IT'S hard to knowwhat to call Eddie Piller – DJ, pioneer, founder of the Acid Jazz record label, broadcaster, writer, entrepreneur?

He has a knack of not only seeing the potential in bands (Jamiroquai, the Brand New Heavies and the James Taylor Quartet, to name but a few), but also creating major shape-shifting scenes.

He continues to DJ all over the world, has written for television programmes and documentaries, has had shows on many radio stations and also produces a monthly podcast called Modcast.

He will be, along with the headliner Craig Charles, on the line-up of the forthcoming Tongue&Groove Presents Craig Charles Funk Club launch party, taking place at the Park Inn Palace Hotel, Southend, on Saturday, June 20.

KB: I read that when you were little, your mum started the Small Faces Fan Club.

Were your parents very cool and was it down to their influence that you got into music?

EP: It was about 1965 – maybe later – and I’d just been born and dad had a shop next door to the Small Faces pub where they used to rehearse.

My mumwas 20 at the time, they were 16, and one day they just asked her if she wanted to do the fan club. She did it for a couple of years.

I didn’t know about this until I was 14. I became a mod at 15, but that was nothing to do with that. I became a mod when I saw the Jam for the first time in 1978.

It just seemed like a normal family when I grew up as a kid. Dad was really into jazz, but my mum, by the time I was going to school, just seemed like a normal housewife.

KB: How old are you now, Eddie, and where are you from?

EP: I’m 51 now. I grew up in Woodford and then lived in Ilford. We’d go to places such as Room at the Top or the Ilford Palais.

My first DJ gig was in 1980 when I was 16 or 17. We hired the IlfordWorking Men’s Club on Tuesday nights and charged 30p to get in.

KB: That’s interesting to me, because I lived right near there as a teenager, so also spent a lot of time going to those same clubs in Ilford.

EP: Well, the Regency has just been knocked down. I used to play there and it always sold out, in about 1981 to 1983.

When they closed it down three months ago they asked me to play the last night. It was very odd, like going back in time.

KB: When you first started out in the Eighties with your fanzine, Extraordinary Sensations, and your very first label, Countdown Records, how old were you and how did you manage to fund all that?

EP: Well, actually the very first label I had was called Well Suspect. We named it after a mod shop in Carnaby Street which had the same name. That was in 1982, then we had another label, then in 1984 it was the Countdown label and in 1987 Acid Jazz.

I started the fanzine while I was still at school, literally printing out 20 copies on my mum’s work’s photocopier. I sold them all in one night for 30p each and thought, “this is alright” – 1979 it was.

Then the next edition I made 100, then I started to print them properly. By edition 11, we were printing 4,000 and then it went up to 10,000. Then I couldn’t be bothered to do it any more.

It was a lot of hard work. In those days we didn’t have computers like we do now, so we’d have to cut everything out, cut out the pictures and stick them down.

KB: Did that first run of 20 copies give you a taste for entrepreneurism?

EP: Well, I really didn’t do it to make money – it was a hobby. I think most people who did fanzines couldn’t be bothered to carry on with them for more than a year.

So I did it because there was nothing around really.

But it wasn’t for money – I wasn’t making a living from it until say 1983, but by then I had a record stall too and three club nights.

KB: What turned you on to the genre of acid jazz and made you and Gilles Peterson decide to create that label?

EP: Well, I was getting a bit bored of the mod scene at that time – northern soul was all we were listening to.

I started getting more into jazz and I formed the James Taylor Quartet at that time – they were made up out of the Prisoners who we’d signed to Countdown.

Anyway, I’d met Gilles and after a while we realised there was this new jazz dance scene and we got quite into it. So we were just doing the jazz thing, DJing at the Wag Club on Mondays, and then suddenly in 1987 acid house came along and blew everything out of the water.

After a while, our music was being ignored. We all got into it, but after about six months we realised house music is quite boring – well, that’s the point of it, I suppose. So after a while, me and Gilles thought “why don’t we put the same energy and attitude given to house music to our music?”

We had to reinvent it, come up with a name for it. It was actually a DJ called Chris Bangs who is from Southend as it goes, who came up with the name acid jazz – that’s very important that you write him down.

KB: You’ve DJed at a lot of famous people’s parties, haven’t you? Have there been any particularly standout ones you are allowed to tell us about?

EP: Paul Weller’s 50th birthday party was extraordinary. It was at the Hammersmith Apollo and there were 6,000 people there at the gig – he did a gig and the party was afterwards. His mum came up to me and said: “Paul will come off halfway through for a fag, so you go on and sing Happy Birthday”.

Well, the bodyguards said not to do it. So I told Weller’s mum, and she said: “Look if you don’t get up there and sing Happy Birthday, then you won’t be allowed backstage again.”

So, I was really nervous. I mean, there are 6,000 people there. But I got up, and I said, “we’re all here for someone’s birthday”, and I was thinking, “he’s probably going to come and kick me off here”, but he (Weller) didn’t. He came out and gave me a nice cuddle – it was a really lovely moment.

I remember also, when I DJed for Mary McCartney’s 21st birthday party (Paul McCartney’s daughter). I’m at Paul McCartney’s house, and I’m sitting there next to Jimmy Page, and I’m thinking “whaaat?!” There have been loads of people. I get told off for name dropping.

KB: No, go on. Because you’re not telling it like you are showing off, you are telling it from the point of view of an ordinary bloke enjoying the experiences.

EP: All right then, well I did Pele’s party in London.

Someone rang me up and said, “Pele is having a birthday party and we know you play a lot of great Brazilian music”. So I did that and that was pretty cool.

I did Sylvester Stallone’s private party in Hollywood.

And how about this? When I was at Weller’s private birthday party DJing, I played the Who’s first High Numbers single (the Who were called the High Numbers at one point before they went back to being known as the Who in the very early days). Now, this single is incredibly rare – it cost about £600. Well, I just put it on, as just as I did, in walked Roger Daltry. Well, when I saw the look of recognition on his little face...

As I said, this single is so rare, he might not have it or have heard it since it came out. Then I saw him lean over and say something to this girl who is a mate of mine.

Afterwards, I asked her about it, and she said he’d said: “God, we sounded good in those days.”

KB: You’ve written a lot for television too. Did you ever have any ambitions to be a writer or journalist?

EP: Well, funnily enough, I was very ill at one time, and a friend persuaded me to write an autobiography.

At the same time, I am also writing a novel about the Irish Civil War. I find it very interesting. That should be out at Christmas, and the autobiography should be out via a major publisher within the next year.

I’ve got a lot of funny stories to tell, like how once I was hanging out, DJing with some rappers in LA. This big rap crew of Somalians – and Somalians tend to be very big people, 6ft 7ins – came in and one had a hat. Well, I moved the hat, because it was on top of one of my records, and I suddenly found myself holding this revolver with a pearl handle, because one of them had just put it inside his hat. Without thinking, I turned around to ask “what’s this?”, and suddenly all these 6ft 7ins Somalians have all hit the floor at the same time.

KB: You are coming to play in Southend at the Tongue & Groove event. Have you been to Southend much before?

EP: Yes, last month I was there for the soul weekender at the Conservative Club. The year before I was at the Railway. I used to be a regular at Saks in the old days. A long time ago, I used to play at Baron’s – God knows what that is now. And as a punter when I was younger, I used to go to places like Zero.

So I’ve always had a great relationship with Southend.

I’m very proud to be from Essex and I’m only sorry we have allowed ourselves to be associated with that disgusting programme (Towie), because it’s a terrible misrepresentation of the people of my county.

ý The full line-up for the Tongue and Groove – Craig Charles Funk and Soul night is: Craig Charles (DJ set), the Bongolian (live band), DJ Eddie Piller (Acid Jazz records), DJ Rob Messer (Almost Grown, Northern Soul), Primo Nelson (live band), DJs Jon Jones, Scott Cuba and Urban Allstars.

It runs from 8.30pm until 2am. Tickets are £17.50. Visit tongueandgroove presents.com for booking and further information.