The Burnley DJ aiming to develop community around electronic music

A local DJ from Burnley is set to bring his independent events project to life later this month, with a run of four events at The Landmark.

Sam Cheyte has developed KŌZĒ with support from The King's Trust, with the idea of building something regular around underground electronic music in Burnley rather than putting on one isolated event. He’ll be playing five-hour sets himself, mainly across Minimal, Tech House, Breaks and Garage, and has the long-term goal of developing a real community around the events. But what gave Sam the inspiration to launch the project?

“It was a mixture of things, really. It was primarily an obsession with this music. I've had so many obsessions from being a kid, and a lot of those were music-related, different instruments. The only thing that seems to have stuck is I got my first set of decks when I was 19 or 20, and I was going out to raves at the time, and it stuck. It's the one thing that never passed,” Sam explained.

“So, six, seven years later, having these decks and DJing in my bedroom and collecting music, I kind of looked and thought, I can DJ a little bit here, and I've got all this music, and I want to share it. And I guess it started from that,” Sam finished.

Up until a few years ago, Sam admitted that the idea of pursuing DJing hadn’t occurred to him and hadn’t thought about DJing outside his bedroom, but thanks to his immense passion for raves and his experience in not having friends with the same level of passion as him, the idea of developing an environment for electronic music lovers became reality. “I had friends that I'd go to events with and stuff like that, but no one that was as into it as I was. And so, I guess, I'm creating the place that I wish I had access to all these years, because I'm sure there'll be a lot of people in Burnley that are in a similar position to me,” Sam said.

KŌZĒ, which was named as a tribute to Sam’s Hungarian grandfather, who changed the family’s surname to ‘Cheyte’ to make it more recognisable, will hold its first four events at The Landmark on Friday, September 25th, October 2nd, October 16th and October 23rd – a decision that was made with community in mind and a plan that was created with the help of the King’s Trust, who have helped Sam get the idea off the ground.

“For me, it's always come back to this idea of community and building a community. I came into this with the idea of, I'm going to start from my own premises, and I'm going to have this going without really thinking about any of the costs, or how viable any of it actually was. Realising that whenever I've been to events that inspire me, when I was younger, on the dance floor, it always felt like you knew the people that you were dancing with, and you'd end up chatting with people that you had no idea who they were. But you just made these connections,” Sam stated.

“The idea of community and building a community just felt really important from the start. And so, instead of it being this one sporadic that you hear of and never hear of again, I wanted it to be a block of four so that it felt like KŌZĒ Sessions had a bit of a presence, rather than being this one event that you hear of and don't hear of again for a couple of months,” he added.

As an electronic music consumer, Sam noticed the lack of underground electronic music events taking place within Burnley, which subsequently requires consumers to go on frequent trips to Manchester or to Leeds to engage within that environment. “We've got a population of 100,000, and you're telling me that a portion of those people aren't into this kind of music? I don't believe it. I think that Burnley's got creatives, Burnley's got people that want to try something different, Burnley's got DJs, Burnley's got people that are interested in digging for records. I think it's just about providing a space for those people to come and meet each other,” Sam said.

When envisaging the idea of KŌZĒ Sessions, Sam admitted that his goal is for the events to become a gathering of friends rather than resembling a club night in order to offer an alternative to current nightlife options in the Burnley area. “I hear so much that there's a lack of variation, and I just remember going to these parties when I was younger, and like I say, feeling like you were welcome, and that you could come and be yourself, and it didn't matter what you were wearing, what your background was, or who you were, like, you're there for the music,” Sam said.

“When I was envisaging these parties, I wanted them to feel less like a nightclub, as that's not who I'm trying to compete with. I wanted it to feel more like a house party or a gathering of friends, and it would be a case of you walking in and you see the same people from last week and maybe one new person. I want it to feel like a little community, like somewhere that feels familiar, that feels safe, and that doesn't just feel like you're going to another club night or another event. It feels like somewhere familiar that people can feel part of and that you walk in and see familiar faces,” Sam concluded.

Tickets for the KŌZĒ Sessions are available here.