Celebrating London's Instigators, with Cuervo

Think about where you'd be every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night if the concept of club promoters had never been unleashed on your life. Probably not having anywhere near as much fun as you're currently having.

Promoters are intrinsic to having a good night – they're the instigators who turn a bland, music-less room into somewhere you look forward to spending your night; the people who take an otherwise vapid situation and turn it into something incredible. As part of Cuervo's Who's In? campaign, we interviewed three of our favourite London-based party instigators: Sam Bathe, who runs the indie/minimal night Friday Night Fist Fight, and Radha "Radi" Dadi and Kevin Morosky who run Bounty, a hip-hop, garage and RnB night.

Hey guys, how did you start out in the clubnights game?
Radha, Bounty: We were tired of having to queue to get into clubs. We wanted a place where we could hang out and have fun with our friends. More importantly, we wanted a place where we had 100 percent control over the music, ha!
Sam Bathe, Friday Night Fist Fight: It all started out on Monday nights at Madame JoJo's in Soho, as a friend and I fancied putting on a night together.

What are the advantages of working with friends when it comes to putting on nights?
Sam: Working with friends means you can also let things organically play out on the night. We mix up DJ sets, sometimes DJ as teams or are able to take over at a minute's notice and still make the music still sound cohesive.
Radha: It's a similar thing with us, really – the whole Bounty team are like brothers and sisters… We're really tight with each other, so we can say anything good or bad 'cos we know it's all outta love and only to make the night better. We think the most important thing with running a night with friends is that you have to be honest and upfront, otherwise it ain't gonna work.

What was the turning point where your nights sort of went up a gear?
Radha: Our nights get better and better all the time. We just do what we do and try to have fun.
Sam: We were walking up Kingsland Road in East London one day to go eat Vietnamese food, when suddenly the name came to my head – Friday Night Fist Fight. The club night as we see it now was born.

Was that the same with you Bounty guys? Is there any one person who instigated a change in the way the club night was run?
Kevin, Bounty: Maybe my religious views on UK garage. When I was 15, I was a real garage kid. The thing that was missing for me at Bounty was garage. There were a host of nights that played 90s hip-hop, but no garage, so I knew with Bounty that it was a must. We got Sticky down for our 1st birthday to play a garage set and people went NUTS. Now most of the other nights round here have started to play garage too… #noshade #Imjustsayin. Ha! What do you think makes for the best night out? Is there a key factor that elevates things to a next level?
Radha: Your people. Having your friends around you and even people you don't know but instantly have a connection with because you share the love of hip-hop or RnB music. To look to your left or right and in unison scream "TUNNNNNNNNNE!" is soo much fun!  At Bounty, our favourite thing is to know we can look up in any direction and know we're going to be greeted by a smiling face singing back to us.
Sam: Yeah, it's your friends that really make it. You can never force a good time, but if you're with the right people it's often almost guaranteed to happen.

As far as your nights go, is there one moment which you never would have seen happening a few years ago, that really made everything change?
Radha: I didn't think three years ago that we'd end up supporting Diplo and hosting Frank Ocean's afterparty. Those were pretty special moments.

How about when you go out to somewhere other than your own club night? Got any stories for us?
Sam: Like in the movies when robbers jump into moving cars, I was chatting with a friend through the window of a cab but then as he started pulling away, I made the split-second decision to jump in and join him where he was heading.

Great. Thanks, guys!

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