Dieselboy

Dieselboy is the stage name of Damian Higgins, who was born in Tarpon Springs, Florida, in 1972 and later moved to Colorado City, Colorado, and then Oil City, Pennsylvania, where he finished high school. He studied information science at the University of Pittsburgh and DJed on campus station WRCT, becoming one of the central figures in American drum and bass at a time when the music was still largely a British import.

His stage name began as the IRC handle "Diesel," extended to Dieselboy after he found a graffiti artist using the same tag. He built an early audience through mixtapes and mix CDs that circulated in the US rave scene, starting with a self-released 1994 tape that sold about 100 copies through online mailing lists and led to his first East Coast bookings.

Officially released mixes followed for the British label Suburban Base from 1996, and through the late 1990s he issued a steady run of mix albums, including 97 Octane, Director's Cut and A Soldier's Story, the last of which included his production debut, "Atlantic State," made with Technical Itch. He also ran Philadelphia's first weekly drum and bass club night, Platinum, from 1998 to 2004.

He founded the Human Imprint and Planet of the Drums labels and imprints associated with his work, and tours as part of the Planet of the Drums collective alongside other long-running American drum and bass DJs. His sets favour the darker, heavier end of the genre, techstep, neurofunk and industrial-leaning tracks, built through heavy layering and effects rather than straightforward beatmatching.

In January 2022, Higgins expanded beyond DJing by founding Destroyer Design, a graphic design and creative direction agency, applying the visual skills he had used for his own mixtape artwork and club promotion to outside clients.