Take me to Church - worship for Leeds DJ Danny T as gig sells out

Danny T has sold out his first headline show in Leeds.

If you have partied anywhere in Leeds over the last four years, chances are known or unbeknownst to you, this man will have been behind the decks at some point.

But now clubbers won’t fail to notice when Leeds DJ, It’s Danny T, takes over the city’s latest club venue with his own headline show.

After months of behind the scenes planning he will stage, The T Party, to The Church on June 15. He announced it last Wednesday and within a week all 1500 tickets were sold out.

It is the culmination of a four year dream that started back when Danny Taylor was “doing the worst gigs in Leeds.”

He told City Buzz: “When you do these gigs, you are just a guy to play the music. I wanted to DJ that much I was willing to play any style of music. The more I got into it the more I needed to play the music I loved so I dropped everything else.”

That was 18 months ago and since then he has played clubs and festivals in Malia, Aiya Napa, Zante, Marbella, Gibraltar and the world famous BCM in Magaluf as well as tours of the UK.

He worked his way into better clubs, working with better promoters and there aren’t many that know more about dance music than Dave Beer, who has the longest running UK club night, Back To Basics.

Dave Beer at The Church

Taylor said: “Church is the only place in Leeds that I have never played and Dave has turned it into something that is a DJs dream. Everyone is staring straight up at you.“I didn’t sleep the night before announcing it or the night after. It is nerve-wracking putting on your own event – there is the fear that nobody turns up but the response has been overwhelming. I don’t want to wait ten weeks to play it, I want to do it as soon as possible but there is a lot of planning to do.”

As well as surprise special guest appearances, Taylor will be bringing the type of music he likes, influenced by the sounds from when he first started going out in Leeds.

He recalls: “I used to go to Heaven and Hell when I was 15. It was £10 all you can drink and I used to get the last bus home to Cookridge for £1.70.“It was all about trance music for me then – the Darude and Sandstorm era when it blew up in Ibiza, then my taste developed into a bass heavy sound with Danny Bond and now Tom Zanetti [both Leeds DJs]. The sound I am trying to push is a mixture of all that.”

Mainstream music has come full circle as 20 years later, house and dance is starting to influence the charts again after having been dominated by R&B for the last few years.

And it was supporting Zanetti at his homecoming gig at the O2 Academy in Leeds last October that was a turning point for Taylor’s own career.

Danny T playing at Zanetti's homecoming gig at the 02 Academy last October.

“I had to get to that point for myself one day. I have been a friend of Tom’s for 12 years and admire how far he has gone. It shows how far ahead Leeds music can be. Things are charting now, five years after they originated in Leeds.”

And Leeds is ahead of the rest of the country when it comes to partying says Taylor, who despite being on the road constantly, loves to come back to Leeds having recently bought a house here.

He added: “I have played everywhere in the country but partying in Leeds is totally different to anywhere else – it is a different breed of partying. There is a lot of love in the city for its nightlife.”