The fresh newcomer Meg Ward is a Newcastle-based DJ and producer who’s created a name for herself by blending multiple genres like house, techno, disco, garage, and hip-hop within her animated sets. As a rising artist in the electronic music scene, she’s released on popular underground labels like &friends, Trick, Zone Focus, and Clipp.Art, and has received support from Annie Mac, Danny Howard, and Nemone for her remarkable releases. Despite the temporary drawback of the pandemic, her career is flourishing more than ever with further productions, festival shows, and gigs this year.

Meg grew up in Leeds listening to indie and disco and started off in this industry as a resident at Newcastle upon Tyne’s ILL Behavior avant-garde events. She discloses that one cool thing “about the club scene in Yorkshire is that you can get a cup of Yorkshire tea behind the bar at some of the venues no matter what time or what event is going on. Always time for a cuppa.” The entertaining persona is noted to bring upbeat energy to all of her sets, and in this competitive profession, Meg hopes to be known for being genuine and unapologetically herself in real life and especially on social media outlets. “I want people to love my music, but I mainly want to give them something they’ve never really heard before. I am very much unfiltered on my socials, so what you see is what you get when you meet me in person. I don’t see the point in creating a separate online persona, which may work for some people but definitely not for me.”

In addition to her gigs, the LGBTQ+ community member is a professional mental health worker who’s especially devoted a lot of time to this field during lockdown when she was unable to work. In these past 2 quiet years of isolation, she’s learned that music really does keep her sane. “If it wasn’t for my monthly radio shows, and time producing whilst in lockdown, I would not have been able to cope very well with the lack of clubbing and general human connection. Music helped me feel connected at that time.” Since returning to a somewhat more normal world, her social anxiety has been looming at shows. “It’s a very internal challenge I have with myself and it’s something that I never would have expected. I think it stems from being away from people for 2 years of lockdown to then smash straight back into it, so I’m still getting used to interacting with people again.”

Giving us a glimpse of her vibrant personality, the unconventional character reveals her thoughts in a few hypothetical scenarios. If there’s any movie she’d live in the rest of her life, she’d “absolutely love to live in the Harry Potter world as a witch since being a muggle would be pointless.” The movie soundtrack to her life would include legendary songs like Moby’s “Porcelain” for opening credits, Four Tet’s “Teenage Birdsong” for end credits, Daniel Bedingfield’s “Gotta Get Thru This (D’N’D Remix)” for the climax and Stonebridge’s “Put ‘Em High” for that euphoric moment.

Meg has lots of huge shows at various festivals this year including Reading and Leeds, Trick Budapest, AMP Lost & Found in Malta, Hideout Croatia, Boardmasters, and many more. Be on the lookout for exciting new music on one of her favorite indie labels NeedWant, which will also come with a vinyl release, and support the refreshing artist now on Beatport and Instagram.