Sometimes the best ideas aren’t born from a perfectly mapped-out plan. They start with something you wish existed, whatever you already have to hand and somebody giving you the push to actually get on with it. For April Baillie, that happened to involve a bright red Vauxhall Corsa, some DDJ-400s and a mate who refused to let her cancel. I first came across Carpool Spinnas through Instagram and immediately loved it. DJs mixing in the passenger seat while April drives, chats and occasionally forgets about green traffic lights – it’s funny, chaotic and completely its own thing. More importantly, underneath all of that is a platform genuinely trying to make the dance music scene a little more open.
April grew up in a happy, music-filled household in Milton Keynes, a place she points out has more than 130 roundabouts despite her being “insanely car sick”. Her two older brothers helped shape an early taste that jumped between genres. Tom would blast techno in the shower before going to Oceana – which a young April assumed was a country he disappeared to every weekend – while Harrison introduced her to rock, taking her to bands like Cleopatrik and Milkteeth and inspiring her to learn drums and guitar.
Her dad had been a DJ and loved old-school UKG and Jungle, while her mum had grown up on pop-punk. Then there were Ministry of Sound CDs and, admittedly, Ed Sheeran’s + on repeat. Rather than pulling April towards one particular sound, that mixture taught her to find something she loved in all of them.
“I think being surrounded by four different styles of music made me appreciate and find a love of something in each of them,” she says.
Dance music eventually won out. April had wanted to learn to DJ for years, watching people behind the decks at events and festivals but continually putting off doing it herself. She admits procrastination is something she struggles with, and looking back, thinks there was probably some fear of failing underneath it too.
Then she watched Girls Don’t Sync’s MIXMAG set.
“When I tell you I had never felt so inspired,” she says. April was watching it at pre-drinks and, while everyone else was ready to leave, she kept stalling because she wanted to see more. “Seeing a group of four women behind the decks playing speed garage edits and tracks was actually insane to me.”
Within a week, she had bought DDJ-400s and started learning.
Joining USB, her university DJ society in Bournemouth, gave her a community to learn alongside and kept that momentum going. “Surrounding yourself with other DJs or people into dance music is the best thing you can do when learning to DJ,” she says. “There is just constant support and inspiration. People really do need people.”
April eventually found her home in Speed Garage and Hard House, gravitating towards euphoric sounds, vocals, melodies and the occasional instantly recognisable edit alongside more underground selections. “I want people to feel emotional on the dancefloor – in a good way – and feel the urge to dance.”
But being part of that university scene also made her notice who wasn’t getting the same opportunities.
Trying to establish herself locally, April kept seeing the same names appearing across line-ups. She understood why people built events around themselves and their friends, but from the outside, she couldn’t see a route in. She was also frustrated by the lack of women, queer and BIPOC artists being represented.
“I wanted to create something that generated opportunity for everyone, not just your mates,” she says.
Initially, that something was going to be an events collective called Highly Legal. April wanted guest mixes to help showcase the first event, but she didn’t have a radio studio or expensive filming set-up. What she did have was that bright red Corsa she had just bought with her student loan.
So she messaged her friend Charley – YESCHAZ – and asked if he fancied DJing in it.
When filming day arrived, April almost backed out. “My procrastination kicked in and, to be honest, I just wanted to cancel it,” she remembers. Charley effectively told her it was now or never, so she grabbed her laptop, decks and phone and they went for it.
The result was chaotic. Her phone repeatedly fell into the footwell. The decks and laptop slid around the car. Charley, at well over six foot, barely fitted alongside the equipment.
They had a brilliant time.
“At the end of it I just thought, this is what I want to do.”
Highly Legal disappeared, the Instagram handle became Carpool Spinnas and April started convincing more DJ friends to climb into her car.
She expected the first episodes to reach USB society and perhaps her mum and dad. Instead, messages started arriving almost immediately. DJs wanted to get involved, conversations were forming around the videos and within months she was filming with names including Scruz and Tommy Villiers.
There’s something refreshing about the fact that April doesn’t pretend those beginnings were polished. “Looking back now at the first ten episodes, the quality is so bad,” she laughs. “I had no experience in cameras, filming, editing or interviewing – the only thing I knew how to do was drive.”
That willingness to start before everything was perfect is probably part of why Carpool Spinnas works.
The format itself is deliberately low-pressure. A DJ might be blasting a favourite tune while April waits at traffic lights, then suddenly find themselves being asked whether they would rather hold their breath forever or never have to blink. Mixing mistakes are laughed off and blamed on heavy braking. Conversations are unscripted, and April admits she regularly becomes so engrossed that she misses green lights.
But behind the humour is something more considered.
“With Spinnas, it’s more about who you are as a DJ, how you got to where you are or your goals as an artist,” she explains.
That has created room for conversations about sobriety and the pressure around drugs and alcohol in nightlife, representation of marginalised communities and the challenges facing grassroots venues and independent promoters. The car might be an unconventional place to have them, but perhaps that informality is exactly why people open up.
“Amongst the humour and lightheartedness of Spinnas, there are those important and deep conversations,” April says. “I think that is so important to make the scene a better and safer place for artists, promoters and ravers.”
Running it independently comes with its own challenges. April doesn’t make money from the format, and with only enough capacity to film around four artists each month, demand has grown beyond what she can realistically accommodate. She tries to keep opportunities fair, particularly because the original reason for creating the platform still matters.
“It’s something I do out of a love of dance music and the scene,” she says. “I have made so many friends through it.”
Carpool Spinnas has since worked with Ministry of Sound and Atlantic Records, but April is refreshingly uninterested in measuring its future purely by increasingly famous passengers. An emerging underground DJ excites her just as much as an artist backed by a major label.
“I always want Spinnas to stay true to its roots of providing opportunity for underrepresented communities and artists who are just starting out.”
There are collaborations she wants to explore, merch she would love to make properly rather than rush, and Carpool Spinnas live events beginning to appear around the UK. But whatever shape it grows into, keeping that sense of openness seems non-negotiable.
It makes her final advice particularly fitting. This whole thing exists because April had an idea, nearly cancelled the first attempt and did it anyway.
“Take the leap and create it, even if it’s hard and scary,” she says. “The fear of what it could have been when you’re looking back will be far worse than the fear of starting something.”
Carpool Spinnas could easily have remained an idea for an event promo that never happened. Instead, April put some decks in a Corsa, balanced a phone somewhere vaguely useful and started. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t supposed to become this. Maybe that’s exactly the point.
“You have had that idea for a reason,” she says. “Bring it into the world… PLEASE!”
Follow April: https://www.instagram.com/rillamp3
For all CARPOOL SPINNAS links: https://linktr.ee/carpoolspinnas
