Most nights, you’ll find Warren Peaty working hard as a chef at Tony's Cafe in the Fruit & Vegetable Market. By day though, the 55-year-old DJ swaps the bacon rolls for rolling beats and his latest track got him right to the top of the iTunes chart.

The track called My Loving is a collaboration with Birmingham based DJ/Producer Pig Snatchers.

Warren was a DJ when he was younger, but life took over and he let it lapse for 20 years or so. “Out of the blue, my brother-in-law asked, ‘do you want to play at my party?’ I told him all my vinyl had gone, but he just told me to get the tracks I wanted, put them on a stick and that was that. I got the bug again.

“That was just after COVID. I’ve talked to so many people with the same sort of story as me. They had left the music and then during the pandemic, they all started listening to the radio stations and stuff.”

Not many of them can claim to be chart-toppers though, so how did that come about?

“Steve Wildcroft, also known as Pig Snatchers, is a good friend and has been quite successful in what he does,” Warren said. “I DJ’d with him about three years ago and then we finally got in the studio.” The duo has been back in the studio again since this interview, so expect some more banging tunes to hit the charts soon.

Loads of radio plays and presenting, gigs and even boat party sets on the Thames had already begun to happen before the success of My Loving. “When I got back into it, I thought no one knows who I am,” said Warren, who lives in Watford.  “But I put the big poster up for the boat party here and we sold loads of tickets. We’ve had two sell-out boat parties, with six DJs - three upstairs, three downstairs - and they were fantastic. I got to play at Ministry of Sound, XOYO, Egg. And I've done another event, called Shindig. There’s a lot more already booked in.

“Anyone who's DJ-ing, except for the big boys, we've all got jobs, and that's it. It's crazy. But like anything you do, the more you put into it, the more you get out and you've got to be passionate about it. Whatever I've done, I've always given it a hundred per cent.

“We work really hard here in the Market, and we don't get a social life in the week. So, when we do go out, we proper go out! Work hard, play hard. Definitely.”

A bleary-eyed Warren was on his way home from a night in the cafe when he found out he was trending and top of the iTunes chart. “You can just imagine it,” he told us. “I drove everyone mad in the cafe, of course – it was it on a loop here for a couple of weeks while we were cleaning up! Everyone who comes in, even if they don't like music, I'm telling them.”

DJ/MC Warren and Pig Snatchers have definitely made waves, with celeb DJs like David Penn, Jon Pleased Wimmin, Majestic and Gok Wan playing My Loving on air and in Ibiza. “Everyone keeps saying, ‘when are you going to get the money?’ But I'm not interested in that, I'm just making a track,” Warren laughs.

Understandably, he gets a real buzz from being able to include his own music in his own DJ sets and radio shows too. “When you play your own track, it's just really good. I might be 55, but I still feel like I'm only 30. The thing is with music; it's not like you're an athlete and you've got that tiny little window. You can do it till you die. We've got a nice little crowd of people who go out and I'm definitely not the oldest.

“I don't know how long it's going to last, but I'm enjoying it. Wait till the next track comes out. I'm going to drive everyone even crazier!”

You can listen to Warren’s music in various places – just type his name and My Loving into your search engine and enjoy!