“Aggressive and fierce, but also willowy and lithe…[Dave Ralph], like Oakenfold and Digweed, proves worthy of the Superstar DJ tag for all the right reasons.” Boston Phoenix
With a brimming dance music resume including international DJ and producer, and an innovative soul to match, Dave Ralph is a dedicated music enthusiast. His track record in providing clubbers with memorable DJ sets, unforgettable club nights, quality vinyl and critically hailed mix CDs have all garnered him a place in the hearts of millions. Turning his back on the snobbery often associated with the dance scene, Dave has been influential in breaking down barriers within the genre and outside of it, in the spirit of good times, the dance floor, and great music!
As a DJ for more than two decades, as well as a recording artist and producer since 1989, Dave Ralph first built a name for himself in the UK. In his early days as a teenager in Liverpool, he kicked his career off by putting a mobile DJ unit together with a friend in order to provide a much-needed outlet for “good music.” He soon built a name for himself in his hometown where he was lucky enough to make a living from his hobby. “We got better and better and began earning money,” Dave says now. “It’s the best training ground in the world for being any kind of DJ. It teaches you to look at a crowd and entertain them.” His specialty became mixing rock and pop with soul, funk, and disco. Then Dave stumbled across house music in 1986, upon hearing Fingers Inc’s “The Washing Machine.” This pivotal moment was followed by a trip to see Sasha in 1989, where he fell firmly under the spell of dance music.
At a time in the early ‘90s when the club scene in Britain was undergoing a renaissance, Dave was one of the DJs at the helm, mixing techno with house and trance, and providing clubbers with a night of an “anything goes” party atmosphere. Dave was instrumental in bringing new sounds from around the world to clubs across the UK (in fact, he was the first person ever to bring Paul van Dyk to England to spin). He also wrote, reworked and sang on the Bassheads’ classic “Is Anybody Out There?” while establishing his own GLOW Records. Dave spent two years as Paul Oakenfold’s support DJ of choice, which gave him the opportunity to travel the globe honing his skills for international crowds. He later became resident DJ for Cream in Ibiza, where he spent summers performing for three consecutive years. It was there in 1996, during a four-hour set celebrating Oakenfold’s birthday, where he was offered a spot on BT’s US tour. In 1998, he returned to the US with Oakenfold for the Tranceport tour. Following the massive success of Oakenfold’s ‘Tranceport’ CD (the best-selling album of its kind at the time), Dave mixed its successor ‘Tranceport II’ (1999). His next release, ‘Love Parade: Berlin’ (2000), was an homage to Germany’s massive Love Parade, the celebrated daylong festival where clubbers congregate on the streets of Berlin to celebrate dance music. His work with Mike Koglin under the moniker of the Argonauts also won him hyperbolic praise. The singles “Sommertag” and “Fruhlingstag” have been considered two of the most influential tunes in Trance.
Dave Ralph’s last mix CD, ‘Naturalized’ (2001), was a double-disc release - his third offering since relocating to America from his native Liverpool, England in 1999. Now fully settled Stateside (first in Miami and now in Massachusetts) and enjoying the success of numerous mix CDs and his DJ career, Dave is dabbling in film score opportunities and has started his very own label and publishing company, RFactor Recordings and RFactor Music, respectively. Both will be a vehicle to put out his own work, as well as to support a lot of other artists he’s had the pleasure of working with in the last couple of years. “I want the label to be a family,” Dave says. “Not a vehicle to make money, but a vehicle to make music. If the music’s good, the money will come.”
Dave’s newest project is a double-CD set as well: ‘Resident Alien’. “Records that made me go ‘ooohh’ were about the only criteria for this mix,” he says. Beginning with “Deep Sound”, a favorite which he feels never received the exposure it should have, the album takes the listener on a melodic journey. “Full Contact”, a piano tune produced by Dave with Alex Whalen, serves as an intense stepping-stone to the next stage of the album, giving way to “In Your Eyes”, a lush vocal track that is another of Dave’s favorite tunes and exemplifies who Dave is musically. CD2 gives a bit of insight into the music and personal thoughts of Dave Ralph via a mega-mix of forthcoming tracks from RFactor Records and bonus video footage of Dave DJing and speaking about various topics on his mind. Dave’s goal with this record? “I hope ‘Resident Alien’ will make people happy; we all need a little smile now and again.”
