Tastemaker Dean Jackson Tells Us How He Identifies Nottingham’s Most Talented Musicians

Hi Dean, can you tell us a little about how your career in radio began?
It goes way back all the way back to the 1980s. I was working in a record shop in Nottingham. Then, I started doing a bit of club DJing and fell in love with music, particularly Chicago house. There was nothing on the local radio reflecting the real scene at that time. At the beginning of the nineties, there was a real burgeoning scene of house music and live music starting to happen. I contacted the BBC on several occasions saying that there really should be something on local radio to reflect it. But they just said that's not what we do. So with a group of mates, I started a pirate radio station out of Bestwood Country Park. It started to get raided because it's not the best thing to do, really. By that time, I'd also got a teaching job, so we reluctantly closed the station down. 

Within days, the BBC contacted me and told me to come and do the programme on their station. And that's how The Beat was born in October 1990. It was a mix of local and national music. I did the only radio interview Nirvana ever did in Britain (so I’m told!). Then Radiohead came in, and we did a lot of early stuff with The Killers. We got a reputation as a tastemaking programme, the kind that all the record labels wanted to get their acts on. They would be sending band after band up to Nottingham to appear on the show. Anybody who's been successful in the last thirty years, they'll have been on the show. 

By the turn of the millennium, The Beat had been going for ten years. But the one thing that was not so good for us was that we were playing local music, but there was no national success apart from the odd exception. So in the early noughties, with a group of other like-minded programmes, we proposed a platform that would mean that we could put forward local artists, that would be seriously considered by Radio 1 and 6Music to give local artists air time. That was the birth of BBC Introducing, in 2007. 

Since then, you’ve put a lot of local artists on the national stage. What’s the secret to spotting and identifying those talents?
That's a really tough question to answer because it's purely gut instinct. You can't quantify it. There's no science to it either. For example, Jake Bugg was probably the biggest success story to come through Introducing - there were other Nottingham entities involved in the success as well, so I'm not trying to take all the credit! But the first time he came into our studio, he was fifteen years old, and he was deeply unfashionable, you know - kind of bluesy, Don McClane kind of thing. On paper, there's no market for that. But being in his presence, and hearing him sing, I said he'd have a number one album and he did just that. It doesn't need to fit a template, there's no tick list of things that have to be satisfied. It's just the overall package. 

Have you had that feeling with any artists you've heard recently?
Not quite as powerful as Jake, but London Grammar came along not long after and I had the same feeling with them. More recently, Ricky Jamaraz has definitely got something about him - he’s got that charisma about him. He under sells himself really, but he's great. And then I was completely in awe of Catmilk - they take me to places. More recently, Cam Mannix as well. Those would be my biggest three at the moment.

There was a time when I wanted to be first with everything but the important thing is giving them the exposure when they are ready for it. Because otherwise, you end up putting them in the limelight before they are at their best. We could have put ALT BLK ERA on the Introducing Stage at Reading and Leeds last year but they weren’t ready for it, but they will be this year. It's about what's best for the artist, nurturing their career - we don't want them to be big in 2023 but gone by 2025. We want them to build and get the recognition they deserve.

What do you think the future holds for the Nottingham music scene?
I think it’s incredibly rosy, and Confetti shouldn't be underestimated. While we do need to focus on people who are inherently from Nottingham and have been born here and grown up here, I think the fact that there's so many students coming to Nottingham to study music, and bringing their enthusiasm, creativity and skills with them, puts the city in a very strong place. People are talking about Nottingham in a way that it's never been spoken about before. 

DHP put lots of great artists on, and festivals like Splendour and Hockley Hustle as well. When I talk to artists that are coming into town, they're always so impressed with the way they're welcomed into the music scene. I think it's a really nurturing environment that we've got here. Anybody can turn up and find a lane to fit into and be really supported by other musicians from Nottingham in a way that isn't that common in other cities.

BBC Introducing celebrated its fifteenth birthday last year. During that time, what are you proudest of?
Back at the start, it was all about London, London, London. And the fact that, these days, you’ve got A&R scouts getting out of their offices and travelling to Nottingham and to other cities up and down the country, I think that's the biggest success, because we were overlooked. I think it's relatively easy to get gigs in your own city, but breaking out of that city, I think that’s the toughest thing that bands and solo artists face. Introducing is able to put them on stages at Glastonbury, Leeds, Reading, Latitude and all of that. I think that's the single biggest thing that Introducing has achieved.

You’re a familiar voice on the radio, but you're also a familiar face when it comes to festivals like Splendour and Beat the Streets, to name a couple. Do you find it more daunting getting up on the stage than presenting a radio show?
I think it's an important thing to do, but I'm much happier sitting in a studio where people can't see. I'm mindful of the fact that people are not there to see me. My role is to warm the crowd up a little bit for the artists, so they're not walking onto a cold stage, but also to do a bit of background, because people might not know who they are. So, it gives a bit of context to the crowd about what they are about to see. I’m not there to do a stand-up routine or anything!

@beatonthebeeb