A household name in dance music, Nick Warren has been around since the beginning of it all. Getting his start in the early Bristol scene, Nick has been a consistent performer since day one. Hooking up in 1994 with Jody Wisternoff to form Way Out West, these men are responsible for classics such as "The Gift" and "Mindcircus." With a DJing career that has spanned over 20 years, taking him from East to West and opening for such acts as Massive Attack, Nick has seen and done it all.

Now, with his sixth Global Underground mix, we had the privilege of talking to Nick about the new release, his career, Way Out West, and a few off-topic items.
Pete Kay: This is your sixth GU release; what has been the relationship with yourself and the Global Underground guys?
Nick Warren: My albums are my life. I like to work with people I trust, and so far the Global Underground have done a great job for me, so I've never seen a reason to move elsewhere. We're good friends, it's good business for all of us, so I'm more than happy to stay there, and it's a privilege for me for them to have asked me again to go my sixth album, so it's great.

Pete: It's a great label to be with. What was the process of selecting the tracks with this particular GU?
Nick Warren: What I wanted to do on this album was to choose as many unknown, unsigned acts as possible from all over the world. So what I did was I sent out an eMail on the message boards and so forth and asked for tracks to be sent, and I got thousands and thousands of CDs from all over the world and I spent days and days going through them.

And I think I picked out some amazing young new producers, people like Peter Martin and Derek Housing in the States, Wyrom Christian from Hungary, there's Alex Talby from Russia, people from all over the place that really are cool new producers.

Pete: There's thirteen different nations represented on this mix, what do you think about the globalization of dance music now?
Nick Warren: Well I think it's more vibrant now than it's every been. At the moment R&B is doing a lot in Eastern Europe and the USA and South America and Asia and Australia and Europe, and it's just really strong everywhere. I think a couple of years ago dance music went through a dip where people were saying 'oh, it's going to die, it's going to die.' But then over the past six or eight months or so, the scene is really picking up again and the parties are getting really good and people are really getting into the music again.

Pete: Why did you pick these particular producers out of all the entries that you did receive?
Nick Warren: As far as I'm concerned they wrote the best tracks. So it's as simple as that.

Pete: This has been the most diverse GU to date that you've done. What was the particular thought process behind this mix, you know, what were you going for?
Nick Warren: I wanted to do a mix that had a real energy through different forms of music, from chill-out to techno to breaks, it had to have a real energy and that's what I was trying to create in every single track there.

Pete: How has 2005 been so far for you?
Nick Warren: Fantastic. I'll tell you something, you phoned me and I've just arrived at the Glastonbury Festival in England, and I'm on my phone in the middle of a field with maybe a hundred and fifty thousand people around me?

Pete: Wow.
Nick Warren: So it's a very special moment for me.

Pete: Incredible. Were you producing before Way Out West?
Nick Warren: I did a couple of things. When I was working with Massive Attack as a DJ, I did a remix for them of a French band and that was the first time I went in to the studio really. And then I worked on some of the writing on The Protection and that really sort of gave me the bug for writing music. And so that's the time I found Jody and we felt that we could work well together.