Ewan McVicar: “A 4/4 kick drum does something to Irish and Scottish people more than others"

Dublin’s Docklands are grey and wet. Ewan McVicar is sitting at the end of a table in a conference room, looking over the city like he’s in Succession, taking in the venue he’ll be playing for two nights at the end of January.

The first of his 3Arena shows sold out in an hour. So they added another. They’ll be the DJ’s biggest solo shows yet and he’s still trying to get his head around it, surprised at the fact his first arena headliner will be on foreign soil.

“The Irish and Scottish are so similar,” he suggests in a thick Ayrshire accent. “A 4/4 kick drum does something to Irish and Scottish people more than others. I’m doing two hours each night. I’ll try and go a bit harder and faster, because I know they love it here. I expect a bit more energy.

“I’m known for starting at one place, which is usually house, and ending up in another place that no one really knows. I was playing Daft Punk at 170 BPM at Creamfields, do you know what I mean?”

McVicar may be headlining arenas now, but it’s the euphoric murk of grassroots venues and raves that moulded him. There’s Club De Mar and Furys in his native Ayr to start.

“It’s hard to get a scene in a place that small,” he reflects. “There’d be rockers, spiceboys, geeks and girls dolled up to the nines. We had to find the perfect storm of music to bring them all on the floor at once. That’s how I learned to read a room.

“I was like, ‘Right, we’ll play some Duke Dumont to get the spiceboys on at the start. Now we need to play some rock, because the rockers have had their drink’. Then at the end, you try and bring them all together.”

Photo: Abigail Ring

Scotland’s dance scene of the ’90s was legendary. At 31 years-of-age, McVicar missed the boom. So he took it upon himself to host raves and eventually the Pavilion Festival, which he co-founded in Ayr in 2023.

“The scene when I was growing up was Top 40 stuff,” he begins. “I was feeling it as well, but I started some illegal parties around town to try and interject some quality. We had our own soundsystem, cleared a forest and did events called TEN. I have a stage at the Pavilion Festival called the TEN Tent and it’s all the boys that were residents back at the illegal parties.

“I thought if I could be the one that brings STREETrave back, that would be biblical,” he continues. “They ended up getting that big in the ’90s, they had to rent out Prestwick Airport. STREETrave was a night started in the late ’80s. It was in a club called the Pavilion in my hometown. They were like the Haçienda of Scotland. When I was younger, I always walked across there. There’s a massive grassy area beside it, which for my whole life I thought would be amazing to put a festival on.

“We started the Pavilion festival. Fifty-plus is the demographic on Sunday, when we have all the ’90s classics. Then on Saturday it’s the 18-24 demographic.  I’ve had Patrick Topping and Annie Mac, we’ve got Carl Cox and MK in 2026. It’s something I’m so proud that I’m doing from my hometown.”

An hour north of Ayr, in Glasgow, was where McVicar really raised his game, attending and playing the Sub Club – a legendary no-frills venue with a reputation for high-calibre dance music. Everyone, from Jeff Mills, to LCD Soundsystem to Calvin Harris, has played there. It’s also the sort of space that’s becoming a rarity, given the amount of club closures in the UK and Ireland in recent years.

“The Sub Club is where I learned about underground music,” McVicar says. “I’ve always put an onus on doing small shows. I’ll play for a lesser fee to try and help keep these clubs alive. If the clubs go, then that space for weird and wonderful music is taken away from the youngsters.

“Youngsters are going out less. It’s a more health conscious society and social media is just a hot pot for overthinking. Clubs give you that space to go and be a weirdo and not have to worry about what everyone thinks of you. I’m a weirdo and I wear it on my chest. I feel like being different, especially in this world, is a good thing.”

There’s been a shift in the dance industry towards festivals. They have some upsides, but the medium, McVicar says, is also negatively affecting the music.

“TikTok gives you the false sense of, ‘Oh, when we go and hear a set, we only want to hear tunes we know’. That goes against everything I’ve stood for. People are going to festivals and hearing the same tunes. All the DJs are playing the same tunes and that’s their tastemaking experience. So that scares me.

“It’s already killing clubs. People would prefer to go and save up for a festival than go and spend 20 quid to go to a club. The whole thing is pretty rotten at the core with fees going up so much that clubs aren’t able to survive. That’s why DJs need to tell their agents they’re playing places for less.”

If you couldn’t tell by now, McVicar is old school in the way he goes about things. His tunes are no different. May’s double A-side ‘Careless Drifter/ Basic Foundation’ was a love letter to rural Scottish raves of the past; the former a trippy bass-heavy behemoth and the latter leaning into modular for an acid-house chugger.

His recent release, ‘Our Revival’, was also a bit of a piano-driven throwback thanks to a feature from cult ’90s house vocalist Inaya Day. The title alludes to his return to music following the birth of his son.

“The feeling I had about dance music has changed as I’ve got success,” says McVicar when asked what’s been making him nostalgic. “I’ve had a son, so I now love something more than music for the first time in my life, which is an odd feeling.

“It was more about going back to Sub Club and remembering why I love this. But I never think too deeply. If you do that, you can end up quite unhappy and cynical, whereas I’m more like, ‘Well, that’s what I’m feeling today, let me make that.’”

If there was a third love after his son and music, it’d probably be football. A video posted to McVicar’s Instagram shows him in tears at Hampden Park, after witnessing Scotland qualify for the World Cup next summer.

“I ended up DJing for the full team,” he reveals. “A friend and I were wandering about pub to pub in Glasgow. I phoned my mate and he was like, ‘Oh, a few of the boys are coming in here’, and we ended up going to this private event. Then the squad and manager walked in and I ended up playing a few tunes for them. It’s up there with one of the best nights of my life.”

Have a few tour dates been conveniently booked for North America in June?

“Nah. I’m just gonna let the gigs do what they do. But I need to go and see one of the games at least. If I’m touring, I’ll just take being knackered and end up in Ibiza or something the next day. I don’t care, as long as I can experience it.”

• Ewan McVicar plays 3Arena on January 30 & 31.