Lee 'Wallop' Morrison as his name suggests is the founding father of Wallop Recordings. He's also one of the label's principal recording artists and remixers, both under his own name and as Intastella with Alec Milliner. He's also pretty handy behind the decks.
Originally from Cumbria, Lee first got into music when as a young man of 16 he joined the army to get away from the quiet life of his hometown. Moving south, he would quite literally go AWOL to hit the big raves of the time. Carl Cox was a big influence in the early days, which was around 1990. It was a time of supreme hedonism, but going to Ibiza proved to be the turning point and on his return to England Lee decided to take up DJing himself. It also heralded a switch in his musical taste from hardcore to house.
'I remember going to Tribal Gathering once,' remembers Lee, 'and the music in the hardcore tent was just terrible, so I went into the house tent instead and never looked back.'
Lee quickly acquired some decks and began to play in bars around Basingstoke and Camberley. By 1994 he was DJing pretty much all the time and even got the chance to go in the studio and work on a few tracks. A residency at Delicious in Ealing soon followed, with Lee playing pretty much whatever he wanted to around 1,500 people every Friday night. Dates around London at venues like Bagleys, The Cross and the Chunnel Club soon followed.
By the end of 1996 things had slowed down a little with Lee playing more on the bar scene than in the clubs. He'd also been partying just a little too hard and decided to give the DJ lifestyle a rest for a while to concentrate on his job with Amato Distribution. Following a trip to Ibiza in the summer of 2000, however, Lee rediscovered his love for DJing but returned home to find he was out of a job. Ever the optimist, Lee took the advice of a friend and set up his own label, and Wallop Recordings was born.
'I would describe my DJ style as chunky and uplifting,' says Lee. 'I like vocals but definitely nothing cheesy, something with plenty of energy. I can do the dark and twisted thing too, but also play nice and funky. It's all about playing the right record. I don't believe in all the fuss about the technical side of mixing; a DJ has to able to read the crowd and know what record to put on next. It's not what you play but how you play; if a record's not working, change it!'
With the label firing on all cylinders, more of his own productions forthcoming and some Wallop club nights planned (including Fizgig, a new monthly night at The Lifthouse in London) you can expect to hear a lot more of Lee over the coming months. He's got the personality, the savvy and the goddamn balls to take any party by the scruff of its neck and make it rock.

Biography written by Matthew Duffield