Mark Knight Interview: "There aren’t many clubs like Joshua Brooks left."

With a career spanning over three decades, a Grammy nomination under his belt, and a legacy that includes founding the powerhouse label Toolroom, Mark Knight is a certified legend in dance music. From dominating the Beatport charts to funding an academy to teach new DJs the Toolroom way, his influence on the scene is undeniable.

This Saturday, Mark returns to Manchester, stepping back into his favourite stomping ground, Joshua Brooks, for yet another all-night-long set. Known for its intimate, industrial basement and trust in those behind the decks, the venue is the perfect setting for Knight’s signature grooves and seamless mixing. Having sent it off in style there before, fans can expect nothing less than a masterclass of weaving genre that locks you into a perpetual boogie.

Ahead of the night, we sat down with Mark to chat about his long-running love affair with Joshua Brooks, the continued success of Toolroom, and the successes of his off-the-pitch project, Ballerz - a football dome in London, launched in collaboration with Rio Ferdinand and Roberto Carlos.

Scroll down for the full chat, and if you haven’t got your tickets for Joshua Brooks this Saturday, act fast—there are still some left at the bottom of this page!

 

 

Joshua Brooks, we’ve spoken a couple, of times now and you have always waxed lyrical about the place, what can you remember about the last few times you’ve played there, and how is this time going to be in comparison?

“Without being too safe, I've got a really good formula for the all-night-longs at Joshua Brooks in terms of how I approach it musically. But, what I love most about it gives me the chance to really, really express myself.

“It's six hours. It's a small, intimate room, and you can really push it. I start by playing disco and then move into a bit of house and then tech house and then just keep ramping it up and up and end with some classics. 

“It’s a nice formula that really engages me. I think that's what I love about doing these sets. I'm so invested in it. I do love doing two-hour shows, the headline slot of sorts, but it takes a certain approach because you don't have the time to push the envelope. 

“For me, I've never really seen DJing as much more than a hobby that I love. The fact that I do it to make money, it's never, mentally anyway, changed my approach, I’ve always just had this passion for playing people music that I love or discovered. 

“So it really affords me to go back to that basic principle and go, this is just what I love doing and this is the music I love playing, and when you've got six hours you can do that in a way that makes it more of an art form. 

“Sets like this inspire me, which is something that DJing should always do, and it shouldn't be about going through the motions, it should be about an expression of playing music, and this gig really affords me to do that. 

“'So I love it. I absolutely love it.”

 

You've touched on it a bit there, but these six-hour all-night-long sets, I rarely see you do these elsewhere, but it seems a given every time you come to Joshua Brooks, what is it about the club for you that makes it the place for such a set?

"There aren’t many clubs like Joshua Brooks left in the world, especially in the UK. 

"Everything's gone the way of the mega club. So the intimacy and soul you get in there is hard to find. 

"I approach this show the way I do because it is one of those venues. It's the right size for my fan base to sell out and be a fully engaged audience. They want to hear the whole range of what I do, and it's just brilliant."

 

It's an interesting point you make. The dance music industry is going the way of wanting to just supply those big hits, clips of the tracks and reactionz you can put out across socials. That original artistic expression and curation, what DJing originally was, is getting lost. I’d love to dig deeper into your opinions on that.

"Yeah, I totally agree. 

"I mean look, when I used to go out as a kid in the late 80s, early 90s, there wasn't a whole line-up of DJs. There was one person who played the whole night, and their job was to warm it up, smash it, and then take it down for a slow dance at the end. But it was that journey, that kind of seamless flow of music across styles, that was their responsibility, and that was the art form of DJing that I fell in love with. 

"That breadth of being able to show what you love in a narrative that makes sense, and is palatable, and that people enjoy and come with you. As I said, there aren't many venues in the UK that afford you the opportunity to do that, and Joshua Brooks is right at the front of the queue. 

"It's a privilege and an honour to play there, It's the gig in the UK I look forward to the most, and the one I put myself under the most pressure with too.

"I've been planning this set for literally weeks and months. I start to make folders of ‘Hour One’, ‘Hour Two’. Put things in, take things out. I don't do that anywhere else.

"When you're doing a two-hour set there are certain things you have to play, because people come to see you play, and the big record that you've made. So it's defined all these things. I can still play those records on Saturday, but maybe one every hour, do you know what I mean? Otherwise, it just feels a bit jukeboxy, innit? 

"I fell in love with that art form of - how do I go from here to here and it makes sense and where it doesn't feel disjointed? I love finding all those link records that take you up a gear or take you down a gear that don't take you know a disharmony or disjointed in your set so uh yeah I get really as you can probably hear I'm bug I'm really excited about it I'm really excited about it"

 

 

 

You’ve also got a new single that came out last week with Oliver Lang, Like A Man. It’s coming out of course on Toolroom, what can you tell us about it? How did it come about? Is there anything else on the way too?

"I've got two actually! 

"'Like A Man' was last Friday and that's come out on Toolroom, and I've got one that comes out next Friday too. 

They’re both very housey. The thing I’ve done with Oliver Lang is this sort of low-slung, groovy thing that we’re pretty chuffed with. He’s a mate of mine I hadn’t seen for years and we just said I bumped into him, and we're like we should get in the studio. So we just did and we came up with something pretty special.

"I've also got a more radio-friendly one, a really nice soulful piece of electronica, that's coming out on my other label Fool's Paradise next Friday"

 

While we’re mentioning Toolroom, we have to chat about you being Beatport's best-selling label for two years in a row. That's some achievement. What does it mean to you guys after all the work you’ve put in?

"What means a lot is that we're 21 years old and we're still at the top of our game, and I'm probably the proudest of how we've never lost sight of what we set out to be. 

"We always tried to maintain what we're about, being a club-based label. If records go on to be bigger than that, then great! But to still be at the front of the queue 21 years later, and still have relevance. For me, it's a really big deal, because you can look at Spotify and numbers, but that Spotify doesn't really represent what we're about.

"Beatport is a direct translation of the scene that we are part of, we’ve grown, and we originally fell in love with.

"I'm also just very proud of the team and what we've managed to maintain throughout the course of our history and how we've stayed true to ourselves and kept that integrity. Money's money and whatever, it comes and goes, but integrity lasts a lifetime. 

"If I can walk away from what we do at the end and I’ve managed to walk that line of integrity through our history, then happy days. That means everything to me. I never did it for the money. I just did it for the love and the integrity of what I believe in.

"We've got a lot of titles now, I think we own 9,000 as it stands, and I’d also say I’m proud of what it collectively means, and stands for; the fact that we have built our own sound. 

"When someone has written a record and people say it sounds very Toolroom, for me that's the ultimate A&R accolade, that we've reached that point where we've defined our own sound through a consistent series of quality and great releases, you know, it's built its own sound."

 

When we spoke a couple of years back about Toolroom Academy when it was in its infancy, and to this day it is going from strength to strength, what has the evolution of that been like, and how is it still going strong?

"It’s absolutely flying. It's a business we can't keep up with in terms of demand. 

"There's always a buoyant market in education. Everyone always wants to learn. But what we offer is something very bespoke and, again, it’s an extension of us having built a sound and we teach the specifics of writing music of that sound in the academy.

"You've got YouTube, where you can learn how to put a reverb on a snare and all that, that's all on there for free. But, if you want to know the specifics of how you write a Toolroom record, and the quality threshold needed to get released on Toolroom, whilst being taught by bona fide people who've had genuine careers in music, then there's nothing out there like our academy. It's a very unique scenario. It's a bit like going to a football training session you've got Pele taking the finishing class.

"It's grown into something special and all credit to Miles and the crew and Maya and Pete, Alan, and all the guys that run that because they run it with real passion and all the students are they're really invested in them and they get really close to them. 

"It just builds a great producer community too, with everyone aspiring or hoping to get on the label. It's also a great way of finding new talent.

"The idea is very much based on the football academy model. You offer the opportunity to find talent with a pathway to go through to play for the first team. You know, 99.99% won't. I mean, that's the stark reality. It's the same thing in football. 

"But when we do find them, they're people like ESSEL and Wheats, people who have gone on to have big careers, you don't find them every half an hour, I wish I did, but it is an interesting pool of talent that we can dip into and there's always new, exciting kids coming up and through it, so yeah, on every level it works really."

 

It's funny you used the football analogy with it because I'd love to touch on Ballerz. You launched it with none other than Roberto Carlos and others. Talk to us a bit about it. How's it been since its launch? What's it like to be involved in something like that that's outside of your usual realm of activity too?

"It's been great but it was a huge learning curve. I learned a hell of a lot in terms of how to run an F&B business and how to build a one-of-one bespoke football environment. I've been involved in the marketing aspect of how we build the brand, the brand language and what we need to represent, and I've got to work with some great people. 

"I was always in football, and it's great to have businesses in the two things you love the most; Sport and Music. It's great. 

"When you go in there, and kids are having their birthday party in there. They've done the skills. They've come out of the tunnel with the Champions League music blasting, they're buzzing their tits off, mate. So yeah I'm pretty chuffed we've made this environment for these kids. You're building memories for them. 

"It's very special, and they get to watch all their highlights on a reel we send them, the goals and whatnot, afterwards. All the tech around it is fantastic. 

"We're looking at new sites now too. America's interested in Vegas and Miami and all sorts. We don’t want to run before we can walk, but it's in a great place and I'm very proud of it."

 

What else does 2025 hold, is there anything in particular you’re looking forward to?

"Well, we've been doing a really interesting project we're about to announce in East London. The next kind of evolution of Toolroom, which is going to be really exciting, I can't say anything yet, but that's a really exciting project. 

"We've got our Miami party around the corner too. We do a big pool party on a Sunday, that's always a lot of fun, that's again one of the gigs I look forward to massively. It's the whole roster out there for the whole day, it's so much fun. I'll honestly say it's probably the best party in Miami, the energy's brilliant.

"But keep an eye out for what we're doing in East London, that's about a month away in March, we’re buzzing for it."

 

 

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