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A birthday party at a motor club, that’s where Dutch hardcore producer and DJ Raphael Verhoeven a.k.a. Skuffa had his first gig in front of an audience. Nowadays Skuffa also goes by the alias Coldfire. In 2015 Raphael told me the story of his DJ debut and how it got that far. “This is gabberhouse’, he said when we listened to it. The music hit me like a bomb.”
“Let’s begin at the beginning. I first got in touch with house music when I was eight, nine years old. This was in the period of Turn Up The Bass and Houseparty Compilations. One of the first tracks I heard and that truly spoke to me, was Chestnut with Pot Of Gold.”
Gabberhouse
“Not much later, one of my best friends from school borrowed a cassette tape from his brother. ‘This is gabberhouse’, he said when we listened to it. The music hit me like a bomb. I was immediately hooked.”
Flyers and records
“When I was about eleven, every weekend my friend and I went to the Amsterdam record stores, like Midtown Records, the basement at Outland Records and Groove Connection. We collected flyers and posters there.”
Attalos
“As I grew older, I went to Attalos every Thursday night, also in Amsterdam. It was the record shop where Buzz Fuzz worked. He always bought titles that were just a little different than the ones others purchased, tracks you couldn’t find everywhere. At a certain point, Attalos was my regular hangout and Mark (Vos aka Buzz Fuss) saved tracks for me. Often these were white labels or rare editions of which he could get a hold of in limited numbers.”
Epic
“I miss those days. I spent all my hard-earnt money on music. Every week I left the story with three or four new records. This is also the time when I started producing. I remember very well that Buzz Fuzz in Attalos listened to my demos. Pounding hard beats went through the record store. Meanwhile, with a head as red as a tomatoe, I was waiting for the verdict. The first thing he said to me was: ‘Yeah, good stuff man’. Then he went to the back of the store to hand me a CD-rom with Cubase. Epic!” (laughs)
Motor club
“My real first gig wasn’t for quite some time. It must have been around ten years ago. In order to celebrate their birthday party, a few acquaintances had rented the building of a motor club and asked whether I was willing to play a set.”
First EP
“Looking back, I don’t think that gig went very well, although the response was quite positive. At that moment I started decided: ‘Okay, I’m going to focus some more on this’. A year later, Champ-E-on and I released our first EP together. Before I knew, I was playing at all sorts of parties.”
Heroes
“As far as mixing is concerned, I never had a mentor or teacher. Of course, I had my heroes and was inspired by several people like Buzz Fuzz, Champ-E-on, Bass-D and Dulk of Confusion. In the end though, I’m self-taught. I believe that that’s the way to create your own mixing style, something that is quite rare these days.”
“Now, all those years later, I still play full-on. I released several interesting tracks on different labels and there’s more to come. I will never be able to say goodbye, not to playing, nor to producing. I’m just getting started.”
Who is Skuffa?
Skuffa began his DJ career in 2005, playing mostly oldschool and early rave from the early 90’s at underground events. After his first vinyl release together with the legendary Champ-e-on in 2008 (LSO Vol1) Skuffa decided to focus himself on creating a new hardcore sound which resulted in producing two tracks with DJ Dano for the “Dreamteam 4 Ever Album (DT4E)” releases on Partyraiser Records, Red Fever Recordings, a Remix with Buzz Fuzz for Psyclown and much more.
Skuffa’s mixing style and performances are always highly energetic and full of madness, crossing the borders of hardcore with an “Outside The Box” attitude. Skuffa has also produced and released music for BZRK Records.
This interview with DJ Skuffa is originally published on DJMag.nl on April 9th 2015.
