Visiting DJ Storm at home in Kettering, a pleasant-enough market town in the UK's East Midlands, I learned two important facts about "the First Lady of Drum & Bass." First, she likes to play long sets: her personal record stands at just under seven hours, all vinyl. (In drum & bass maths, that's about 70,000 beats.) Second, DJ Storm always plays in high heels: these are invariably silver, and sometimes sparkly. If you've never stood up in high heels for seven hours then you may not grasp the significance of this information.

In any case, Storm is a DJ who truly deserves her legendary status. As cofounder of the label Metalheadz, alongside DJ partner Kemistry and producer-instigator Goldie, Storm—AKA Jayne Conneely—presided over the cutting edge of drum & bass in the mid-'90s, as the sound evolved from rowdy ragga and hardcore into the outer limits of breakbeat science. Between the label, where they cultivated artists like Doc Scott, Alex Reece and J Majik, and their influential Sunday sessions at former London club Blue Note, the Metalheadz crew looked and sounded like the future: a potent symbol of a modern, multicultural Britain at the end of the millennium, and a stark contrast to the retrograde posturing of Britpop.

Conneely started DJing at 26, eventually quitting her career as a radiographer to pursue music with her best friend Kemi Olusanya, AKA Kemistry. Having met at college in Kettering, they reconnected in their 20s and moved into a flat in North London, spending their weekends at nights like Rage, where their idols Fabio and Grooverider were laying the foundations of jungle. Encouraged by friends at Reinforced Records and their early DJ mentor Randall, Kemistry & Storm quickly took their place at the forefront of the new sound, earning respect from their peers at a time when there were vanishingly few women in the booth.

In 1999, three months after the release of their DJ-Kicks mix—still the only drum & bass set in !K7's long-running series—Olusanya was killed in a freak motorway accident returning from a gig. "After Kemi [died], I was a bit isolated for a while," Conneely reflected. "I don't think you realise how much shock you're in until you look back." The '00s were a period of difficult adjustment, but Conneely remained an influential figure, pushing barriers with her Feline night at Herbal, where all-women lineups gave the likes of Tasha and Mantra their break. Conneely's recent comeback was sealed with a Boiler Room set in 2016, which brought her impeccable selections to the attention of a new generation.

Conneely is firm about what separates the real DJs from the rest, with predictable views on the Sync button, for instance. She was one of the last drum & bass DJs to switch to CDs in the '00s, and still stands her ground against USBs. But while the likes of Andy C and Randall modelled drum & bass's potential for extreme technical virtuosity, Conneely's influence lies in her distinct ear for colour, harmonically rich blends and a predilection for avant-garde production. "I need something more emotional," she said. "And it's got to have a lot of beats."

I met her at the same mid-century semi-detached house she grew up in, which she's been renovating since her parents passed away a few years ago. Dotted around the house, between family trinkets, were signs of her previous life: a painting made for Olusanya by Goldie in the '90s, a bomber jacket from Metalheadz's collaboration with Stüssy; a Best Female DJ trophy from the National Drum and Bass Awards. Conneely showed me her practice setup upstairs—including the same set of turntables that Goldie bought her in 1991—before taking me to the back garden, where the bulk of her record collection is stacked in a draughty shed. (She once let a homeless man cotch inside over winter, much to the chagrin of her neighbours.)

As is often the case with social media-shy legends of the old school, Conneely is thoroughly affable and unguarded in person. With an unmistakably Irish way of spinning a yarn, her conversational tangents are often punctuated by bursts of rasping laughter. (Her dad was Irish.) Given that she lived through the accelerated heyday of rave, her recall of people, places and records from the decade borders on astonishing. After being introduced to the birds she's currently feeding in the garden, we sat at the dining table and pulled up a large ashtray. It was a long, looping exchange which flitted from her talent for piano accordion, to the dearth of proper sound systems in clubs and her lasting love for her best friend, Kemistry.

Your recent gigs show a lot of variety: an experimental festival in Turin, something small and cute in Lisbon, the Metalheadz 30 party and then New Year's Day at Manchester's White Hotel. Do you have a preferred setting?

I had that Boiler Room a few years ago where everybody was like, "Oh my god, is DJ Storm still alive?" After Boiler Room, those multi-genre nights started happening, and for the drum & bass DJ, if you get booked for those nights, for some reason, you're always the last DJ. I get to work a lot alongside Mala—it's always Mala and Storm! When I played at Latitude a few years ago, I was the first drum & bass DJ to play there, and again, I was closing. I don't see many other drum & bass DJs doing the diversity [of shows] that I do. Maybe I don't get as many as the boys, but I'm getting other exciting things, and I'm really enjoying that.

It's interesting to see you in different zones that perhaps some of your peers aren't.

There's different pressure in London with a full drum & bass lineup. You haven't got to play a certain way, but you've got to think about what's going to work. I get longer sets abroad, which is nice because I can develop my story more. I played a four-hour set at Schlachthaus Tübingen near Stuttgart on Saturday, which was lovely because then I can come in old school, do my 30 years of Metalheadz, then bring you back to new school, all in one set. And, of course, I love a club—I really love a dirty, small club. Kemi and I always said we want it all; big club, middle club, little club. I still think I don't get as much festival work as the guys, but that's OK. I'm happy.

I dug out an interview you did in Leipzig in 2000. You'd played there a year or two before with Kemi and you'd written your number and address on a flyer for this interviewer, as well as the names of the tunes you'd played. That feels at odds with the gatekeeping side of dubplate culture.

Well, remember, at that point we were running Metalheadz, so we were trying to sell the label, right? With Booga in Leipzig—we're still good friends, he's like a brother to me—or anywhere we went, we wanted to find the person we could send Metalheadz promos to. The beauty of Kemistry & Storm was that one of us was always available to talk. We were happy to share any information. That's why we wrote stuff down for people who wanted to go and buy the tunes. What's the point in keeping it hidden? At Metalheadz, when we first started, you'd see the trainspotters [at the front]. So what did Goldie do? He gave them pads and pens. With our artists—Alex Reece, Wax Doctor, J Majik, Dillinja, Digital—we wanted to let you know what the label was doing. Metalheadz became this fantastic family of selling.

I see you've got CDJs here, do you still have your turntables?

I've got four turntables upstairs; the original turntables that Goldie bought us, and then Kemi got a set when he... well, we didn't get paid! There was no money at Metalheadz, and we didn't care.

Even with all the vinyl records sold?

We were working from a one-bedroom flat. We didn't get involved in the money, we were doing promotion and looking after the guys. We became their Metalheadz mums, or Metalheadz aunties, as they'd want to call us. We were doing the promos and the writing. We didn't have a typewriter so we wrote them [by hand]. Kemi got a thesaurus because she said every release had to have a word relating to metal in it—but how many times can you say graphite this or that? We learned loads of metals over the years. We wanted it to all be very personal. I mean, when Goldie bought us a fax machine, we were like, "Oh my god, we're an office." Goldie, Kemi and I danced around the fax for ages. We were so silly! We laughed a lot. I think the artists felt embraced.

How old were you?

I was 26 when we started DJing. I think that's why we navigated things a bit better than others, because we'd both had careers. I'd been a radiographer. [Kemi was a make-up artist.] When Goldie said, "Can you run the label?" we just said yes. Kemi loved words, I loved figures. So I was like, "You can do the wordy things, I'll do logistics."

Me and Kemi always had older heads on our shoulders. Back in the day, you had to promote yourself [as a DJ] so we made promo tapes. Goldie would say, "You're not going to just have a tape. I'll give you a piece of artwork." He wrote Kemistry & Storm down the spine, then wrote us a CV. We thought it would be intriguing to a promoter who's like, "You what? A CV?" We didn't say we were girls. I would phone and say, "I'm looking after a couple of DJs called Kemistry & Storm. Can I send you a promo?" Goldie did the wildstyle writing so it looked really different. Then they'd call you and say, "Yeah, we can book them on this date." We'd turn up and they'd go, "Oh, you're women— and there's two of you!" As we got going, Goldie said, "Shall we put female crew now?" We thought, "Yeah, I think the cat's out of the bag."

What were the first records you learned to mix with?

Probably Reinforced [Records] stuff. I suppose [4hero's] "Mr. Kirk's Nightmare" had come out. We got our decks in October, '91. Randall came round and worked out which records we'd got, and gave us a little mixtape each, and we'd go off and spend time on the decks. When he came back the first time, this was the funniest thing, because what did we know about decks? Randall listened and went, "Yeah... maybe it would be easier if you took the rubber mats off the Technics?" The shame! We'd seen Jumping Jack Frost doing this thing with the spindle and when we came home that night we wondered why we didn't have that spindle on our decks. But what did we know? That was our most embarrassing moment with Randall.

So you already had a record collection of some kind?

We were buying records from the moment we started raving. Kemi had hers, which I obviously have now—her David Bowie, Eno, Bob Marley and whatever [else] she was into. I was a real vinyl collector. I've got my old singles here, I've got my 12-inches, my disco collection, my Soft Cell box set. Kemi had an Amstrad thing and we would play the vinyl on that. Nikki, a radiographer who moved in with us, got a MiniDisc for her birthday. When we came back from a club or Rage, we would bring the Amstrad next to Nikki's Minidisc, play the tunes, then rewind them.

That was when we knew we wanted to be DJs. How could we be with this music 24/7? We were obsessed with it. We'd come home, put the radio on, listen to Randall and Hype, Centreforce FM. Kemi was already raving when I got to London. She'd go to Shoom on a Wednesday night. She'd come back and be sitting on the end of her bed singing and laughing.

We'd discovered [Harringay record shop] Music Power was close by. We'd discovered Black Market [in Soho], Catch a Groove on Holloway Road. We were trying to find everywhere we could to get a different selection. We wanted what Grooverider and Fabio had played the night before at Rage, then we'd go to Coventry on a Friday, take Saturday off, then go to Solaris—this little club on Gray's Inn Road—on Sunday, which went until 1 AM.

What was in Coventry?

The Edge. That's where we discovered Bryan Gee. Every DJ brought something different, and me and Kemi were like sponges. "Bryan Gee just rolls basslines and little lyrics," we thought. "We haven't got that in our set yet." Then Doc Scott had this cold, dark vibe. We heard LTJ Bukem and all the music, and we thought, "OK, we've got to do that." Grooverider taught me how to select, Fabio taught me how to tell a story and Randall put the mix into perspective.

Did you have musical training of any kind?

When I was eight I learned to play the piano accordion. I was in an Irish marching band. I was already doing ballet, tap and Irish dancing as well. I was going on the road with my mum to the fleadhs, which is the Irish word for a competition, and you'd go down the country and get a little medal.

I went to grade five with music. The reason I know how to get chords so they're not quite out of tune, they're just there, working, is because there's a button on an accordion called an augment, which plays four notes at once. That helped me get that close chord mixing. Nothing's ever out of tune, but I slide very close to it.

You just spoke about hearing LTJ Bukem play "music." That's really interesting, that distinction between a track and a piece of "music."

I love a full-on musical tune. Hearing Bukem mixing chords together, we knew it was possible. We wanted an element of that in our set because we liked musical drum & bass. I did a talk a while ago where David Rodigan said, "When you were first in clubs, if you think about Rage, what was in there?" I answered: "They had two wardrobe speakers, like bass bins, at the front, then two at the back and sides. Because of the balcony, all the mids and tops were flying, which was perfect." They were proper systems. Then all of a sudden it became PAs—which is for voices, rather than music. Things started to change in clubland and sound restrictions came in. As time has gone, sound systems have been left behind.

There were all these tunes that people said you couldn't play, like Source Direct. If you wanted to get that out, you had to "mask it off"—play something really obvious, throw your Source Direct tune in, and at the other end give the people something they know. That's the art of DJing, for me—where you place a tune.

Do you like DJing with MCs?

A great MC will enhance your set, absolutely. MC Rage was our first MC on the road. Kemi met him outside the YMCA in Crouch End. He got us our first gig at Desire [in Tottenham]. We had some great times with him. At that time, with Innovation and all the raves, it was very MC-led. We got to play with Stevie Hyper D a few times but he wasn't that keen. He was honest about it, though. He said, "I don't quite get you two."

What did you discover about your style as you went along? What are you offering that the other DJs aren't?

I see shapes and colours in drum & bass. Maybe the dubbed-out track has a certain colour, and then maybe there's a vocal, and a lyric. We always weighted our set that way—you start off calm and then you build up. If I was first, I would do that calm bit up to the middle bridge, then Kemi would tank it at the end. But we never wavered from being experimental.

So you weren't doing one-on, one-off?

We never did that. We wanted to be the next Fabio & Grooverider. When they played together, they played separate sets. The next weekend, we'd change over, so that we both got to do the beginning to the bridge. You learn a lot about arrangement dividing a set between two people. The thing about us, which people never understood, is that we never played the same records. Kemi had her selection and I had mine. We knew each other so well that we could go to Music House and cut each other's dubplates.

What's a classic Storm record and a classic Kemistry record?

OK, let's go Dillinja. For Kemi, "Silver Blade" or "Unexplored Terrain." For me, "I Wanna Know." Dillinja would give us the slightly off-piste Dillinja. We got that reputation early: you could give us [something that] maybe you wouldn't give to Randall, but you'd give to Kemistry & Storm. We liked the more obscure Dillinja, but we played it all because he's brilliant. Same with Digital. With Digital, "Spacefunk" for Kemi and "Gateman" for me—I can't explain why.

"Your Sound" by J Majik [is also] interesting because that wasn't my tune, it was Kemi's. "Your Sound (Remix)" was mine. It's one of the most well executed Amen breaks. Him and Goldie are the only people that still play drum & bass down the phone to me for hours. And, I have to say, even though it's more of an obscure one, I have to give one to Digital's "Bailout." [These artists] are still doing something with the beat. It's not straight. That's the difference with DJ Storm: I don't play things that are flat.

You were quickly being sent vinyl to play out and on your radio show, which must have been useful.

We were being taken seriously. The beauty of having a radio show was that you could hear your track being played (again, we were thinking about selling music). It was a struggle in the beginning. The whole jungle thing, trying to put a nasty slant on it with drugs and all that—it really broke the word "jungle" at the end of the day. I suppose that's how drum & bass came about, but I always say I'm a junglist.

I'm not into the new sound. It's viable and there's nothing wrong with it, but I choose not to play it because I can't play what doesn't move me. I need something more emotional. It's got to have a lot of beats. I love putting beats on beats, and beats in beats. And I cut. Who cuts?! You used to have a cut button, now that's gone on the Pioneer. I'm a disc jockey. You're all level mixers. You can't call yourself DJs! I'm a disc jockey who uses the crossfader. Kemi and I were scared to death when we started. All we could do was mix—we didn't think about taking the bass out, you just mix. It was heavy. People would say to me, "How are you so heavy?" And I'd say, "I don't touch the bass."

You don't take any bass out?!

To me, a tune has mid-range, tops and bass. The other has mid-range, tops and bass. How do they sound together? Not only do the chords have to be in tune, the bass has to be in tune.

I suppose if you're thinking about keys and chords then you're not going to need to cut out as many elements anyway, because they should go well together.

It's like with cue points. I don't need to have a cue point. I just go to the beat and come back. I find clues. We learned that from vinyl too. There's a beginning, middle and end. I'm not cutting out the beginning or the second break by looping. What do you need to loop for? Get on with it, be a DJ! I'm militant about this kind of thing. Sync button? Don't even go there. Anyone using the Sync button has no right to earn money calling themselves a DJ. That's the bottom line for me. If you don't like it, tough. I never let my skill down. You know what you're gonna get with DJ Storm.

When Kemi died, did you start playing her records?

I played at Bar Rumba for V Recordings—the first show after she passed away—and I had to play her set, which was really odd. It was really scary. Everybody was behind me on the decks and supporting me. Then I said to Bryan [Gee], "I can't do this." He gave me a big talk and told me about Nine Night, which is what they do in Jamaica to celebrate someone who's died. And he said, "Jayne, you gotta do it, you can do it."

I don't think they were expecting me to play her records, and I didn't dare mix up that set she had, so I did me and then her. It's interesting now because I'm finally putting Storm and Kemistry tunes together, especially when I'm doing old-school sets. But people that know me know that there's a section in there for Kemi.

Are Kemi's records now fully mixed into yours?

I've got some of our Metalheadz mixes [blends]. I've got this incredible mix we discovered years ago, when she mixed "Headz Roll" by Loxy & Ink with "Up All Night" by John B. She said, "I wonder if I could make this go over." So we worked it out, bar by bar. The first time I picked up "Spacefunk" I thought, "God, how did she mix this?" Then I realised it's on the off-beat, which Digital does a lot. Some people don't want to play his stuff because they find it too hard to mix. We were never like that—if we loved a tune, we worked it out.

I've got lots of old-school tapes of us so I go back to those. Plus I've got the book [in which Storm logged all their records] so I can see which era I'm in. I started the book in '91 and it goes up to '97. If people say "I want a '94 set," I can go to the book and see what came out.

You mentioned playing longer sets in Europe, but at big drum & bass raves, there's a tendency for DJs to only get an hour or so each.

You have to learn how to do exactly what I do in a longer set in an hour's set. If I've got an hour and a half, I might play four or five carefully placed pieces of music. In an hour, I might only be able to get two or three.

What's the longest set you've ever played?

In Auckland, New Zealand, I played for just under seven hours. We were all trying to break a record. Doc Scott did five and a half hours, so I did the whole night! I was playing vinyl then. It's incredible how often people go, "Jayne, when you go to USBs you'll have your whole catalogue." And I say, "Do you know how long I can play on CDs? I reckon it's eight hours." Out of four CD cases. They're stacked, and I can see them all—I'm not wasting time twiddling knobs, not looking at the crowd. I'm with you all the time. I find USBs scary because it's very un-physical, and I'm a physical DJ.

When did you first get your head around CDJs?

Reluctantly. Nicky Blackmarket and I were two of the last DJs playing vinyl. I was in Switzerland, at the Street Parade, and Klute was playing beforehand. My records had gotten lost [and] all I had was my bag of dubplates, so I had to play off CDs because I needed fillers. Klute said, "Don't worry, here are my CDs, you probably know some of the tunes. I'll give you some advice: treat those CDJs with as much disrespect as you treat those Technics—push them, pull them, don't be afraid of them." So I said, "Well, I'm going to come down and watch you."

Do you still get nervous?

Every time.

What's your pre-game ritual?

I get my DJ Storm outfit on. Then I'll come into the club, and depending on how far the club is from the car I'll put my DJ shoes on. They're high. I always mix in heels. When Kemi and I first started DJing, all our trainers were done and we didn't have money to buy anything, so we went in our shoes. Then we became famous for mixing in heels, so we made a rod for our backs. But I love mixing in heels. You've got to find a good pair; spend a little more on comfortable shoes.

I always have a wedge for a festival. They're a bit knackered at the back, with a bit of each festival on them. The last thing I do before going on is put lip gloss on. I think I give off a "don't come near me" vibe for a few minutes. If I'm really nervous, I pace to calm down.

By the '00s, drum & bass was changing and evolving. Of course, you were now playing sets solo too. What was that era like?

After Kemi I was quite isolated for a while. I kept my girls around me, and they saved me. They took care of me. I needed handling. I don't think you realise how much shock you're in until you look back.

That gig you described before, for the DJ-Kicks release—it's wild that you went through with that tour after losing Kemi.

Tokyo was incredible. Liquid Room is incredible. Cleveland [Watkiss] had come with me, which was nice because he was the Metalheadz MC. It was good for me to travel with someone. But [the promoter] said, "We need to do a minute's silence before you play." I said, "I'm not sure about that, in a drum & bass event?" They told me it was a Japanese thing. About 20 seconds in, I saw Cleveland's body just going. The whole crowd was crying.

Afterwards, Cleveland and I thought, "You know what, that was really cathartic and healing." It was nice for me to understand that people miss her. They felt something from her because Kemi was a very different individual. She was golden. There was some aura about her, this wise old head on her shoulders. I've got two whole A4 binders of faxes that people around the world sent me. People like Kruder & Dorfmeister sent me condolences. Kruder sent me this lovely fax that said, "My favourite moment was when you and Kemi allowed me to see you ironing your clothes on the bed, and I said to you, 'do you really need to do that?' and Kemi said, 'Kemistry & Storm don't go out creased.'" It was so cute he remembered that.

Shortly after that time, what did you make of drum & bass's evolution?

You had the [Ed Rush & Optical] Wormhole thing going on, and then Pendulum, which was very different—way too aggressive for me.

Were you ever interested in dubstep?

I met Skream a few times on the road. I had to literally get him on a train one day; he was so drunk, bless him. I remember leaving him with the person from Deutsche Bahn going, "Get this guy on the next train, yeah?" So I suppose I'd heard Skream more than anything else. Those artists came out of drum & bass—it influenced a new [style of] UK music, which is fantastic. But for me, with dubstep, ten minutes and I'm done. It doesn't do enough for me, whereas drum & bass does a lot in a short time.

What about the younger generation of drum & bass producers and DJs?

I love some productions by Tim Reaper, Sully, Coco Bryce. They're making some really great tunes, and I think [London label and party] Rupture encompasses that too. I'm happy to have been playing for them since the beginning. I'd met [Rupture cofounder] Mantra when I used to do Feline at Herbal. Mantra said, "You know that was only my second gig? I was so shocked you booked me." And I said, "Well, [DJ] Flight recommended Tasha, Tasha recommended you, and you came with Panka. You'd given me your mix CDs and they were great, so I didn't even worry, because you're women. I didn't worry you were going to turn up on time, and I was absolutely right."

Feline worked like a dream. Herbal gave me upstairs on a Wednesday and I decided not to charge the women. I charged [guys] a fiver, and they said, "Storm, it's not really fair." Then two girls would go past and the guys would ask, "How many women are up there?" I'd say, "It's all women." They'd be like, "Alright then." If the girls come, the guys will follow.

Have you ever come close to quitting?

No, I love it too much. It has a different meaning for me, being in the mix, because that's the closest I feel to Kemi. She's either just been on, or she's going on. It's a beautiful thing, it gives me so much pleasure. Someone asked us years ago, "Do you play for yourselves?" Kemi said, "Yes." They went, "Oh, that's a bit selfish." And she responded, "Yeah, from the perspective of a raver. I'm on the dance floor. What do I want to hear next?" That's how I've always put my sets together. What do I want to hear next? Because I'm a raver. It's like Dillinja always said, "I know how to make people dance."