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Mint: the small club in northern England with a whole lot of history. Reborn in 2008 under the new ownership of music lover turned club impresario Shane Graham, the intimate Leeds hotspot underwent a serious facelift last summer to the tune of £500,000, and his in-house night System is now integral to operations.

A recent guest at System was the Cologne-based imprint Kompakt, starring Michael Mayer, Ada and Tobias Thomas. Together they rocked out housed-up, grungy techno vibes, skilfully accompanied by VJ Okinawa 69. Late into the early hours, between blasts from the ice cannons and smoke machine, heard like a siren to the post-tourist population, SuperMayer dropped 'U Can Dance' by DJ Hell feat. Bryan Ferry. And towards the end of the night he even popped 'Papa Was a Rollin Stone'. It was yet another Mint moment...

The Mint Club: the name itself speaks volumes, and if walls had ears and a mouth you might wonder what kind of stories they would tell about its momentous moments in dance. Purchased in 1997 by entrepreneur Valerie Rose, who has worked in and around clubs her whole life, the venue then known as Fiddlers was reformed in the image of The Mint Club: a factory for memories and, for many years, the home for Dave Beer's Back to Basics party, which drew the world's best spinners to the city.

'There have been so many memories it's hard to pick out just a few,' says former owner Val, who is now manager at the club. 'I do remember some special nights with Basics, like when we had Fatboy Slim, when the queue to get in was about 100 metres long when we were already full. Also there was Dave Beer's pyjama party with Carl Cox, and the famous US DJs such as Erick Morillo and Little Louie Vega. In the early days we had wind out canopies in the chill out area that used to fill up with water when it rained, and empty about 30 gallons of water over everyone, every 30 minutes or so. I also remember the first time we had a drum & bass night, and the bass in the sound system was so powerful then that it felt like the building was being shaken apart.'

                 Click on the image above and drag to see a panoramic view of the Mint Club Now the mirror ball covered ceiling is long gone and the only vintage Mint designs that remain are those seats. Indeed, during the 2008 refurbishment, Shane's team totally transformed the beloved sweatbox into something slicker, featuring novel LED lighting panels so that dancers can bathe in a sea of changing colours. They also opened up the dancefloor and moved the DJ booth to a central location that's flanked by dramatic-looking Funktion-One speakers. Clubbers can get lost in the music and, fundamentally, the club retains an underground focus through key events like System, Asylum and Louche. 

To find out more about their state of play in 2009, we fired off a few questions to unassuming Mint owner and System founder Shane. He first got hooked on electronic music back in the late 80s, at the start of the acid boom. Then, from the early 90s, he attended raves nearly every Saturday at The Orbit in Morley, until he left England for foreign shores, including Thailand, around 1996. He later returned to the north and in 2005 started putting on parties in a local pub. This was to be the beginning of the System concept and his journey to Mint. He didn't share much history with the club, and yet he was sure it was here that his and System's future lay...

How did you get into owning/running clubs, did that start in Thailand?
'Yes, we built our own club in Thailand (Koh Samui) in the jungle with a sea and sunrise view, like a semi-open air club. We had some great parties there with some great DJs, Sven Väth, Colin Dale and lots more from different parts of the world, which was brilliant.'

What's your history with Mint?
'I'd never actually been to the club before because I lived abroad and had only been back a while, but I'd heard great things about it. I bought it just after NYE and kept it going through the year with some events myself, and some events that other promoters did. Then I shut it down in July and did the full refurb and reopened in September (2008) with our in-house event System with Len Faki, Redshape and Jamie Anderson. It was a great party.'

And how was System born?
'The idea for System was born in our local pub on our estate. A few friends asked me to do a party on Boxing Day, so I did. It was a free party and I rang Colin Dale and asked if he fancied it, he said "yes" and he came with Envoy and it built from there. Before we knew it we were getting 250-300 people and a great crowd who were really into it. We had the likes of Jamie Anderson, Dave Angel, Slam, Funk D'Void, Vince Watson, Billy Nasty and many more. Everyone loved it, especially Jamie, he never missed one, he even cancelled America one time.'
 

So you basically bought Mint to house System?
'Yeah, sadly after some time they had to stop, because of police issues and stuff, but we had built a good crowd and we decided that we wanted to carry it on. So I started looking for a club in Leeds where they wouldn't get stopped again and then we found Mint. It just felt perfect for System, not too big and with a good atmosphere.'

Who else is involved in the running of the club?
'I decided it would be best to keep Val on as she knew the club inside out and she is a great manager. Then there is Keith who helps me run all System events, plus he deals with all the other promoters as well, then there is all the bar staff who do a great job.'

Your friendship with Sven Väth goes way back to The Orbit days, is that how you guys met?
'Yes, I used to watch Sven at The Orbit in my younger days. I knew him a bit but when he came to Thailand we became good friends. He invited me to many parties all over Europe and it went from there.'

And you've secured residencies from both Cocoon and Kompakt...
'Yes, Sven and Talida [Wegener] gave me exclusive Cocoon events and they have helped me a lot with the club. It gave me a good platform for Leeds and, to be honest, made people take notice of System a lot quicker as it's a difficult city to do events in, with lots of competition and some good nights. I was given Kompakt through my friend [Patrick] Peiki in Köln.

He does great festivals called PollerWiesen and took me to the head office and introduced me. This also gave me exclusive Kompakt nights in Leeds, which helped me a lot. They are all really good people over there.'

What are your best Mint memories from the last couple of years?
'There are too many really: Loco Dice, System's 1st Birthday, Luciano at the Cocoon In The Park after-party, Cocoon with Reboot and Toni Rios was great, and then there was the System/Mint reopening with Len Faki and Jamie Anderson, and Kompakt with Michael Mayer... so many... some great nights really.'

Can you tell us what else Mint has got lined up for the rest of 2009?
'Well, Mint has some great nights to come, Cocoon events, Kompakt events, some real big names on the way for System and for other nights as well. We are looking forward to the next Cocoon In The Park, which we do together with Sven and his team. The club is getting good reports in Europe and in England so we are all happy about that. It makes all the hard work worthwhile.'