EXCLUSIVE DJ Billy interview: the star at the centre of every student’s favourite Friday night

There would be nowhere more appropriate to interview DJ Billy than at The Victoria, a homely pub in the heart of Withington, which he is the resident DJ of. Every Friday, students flock to The Vic (it’s known that if you’re in the queue after 9pm then your chances of getting in are slim) to enjoy a pint, and more specifically, DJ Billy’s set. On Saturdays, he hands both the baton and the DJ genes over to his daughter, Ashlie.

But why is a sixty-year old man who wears a “dead smart” suit and plays songs from the 1980s such a hit with students?

Entry to DJing

DJ Billy’s clearly been in the game for a long time; 43 years and a day, to be precise. DJ Billy (short for William) explains how his love for music began at the age of five, when he watched Elvis Presley dance to ‘Jailhouse Rock’ in a black and white film. “Amazed,” he jumped on the sofa and started dancing, before he was hit by the realisation that he “gotta get in music.” His love for music and entertainment simply grew and grew; even now, he jumps onto the windowsills at The Vic and dances, until the landlady frantically signals at him to get down.

Growing up in a “very rough area” in 1970s Wythenshawe with Scottish and Irish parents, DJ Billy describes how his “family grew up in abject poverty with not a penny.” It’s clear that music has always been his first love, as he remembers how “every Sunday” his family would “all be around the radio” to hear the no.1 song of the week. On the council estate, he worked three paper rounds a day, and saved money to shop in city centre for music equipment; Ashlie, his daughter, affirms that he’s always been a “grafter and hustler.” Bit by bit, his paper round money turned into his own collection of second-hand equipment.

It was only when a neighbour heard him “messing about” in a “rough and ready” shed he’d built that his DJing career began. At the age of 17, after being offered a gig at the neighbour’s sister’s christening – he didn’t have enough records for a four-hour set, so he asked members of the council estate and collected over 200 – his talent was realised. Six police cars turned up to the christening, and police shut down the disco – which he thought was “f*cking great.” From there, multiple offers of DJ sets and residencies rolled in as different pub landlords tried to claw back business and offered him competitive rates. DJ Billy’s brand began to build at pubs across the Wythenshawe and Northenden areas.

In fact, it wasn’t just his brand which began to build; off the back of the offers, his personal life did too. He met his first wife at a pub in Longsight when he was offered a set there after being mistakenly double-booked.

The Vic

In a student’s mind, DJ Billy is synonymous with The Vic (and their £9.15 bottle of wine). So when did he become a Friday-night resident there? Probably long before any of you reading this had even found out what UCAS was – 10 years ago, almost to the day. Like many aspects of his DJing career, it was a mixture of fate and luck. Looking for a quick pint in the local area, DJ Billy wandered in and saw someone on the decks. From across the room, DJ Billy thought, “you don’t even know who’s just walked in the pub mate.” The rest is, quite literally, history.

In a vibrant city like Manchester, there are other newer, fancier spaces DJ Billy could venture into. His daughter Ashlie has already, playing sets in the Northern Quarter. But why is The Vic so special? He offers several reasons, but there’s a common denominator in all of them: students. The student response “makes [him] feel young again,” and he’s slightly taken back by how, having “gone through different generations of being DJ Billy,” it’s the students who he can build the best rapport with.

While he acknowledges the pressure that Friday-night visitors to The Vic want to see the DJ at “100%, the best they could do that night,” this only spurs him on to “give them 120%.” The night culminates in an adrenaline rush; DJ Billy admits that, after the set finishes and the equipment packed away, he’s “up for an hour and a half” afterwards.

The Withington icon has had set offers from elsewhere; especially the University of Manchester’s Students’ Union. He says he’s “been asked to loads,” but always turned it down. Although he recalls doing one night at the Royal Northern College of Music, he’s dodged the SU because he’d feel like a “fish out of water.” There are concerns that “it might not go as well” as the atmosphere and crowd would be different, but I doubt this; if the SU booked him for the right event, his set would be a highlight. He states that he’s not going to look elsewhere “as long as things are going strong here.”

Does it not get boring? Clearly not. DJ Billy stresses that he “looks forward to every Friday night”; so much so that The Vic is the only place he DJs. He “says no to everything”, no other pubs, no family events, no weddings, nothing – just The Vic.

Student response

Throughout the interview, DJ Billy couldn’t be more complimentary about students. He puts this down to the fact that “everyone’s so open” to hearing both the old and new music, which is “all to do with social media,” and “access to all music.” In fact, he found that when he plays new music – he’s a fan of ‘Heated’ by Beyonce – people begin to leave the dancefloor, but the second ‘Dance With Somebody’ or ‘Like a Virgin’ starts, people flood back. It’s simply a matter of flicking through his multi-genre CD collection and finding one that makes him think “that’ll go down well!”

In fact, the student response has Ashlie and DJ Billy scheming, and they let me in on exclusive. They’re currently in talks about hosting a DJ Billy x Ashlie event one Thursday a month, which would see the father-daughter duo throw a “big student party” which, critically, has a theme. Ashlie states that he “has free reigns to do whatever he wants,” but if that’s the case then The Vic might need another bouncer.

Bizarre moments

While he admits that he doesn’t have any standout funny or weird stories at The Vic specifically, he’s still bemused by social media. Ashlie quips that the weirdest thing she’s seen is students’ lockscreens being a photo of DJ Billy “dead normally,” or the memes which crop up on her own social media.

He does have some bizarre connections though. He played at a pub in Clayton (only 15 minutes away), in 2004. One of his rules is that only his hands are allowed on the mic, but a woman insisted that he let her brother, a “quiet lad” sing over the top of one of DJ Billy’s tracks. To DJ Billy’s surprise, the boy was “terrific,” and he advised him to enter the X Factor as he thought “he’s gonna win it.” Fast forward a couple of meetings – paired with the exchange of track lists and hayfever tablets – and the boy is making his way towards the final of the X Factor. On DJ Billy’s recommendation, the boy sung ‘Sacrifice’ by Elton John. On the night of the X Factor final, DJ Billy and his family sat infront of the television, to see his karaokist-mentee-friend Shane Ward crowned the winner of the X Factor 2005.

Another claim to fame is this story which he “can’t rush, let me get it right”: his daughter ended up on a date in Manchester city centre with Justin Bieber. Bieber asked the daughter about her dad, “who’s a DJ and drives a van”, and Bieber became “dead interested”. DJ Billy namedropped to the Biebs? I don’t know who’s doing the namedropping here.

There is something slightly endearing about seeing an older man dressed in a suit and bowler hat, not using Spotify but hand-selecting CDs to play, clearly having a great time and actively engaging with students by taking song requests or posing for BeReals. It’s a far cry from the “you lot have it so easy, back in my day…” interactions with older generations which some of us are used (subjected?) to.

There’s also something very authentic about him. This was only affirmed during the interview; of course he’s keen to tell me about the celebrities he’s met and the times he’s had, but, as he makes clear, DJ Billy “isn’t his alter ego.” He’s a DJ which a genuine love for music, admiration for those around him, hope that he can make people dance and feel good and, most crucially, doesn’t have a clue what Warehouse Project is. He’ll be continuing his self-defined “concert” at The Vic for years to come.