Dundee native Hannah Laing headlined the dance stage at her hometown for BBC Radio One’s Big Weekend on May 26.
The 28 year old DJ has made an impressive rise to fame in the last year playing festivals all over the UK as well as having her own podcast.
Laing started her DJing career at the age of 18 after being influenced by her parents love for techno music.
At the age of just 18 the disc jokey travelled from her first gig in a small club in Arbroath to playing in Ibiza a year later, where she obtained her first regular job at a Scottish bar in San Antonio.
Laing’s remix of Sophie Ellis Bextor’s classic single Murder On The Dance Floor gained her worldwide popularity and the attention of some of the greatest names in the industry.
After catching the attention of BBC Radio One’s Pete Tong, Danny Howard, JAGUAR and Sarah Story, she made her BBC Introducing debut at BBC Radio One’s Big Weekend in May 2022.
Which brings us up to now.
In an interview with Brig, Hannah Laing spoke about their excitement of playing their home town, realising her new track Good Love on Jan Jones’ label Polydor Records/WUGD and starting their own brand Doof.
Hannah’s Dundee Debut
On May 26 Hannah Laing headlined the dance stage of Radio One’s Big Weekend in Dundee.
Before her performance, Brig asked the DJ what it was like to play her own hometown on such a massive scale.
“I honestly cannot wait,” Laing said.
“I think, especially because you’ve got all the support from people you know, like your mates your family or even just familiar faces, you know that the the atmosphere is going to be mental.
“It’s crazy. In Dundee I was doing wee shows for years and I’m so glad that I’ve proper worked my way up.
“I feel like now, I’m ready for it. Back then probably wanted this but I was nowhere near ready.
“Because I’ve had all the experience now, it definitely feels like a moment.”
What was it like producing your new track Good Love?
“I get sent a lot of vocals every week basically, and as soon as I heard this vocal I was like what is that? It’s so catchy.
“The vocalist [RoRo] that I worked with on it, she really smashed it. We ended up pitching the vocal up so it does sound quite different to what I got sent.
“It’s just got an amazing hook and I was so grateful to get to work with such an amazing artist on it.”
When talking about the track’s success she said:
“This is obviously what you dream of but I honestly didn’t expect this to happen with this record but I’m so f****g glad it is.
“Everybody’s been buzzing about it people know the words so I’m so excited to play it at BBC Radio One tomorrow and have everyone sing along.”
Good Love currently has over 2 million streams on Spotify and is the artist’s most successful tune to date.
With all this ambition and success, it does make you wonder who inspires Hannah.
When asked who her biggest inspiration was, Laing explained to Brig it was her parents.
Hannah told us that after her parents had her at a young age but their love of raving and techno music continued.
She says: “I still have all their old CDs and that is how I got into the music, I became hooked on it because of them.”
“They still come to my shows, they love it.”
When writing her own tracks Laing takes a lot of inspiration from legendary DJs such as Paul Oakenfold and Tiesto.
Hannah Laing explained she still has a massive love (good love?) for trance.
“Their sounds back then was classic nineties trance.
“I feel like trance is my favourite type of music, I feel it’s really emotional music and I just connected with that immediately.
“I don’t feel like that about any other genre because the tunes just make me feel something that others don’t.”
What’s next for Hannah Laing?
“I’m launching my own record label and my own branding. So it’s called Doof Records.
“I don’t know if you have heard of the word doof? It’s an Australian word that basically means a party.
“It could mean a song with a heavy repetitive baseline. That’s what it feels like you could call it.
“People always ask me what genre I play and I never know. So we just call it Doof.
“I’m going to be throwing my own parties under the Doof brand, so that’s what we’re focusing on just now.
“I’ve been teasing it loads and everybody’s been buying the t-shirts and saying the words now and then next we’ll be actually launching it.”
With an impressive rise to fame, Doof parties and headlining festivals, Hannah Laing doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon.
Feature image credit: Chuffmedia
Music Editor of Brig Newspaper. 4th year film, media and journalism student.
