Mixed emotions

Max, one of London's hippest DJs, had a blast in Dubai

Sho Cho's, one of Dubai's coolest places to be seen in, played host to Max, one of London's hippest DJs, over the weekend. The 32-year-old Geordie has been in the business for three years.

"I never planned on DJ-ing. It sort of came organically into my life and came off in such a way that it was impossible not to do it."

The Newcastle native moved down to London at the age of 12 and has never looked back towards the North of England.

Having successfully completed his Bachelors at SOAS, The School of Oriental and African Studies, where he graduated in, surprisingly perhaps, Japanese and Law.

More shocking was the revelation that Max joined investment bank Merrill Lynch but, "left because I didn't enjoy it. There is no amount of money you could possibly offer me to go back into the world of finance. I realised it simply wasn't for me".

Max started out playing for friends but has managed in no time at all to conquer the music scene. He is currently playing at London's hot spot of the moment amongst the very fashionable, very famous and the try hards, the club Hakkasan.

Celebrities such as J. Lo, as the Latin beauty currently calls herself, as well as the likes of heartthrob and legend Robert Redford and Bono frequent the club."

The last three places I have worked have very similar clientele. I got my first full time job at Noble Rot and before joining Hakkasan I was playing three nights a week at Opium. Opium won the award for best new club last year and was designed by the same people who did the Buddha Bar in Paris."

Max differentiates himself from other big English DJs who play to the Ibiza scene and by his own admission "are very genre specific".

You know they are either hip-hop DJs or Garage DJs whereas I like to play across the board and cater to all tastes. I find nothing more boring than going to a club and hearing the same beat for three hours. I think it's important to keep people's attention and keep them smiling."

Max's style of music is very much what is coming out of Paris currently where the music is very much worldly, drawing inspiration, influence and the beats of a mixture of Indian, Arabic and Latin. One of the first DJs to play to that style was Stephan Pompougnac.

"I play at Hakkasan with Stephen when he's in town and the last time I saw him he'd just come back from playing here in Dubai and had urged me to try it out."

"My first love is movies and my second is music." However this hasn't deterred the DJ's rise in his field which includes being invited to play at the Monaco Grand Prix both last year and again this year, as well as playing for top international designers Giorgio Armani, Chanel and at the moment, at Burberry's in Dubai.

Max had a blast in Dubai. "I look forward to coming out again, I had been to Oman but am thrilled to have finally seen this city that is getting so much hype abroad and see first hand what all the fuss is about."