Jane Casey caught up with Grammy nominated DJ and producer Duke Dumont aka Adam Dyment before his explosive set at Electric Picnic 2014.

Hey Adam! This is your third time at Electric Picnic, but the first time since your career has taken off. Are you excited to perform?

Definitely! I’m playing the Little Big Tent, which I played before. This time though, it’s just a one hour set, so it’s just going to be all the hits and no fillers! I’m looking forward to it, it will be interesting to see how the reaction is after the chart success. Two years ago nobody knew who I was – so yeah, it’s going to be good.

So, going back to a few years ago, you were unknown. Did you ever think you’d get to where you are now, having a Grammy nomination and two number ones?

I definitely knew that I had the ability, and I knew that if I kept working hard at what I did that I could get to this point. But to answer your question – no. I just didn’t think it happens to people like me, I feel like I had to be a bit more privileged or have super powerful management. But no, I just worked really hard and I was nominated.

Where do you go from here?

I’ve kind of caught a bug now – I’m waiting for that second nomination! Hopefully with the next album I’ll get to go back and win it.

When you were a kid, obviously you loved music, but did you ever think you would make a career out of it?

I’ve done this since about the age of 16. I got fired from my last ever job when I was 24. I needed to make money quickly, so when the DJing started to take off, I was earning the same as minimum wage within three months! I’m kind of having I’m great time. I’ve put so much time into figuring out how to make music with a computer, and it paid off.

Right now it’s such an exciting time for the type of music you make in the charts…

Yes, the stars have definitely aligned for sure. I mean, there has never been a bad time to make house music. It has always been great, but when we first started we were touring around Europe on a very modest in come… we were just doing it because we loved it. But now, it just happens that my success has correlated with what is going on in the charts right now. It’s not like I am playing music that I’ve never played before, it’s what I always have done, it’s just the timing of it is great. I am so grateful.

You have had a really busy summer, when do you get to take a break?

I’m still hanging in there. It’s fun, but the lack of sleep is hard. I love sleep! I slept for 16 hours the other day. You’ve been here since Friday, yeah? I bet your tired. Try doing that for four weeks.

You win! How do you cope?

Haha. Come on, I used to work in office admin. I can do it! But seriously, the reality of it is that most people don’t get to do what they really enjoy for a living. I am in that tiny 1% of people that can make a living out of what they enjoy. I hope that I can continue to appreciate that. But speak to me in a year and things might be different…

Well I saw Nile Rodgers on stage last night with Chic, and he has been doing it for years. If he can do it, so can you!

Well that’s the thing… he isn’t doing it because he needs to. He loves it.  That is the way it should be.

I want to talk to you about your remixes for a second, my personal favourite is your remix of Haim’s track ‘Falling’. Do you want to continue to remix tracks for other artists?

I really love remixing acts that are not necessarily house acts, like Haim for instance, so that I can put my spin on it. I hope there’s time when I’m not so busy that I can keep doing that. That Haim mix is quite cheesy, but I think I added a bit of emotion to it as well. It’s a great, uplifting vocal. I had a lot of fun doing that one, they are a great band.

Last question, because we are a LGBT website, we’ve been asking artists at Electric Picnic a VERY important question. If you could marry anyone of the same sex, who would it be?

Well now, marry and one night stands are two completely different things… so let me think. You know what? I was on a plane with Orlando Bloom a few weeks ago, and that was about a day or two before he knocked out Bieber. I think we shared a connection, and on some level I encouraged him to punch Bieber. I’d marry Bloom, for sure.

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Duke Dumont’s latest EP ‘For Club Play Only Pt. 3’ is available on iTunes and Soundcloud now.