Vaughan Phillips (a.k.a. Syntrax)

Vaughan Phillips (A.K.A.) Syntrax was born into a musical family on the 10th February 1981. As soon as he could walk he was always wearing a set of headphones and could usually be found tinkering away on the piano. Vaughan started his DJing career in the early 90’s playing at school functions, friend’s parties, 21st’s, 40th’s, weddings and corporate events. It was only a few years later that he was bitten and infected by the techno bug. In 1998 the beatmixing journey had begun. Using two simple CD players and mixer, it was to be a long haul until the arrival of vinyl records. His weapons of choice are the legendary wheels of steel – Technics sl1200’s of course!

After a lucky break at The Gallery super-club in Cape Town, Vaughan soon found himself behind the decks at some of the Mother City’s finest events and venues alongside fellow DJ and friend Judge-Mental. It was not long before event promoters started to take notice – Vaughan started appearing on the flyers of major events, including support DJ for Organ Donors, Mauro Picotto (at the Good Hope Centre), Rachel Auburn, Lisa Lashes, Milk Inc. and DJ Isaac (at Dockside) to mention a few.

Let’s not forget to mention the successful sideline projects as dance music and TV jingle producer, as well as a final mix engineer. As winner of the Music Industry Online 2005 and 2006 remix contests, he is someone to be taken seriously! With a long list of underground bootlegs, remixes and original tracks under his belt, it will not be long until he takes the dance music world by storm. He has also signed with Multitude Music, the trance division of Stereo FX Records, and has several new music releases in the pipeline.

Upon returning to Johannesburg, it was only a matter of time before making contact with the infamous and legendary TrioPirate (of Radio X fame) – after being invited to play on the show, he soon became a favourite on this notorious pirate FM broadcast. This quickly led to the promoters of OFF Productions snapping him up as an official member of the team, as well as main floor DJ for several of their events.

His favourite style is the “darker and harder side of trance” but has a love for all things uplifting and melodic, as well as the more hectic genres such as hardstyle and sometimes even hardcore!