Neill MacLeod: The DJ’s in the Band
Rolyn Chambers uncovers the musical methods of Toronto’s bad boy DJ, Neill MacLeod

It began rather quietly for Neill MacLeod. No build up, no bass line, no drum machine only some groaning and some heavy breathing when he was born 34 years ago in Lupin, England, just outside of London. MacLeod’s first memory of his love of music comes from when he was just a few years old. It wasn’t his discovery of some glam hit or flamboyant diva, MacLeod clearly remembers dancing to the music used on the neverending British soap opera series, The East Enders. It was a curious inspiration for his career in music but still a dramatic one.

As a young child, MacLeod took piano lessons but because his family couldn’t afford a piano he would practice diligently on a paper keyboard. At age five his family emigrated to Canada and for a time settled in Huxburry, a small town just outside of Ottawa. There a new musical world opened up when he entered high school. “I fell in love with brass instruments, the trumpet in particular,” he says earnestly. Before long his eagerness to pick up and master instruments, like the trumpet, trombone, piano and anything percussive, turned him into a mini-musical expert. By grade 12 he was teaching students in the ninth grade and his experience doing so helped him make a huge decision: “I wanted to be a high school music teacher,” says MacLeod who enrolled at the University of Ottawa to study music education and composition after graduation.

While studying in university, the strapping MacLeod enlisted in the Canadian Reserves and joined the Governor General’s Foot Guard Marching Band. Perhaps in a precursor to his future involvement in the gay fetish scene and kinky military themed parties, MacLeod dawned a bright red jacket and a big fur hat to perform the ceremonial changing of the guard in front of 10,000 tourists daily at Capital Hill. “The pay was good,” he says. “Plus I also I got to use rifles, throw grenades and shoot rocket launchers.”

While he enjoyed the butch camaraderie of the Reserves, MacLeod notes three years of schooling at U of O left him unsatisfied. He eventually left the formalness of his program behind because he says he felt instructors were taking the joy out of music and replacing it with rules. By that time he was also gleefully distracted by the city’s gay club scene.

MacLeod, then a baby-faced young man (who shockingly was prone to shaving his trademark fuzzy chest), began exploring dance music and his emerging sexuality by frequenting the gay clubs of Ottawa. Atomic, a popular after hours club served both curiosities well. “It was all over after I went there,” he says with a grin. “I needed to know how the DJ did what he did.” But like his early interest in learning the piano, he didn’t have the equipment. Fortunately he worked as a bartender at Icon then Ottawa’s largest gay nightclub. Everyday before his shift he would arrive an hour early to diligently practice and improve his skills on the clubs in-house equipment.

Weeks of dedicated practicing turned into months. MacLeod’s big break as a DJ finally came when the manager of Icon left to work for another bar. He asked MacLeod to be the DJ there for a new industry night where he was a big hit and the opportunities continued from there. While he continued DJing in Ottawa he also took advantage of the fact that he was less than two hours away from Montreal. There, popular French DJs like Alain Vinet, Marc Anthony and Stephan Grondin would greatly influence MacLeod’s turntable style. But after a year of spinning in Ottawa with the occasional gig in Montreal, MacLeod felt there was no room left for him to grow there. In September of 2000 he packed his crates and made his way to Toronto with music on his mind.

With his bashful charm and bad boy good looks, MacLeod was quickly welcomed into Toronto’s gay scene first landing a job as a busboy at Woody’s then as management at Zelda’s. Though he wasn’t working in the DJ community at least he was able to put food on the table and sample CDs into the pockets of influential promoters and club managers that crossed his path.

Even after approaching every promoter and venue from fly to the now defunct Joy, 5ive, and it nightclubs, frequent gigs and long-term bookings never materialized. Fortunately because of his connections in Montreal he was able secure a monthly residency at the popular gay club Parking. This led to more gigs at Montreal’s Twist party, Hot & Dry and the Leather Ball offshoot party for the infamous Black & Blue weekend. When word of MacLeod’s reputation finally reached the programmers at fly they had him play an opening set for DJ Bill Bennet but to this day he has yet to be asked back. One of the things that frustrates MacLeod is that Toronto promoters and clubs don’t have the best history of supporting its local talent. “We don’t hire them until they’ve played other cities. If we could nurture those DJs from the start we could create our own sound and our own club culture with our own star headlining talent,” insists MacLeod. Backing up his philosophy, MacLeod’s website features music by local producers and artists plus sets from newer local DJs. This is a more than considerate gesture considering the gay club scene has shrunk a lot over the last few years and competition for gigs is fierce. “If it’s hard for me, it’s going to be even harder for them,” he cautions.

As MacLeod and his sound matured, his popularity began to rise within the leather community and he was soon labelled “The Leatherman’s DJ,” a title he is not all that comfortable with. “I don’t just play for the leather crowd,” he clarifies. “In Toronto it seems to be the only bookings I get. I don’t play at fly, I don’t get consistently booked for Pride. But when I play other cities it isn’t always to a leather crowd. But it’s not a bad thing because the leather crowd is one of my favourite scenes to play for. They don’t necessarily care about every artist or every track played. Those guys are out to have a good time and really just want to have fun.”

It is the leather scene that has afforded MacLeod the most international exposure and travel. Having played Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for Steve Buczek’s annual Beef Dip party, Chicago, Montreal and Vancouver he plans to further expand his reach into the states by hitting Miami, Ft. Lauderdale and Europe beginning with Germany in the next year. MacLeod knows travelling allows for some of the wildest party stories. His recent trip to Chicago for the International Mr. Leatherman competition was a weekend where anything and everything took place. “Men were having sex all over the dance floor. On the third floor of one party some guy was being fisted… while he was dancing.” Having spun everywhere from shiny and happy outdoor tea parties to foam parties full of revelers naked from the waist down, MacLeod praises any crazy, sexual or unique event. “That’s what parties are for,” he muses, “I don’t think we really let go enough. People seem to be too concerned with image and how they look and what they are wearing to have fun sometimes.”

What he was wearing was of little consequence when MacLeod met his partner Cam Lewis, a former Mr Leather Fellowship titleholder, at a Woody’s Best Chest contest three years ago. Though MacLeod won and Lewis came in second, the two hit it off immediately. It was about a year into the pair’s relationship when MacLeod began, reluctantly at first, to DJ at Steamworks, the popular bathhouse Lewis was managing at the time. “I didn’t want to mix business with pleasure and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to DJ in that scene. But it’s really not that different. It’s still men, they’re just in towels,” says MacLeod with a grin. Steamworks places the fearless MacLeod in an usual spot, literally. The glassed-in DJ booth sits in the middle of the sex driven environment. A large TV screen playing porn is situated above the booth and banquet seating circles the space. “I’ve seen men running around, towels off, screaming to the music,” he says laughing, “I’ve seen orgy scenes going on in front of me. And always, always, guys jerking off to the porn, which is odd to watch because it looks like they are getting excited over you spinning.”

At club parties he also enjoys being the voyeur and takes great pleasure in watching guys eye fucking each other, getting closer, grinding and then kissing almost to the progression of the mood of his tracks. He likens this occurrence to a painter with an endless beefcake canvass. “I paint the mood. Each beat and each track represents a colour and by the end of the night each mood painting is different.” His fi rst large-scale club party, Fuel at Stereo in Montreal, was also one of his favourite X-rated paintings, “people were doing it all over the place, in the corners, on the speakers, bent over the speakers, hell, in the speakers.”

Recognizing that in the age of iPod and celebrity DJs, one cannot be just a club DJ anymore, MacLeod intends to bring something more to the table. “I want to bring that old-school element of the live performance back,” he says with determination. His current project has him busily reworking Lisa Millett’s “Now You’re Gone” so that he can play along with it on his trumpet — live at the Beef Ball. But don’t expect MacLeod to be gone anytime soon. With his training on multiple instruments, a fl air for the risqué and his desire to deviate from the norm, he has an unusual edge over those other cookie cutter DJs. Expect bigger, better and louder things from him in the future. Never has the soundtrack to your sex life been this live and raw.

Neill MacLeod spins on Fri June 26 at 10pm at Steamworks, 540 Church St, Level 2, Sat June 27 for the Beef Ball at 10pm at The Opera House, 735 Queen St E and Sun June 28 closing the Pride Centre Stage near Church and Maitland from 10-11pm. Info: neillmacleod.com