With the prospect of festivals and events being scheduled for the upcoming summer, artists and DJ’s are laying the groundwork to come back better than ever. Project Radio resident Gerry Kearns from Paisley has embraced his spare time over the past twelve months honing his craft with production in anticipation of releasing new music.

Gerry, who is also studying at university, started Dj’ing at the age of eighteen, has his parents to thank for his interest in music. At the age of nineteen, Gerry had finally gained the courage to put himself out there as DJ and started playing house parties with friend tom Everett. A few months later he set up his first event at Paisleys infamous Club 69, and things took off from there.

Gerry’s horizons are bright for the summer, he recently joined the line-up for Platform 18 Street Festival in Glasgow and has plans to kickstart a new club night Animate. In an interview with Project Radio Gerry talks about his plans for the summer and how he has made sure he comes back with a bang. He intends to release his first EP this summer and

Give us an insight into your music, where do you think it fits best?

I’d say my style is usually best fitted to a sweaty basement in a dark club, but over lockdown I’ve definitely broadened my selections. I’ll usually be dishing out proper house and techno tracks but depending on the vibe and the night my sets can go from disco to techno, afro, and whatever else in between.

What influences the music you create?

I’m always listening to different stuff throughout the week so there’s quite a lot of stuff that influences me. When it comes to DJs though my favourite selector is definitely Ryan Elliot. It’s as if he’s got this endless library of music and the stuff, he plays in his sets is just incredible. At the moment I’m loving the old school artists like Phuture, Jeff Mills, Mike Huckaby and that but I’m always trying to learn new stuff or hear new music though, so I’m usually influenced by different styles and artists.

How have you used the newfound spare time during lockdown to prepare for the reopening of clubs?

Lockdowns been a struggle for everyone, and it can be quite tough to stay motivated at times. I’ve had my tough points here and there but to keep myself occupied I’ve been doing my monthly show on Project with my mate Kane Kirkpatrick which has been great fun for the two of us. Most of what I’ve been doing is just racking up a huge collection of music for the clubs opening. I’ll usually spend at least an hour or 2 each day just listening to music anyway so I’m always picking up new stuff and organising it in my playlists. When I’m not doing that I’m in my room working on production - or drowning in uni assignments.

It’s been a tough year for creatives, how do you think this has effected the club/dance music scene?

I really think that although it’s been a tough time for everyone in and out the scene that this might just be a blessing in disguise. Once everything’s back to normal I think it’ll be like a fresh slate for everyone to come back to. With great mix series, podcasts, radios like Project and everything else it’s really created the opportunity to showcase how much local talent Scotland has to offer and I think that sort of support between everyone will stay afterwards. Hopefully, it will let the people who’ve been putting the graft in over lockdown flourish once people get to see them in action.

How do you think the music industry will recover from this?

With the way things have been going since the recent announcements and the vaccine getting rolled out it seems like there’s a lot o hope that the industry can properly recover from this. I’ve seen all these festivals making announcements and then selling out rapid because everyone’s dying to get back to it, same with those announcing dates for raves in clubs and that. Once we go back to normal, I think things will be better than ever, folk will be out all the time and more than happy to pay for tickets to club nights and events.

Recently, you have been added to the lineup for Platform 18 in Glasgow, which is exciting news, how did that come about?

To put it short, it’s the stuff of dreams for me. Me and my mate from school, Tom Everett, had been DJing and going to the studio together for a while, each putting on separate events and stuff and eventually we thought we should start a night together in Club 69. Conveniently enough, we called it Tom and Gerry and even had all this funny artwork done for the nights with the cat and mouse on the front and kickstarted our first night during summer 2019! After we’d been playing for a while and things were going well Ivan had asked us to meet up for a chat about the nights and stuff and we never suspected it but he ended up asking us if we wanted to be on the lineup for 2020. The two of us had made the odd joke here there saying maybe one day we’d make Platform and when he actually asked us we were totally lost for words. Being asked to play was without doubt the highlight of 2019 and I honestly can’t be grateful - or buzzing - enough.

What are most excited about playing Platform 18?

There must be a million things about it that has me buzzing but probably just playing music to a crowd for the first time in god knows how long. I’ve been stocking up on tunes since last year so I’ve been aching to finally get the chance to play them on a big system to a crowd!

Finally, what do you have in store for the future?

I’m going to be starting up a brand-new club night called animate with my troops Ryan Kane, Lewis Sands and Kane Kirkpatrick. We’re gonna be kicking it off once the clubs open back up so I’m looking forward to that. Aside from that, I’ll be releasing my own music over the course of the year as well which I’m excited about too.