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# Home Games
- URL: https://www.howardgray.net/home-games/
- Published: 2026-08-24T08:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-24T08:00:00.000Z
- Description: A touring DJ plays almost every night away from home. Andy C says the hardest gigs of his career were at his own club.
- Author: Howard Gray
- Tags: Creative Business, #practice

A touring DJ plays almost every night away from home. Strange room, strange setup, no idea what this crowd wants or when the place comes alive.

Andy C says the hardest gigs of his career were at his own club.

If the name means nothing to you: he co-founded Ram Records as a teenager and was voted the best DJ in drum & bass every year from 2009 to 2018.

He ran Ram's Friday night at The End in London for eleven years. His label, his room, his crowd. He'd built it.

And yet.

“The most high-stress situations I've ever had as a DJ were doing those intros at The End. I would be shaking and sweating.”

The booth at The End sat in the middle of the dancefloor, a foot or so above everyone. There was no stage to hide behind.

His signature move is the double drop - landing the crescendos of two tracks together, at 175bpm, across three turntables in a room full of people jumping. One tiny nudge and it's gone.

He does it in front of thousands of strangers in LA or Adelaide without blinking.

The room that got to him was his own.

What he does about it is the part worth stealing. He doesn't turn up early.

“I don't like turning up too long before the set because I get so focused on the set I get distracted and very anxious. It sounds weird but I like to sit and chill in the car.”

Away games are hard because you don't know the room.

Home games are hard because the room knows you, and you're the reason they turned up.

The man who built the room sits in the car until it's time to walk in.