliner through SYNC, his futuristic DJ concept he’s been creating and unveiling since his time in Ibiza in June. “A lot of artists have amazing visuals. I wanted to translate what I do on the decks into something the whole room could see. How could we translate hitting buttons on a deck to someone standing 200 metres away at the back of the room? Linking my CDJs to the LED panels was the solution.

“I was watching someone who designs game shows on YouTube – don't ask me why – and it gave me a light bulb moment where I realised maybe we could get the CDJs to link to the LEDs. I went away and spoke to my production manager. We tested it, it worked, and we’ve been running it all summer in Ibiza. It’s just the beginning.”

Hype is one of the artists at the forefront of EDM and, similar to the likes of Fred Again, is bringing a lot of attention to the art of live DJing, while also dispelling the myth that DJs are just hitting play and pretending to adjust faders that aren’t actually doing anything. Watch any of his recent Instagram videos, and the physicality and passion of it are clear to see.

“When I was 15, I got my first decks. One of my first tricks was mixing a Notorious B.I.G. a cappella over The Whispers’ And the Beat Goes On instrumental. I went to HMV and bought these two records and got the two tunes in time with each other. For me, that’s what DJing is: creating something greater than the sum of its parts. Every day when I go on social media, and I see people do what I do…some of it is honestly incredible. It feels like there is a whole culture of people doing this style of DJing emerging.”

On the ignorance and scepticism around what DJs do on stage (perhaps fuelled by certain celebrities doing DJ sets with less skill, to put it kindly), he says, “I understand where the ignorance comes from. When you see a guitarist play, it's easy to see what they do. The word ‘DJ’ means so many things: radio DJs, wedding DJs, selectors, performers. That’s where the ignorance comes from. But I don’t focus on that. I just try to push the craft further.”

Hype loves to honour the legacy of Pioneer DJ’s classic CDJ-2000NXS2 by still using it in his sets. But with the new CDJ-3000X from AlphaTheta, he is excited about some of the upgrades on offer. “I'm excited about the bigger screen, gate cue functions, and smart cue,” he says. “The improved processing opens up creative possibilities, too. Being able to set hot cues anytime, extend breakdowns, or take spinbacks further is really exciting. Cloud direct play also sounds amazing, though I’d worry about internet reliability at clubs. USB-C is a welcome upgrade, too.

“A lot of people have seen videos of me doing tricks with the cue button, which will play the song and then stop. With the addition of the gate cue on the CDJ-3000x, the hot cue will also do the same thing. I've already spent time playing around with the CDJ-3000X, so I figured out a few different ways I can use the smart cue in different ways than I was doing before.”

Hype is also a big fan of being able to set a hot cue at any point in a track: “There's been a couple of times where I have wanted to extend the breakdown so I can drop the a cappella in, and that's the perfect way to keep taking the track back to the point where I want to bring it from.”

And on the fact that you can now play any track from your tracks stored in the cloud using cloud direct play, he says, “I'd like to use it; however, for the time being, I don't know if I could rely on the internet in clubs around the world. But I think it would be so cool!”

November sees this superstar DJ performing two big UK shows, first in London, followed by a special charity show at Bristol Beacon to raise money for the homeless. This is before the bright lights of Las Vegas call him back in December. And who knows? Next year might see him set a new record for himself with 140 shows.