About Me

Darren Hodson is a producer, writer and remixer from the West Midlands. With many years in the music industry and over 40 commercial releases to date, highly respected artist Darren has had the honour of working alongside some industry greats, writing and producing in various styles of music.

Award-winning producer, Darren, has received 3 Gold BPI Sales Awards for his compilations and has worked with some of the biggest record labels in the UK and internationally.

Darren’s first record deal in 1994, was on newly formed DACO label, created by David Howells, following on from his many successful years with the record label, PWL.‘All Cried Out’ for Jamie Watson, charted in August 1995 peaking at number 13 in the Record Mirror promo chart. Initially on white label and promoted by Pitstop, the single topped the Hi-NRG Charts, holding the Number 1 spot for over 8 weeks in the UK and in Europe!

The video that accompanied the chart-topping single was shot at Granada Studios on the set of fantasy TV series, The Borrowers!

Darren’s creative production skills took him to the Motown genre when he co-produced a cover of Private Number (Slammin’ Jammin’ Mix) with American singer/songwriter Edwin Starr. The song featured as a bonus track for The Supremes, funk/soul album, Supremely Yours, released in 1995.

In 1996 Darren teamed with his longtime production partner, John Purser and Gatecrasher’s Scott Bond to form Q:dos, who were signed to UK House label, Stress Records (Danceteria). The first release from Q;dos was the instrumental track, Nocturnal Spirit. The epic Dance/Club single featured on Gold-selling ‘Kiss In Ibiza ‘96’.

Q:dos have produced remixes for many artists,including the ‘97 remix of ‘Sundance’ for Shimmon & Wolfson which reached Number 23 in the UK Top 40, Kamasutra's ‘Storm In My Soul’ ( for Sony S3),which reached Number 1 in the Club Charts in the UK, Germany and Italy, and the DMC trance mix of Ladycop’s huge club hit, ‘To Be Real’.

The second single from Q:dos was the massive Gatecrasher Anthem ‘I'm Not Going Home'. The track was the highest new entry at Number 8, in the Dance Singles Chart and featured a remix by  DJ, Judge Jules. The single received impressive reviews and was voted Number 17 in M8 Magazine’s Top 50 Tunes of the year. ‘I’m Not Going Home’ also featured on Ministry of Sound, Trance Nation Anthems (2003) and BPI Gold selling Gatecrasher Classics 2 in 2005.

Darren released ‘Live Like This’, under the name Nu-topia, for Cleveland City Records. The track, with it’s powerfully uplifting vocal hook also featured a remix by Untidy Dubs.

In early 2000 Darren had two Hard House releases, ‘Childs Play’ and ‘Keep Steppin’, for Chad Lewis vs Darren H, on the UK Power label and was a programmer on the Andy Farley remix of Child's Play.

Alongside his work as a producer and remixer, Darren has continued to co-write many songs, collaborating with artists including, Angie Brown, Jennifer Bolton, Norma Lewis, Cie Hamilton, Carol Jiani and Niki Mak, to name a few.

The song, ‘Is It Any Wonder’ was chosen by pop artist, Claire Johnston as the single to launch her first solo album, after 10 yrs and 900,000 albums with the South African fusion pop legends Mango Groove.

‘Is It Any Wonder' was reproduced by Vic Coppersmith-Heaven and went to Number 10 in the SA Top 40 in Sept 2001. The Album ‘Fearless' was nominated for an award and was still in the Top 10 of the Album Charts in April 2003!

The song features alongside great writers such as Billy Steinberg of Like A Virgin fame and Pam Shayne, co-writer of Christina Aguilera’s global smash, Genie in a Bottle.

Between 2002 and 2005, Darren worked as a session programmer and engineer running Madhouse Recording Studios in Birmingham. From here he worked with a host of Birmingham DJ's, prominent on the Speed Garage scene, including Danny Wynn, Will Smith and Ste Savage.

Music production is a part of Darren’s DNA and by  2006, he and production partner, John Purser, re-recorded and released “I’m Gonna Get You” for Angie Brown, which reached Number 2 in the UK Music Week Dance Chart and has achieved a staggering 172k streams on YouTube.

Darren’s 2001 Flower Duet Remix has also been a huge YouTube success, with 74k streams so far.

More recently Darren, as ‘Blair’ has teamed with DJ Paul Morrell for two releases featuring vocalist Jennifer Bolton, ‘Feel My Love’ and ‘Bad For Me’. The 2015  track, ‘Feel My Love’ features a remix by Grammy-nominated K-Klass

Darren has also produced remixes for UK Chart legends Hazell Dean with the 2014 mix ‘Can You Feel It’, and Sinitta's ‘Touch Me’ (All Night Long) in 2015.

Darren is currently in collaboration with a Swedish team, writing for a 2020 Eurovision pitch and is also working on a much-anticipated solo project, due for release later this year.