Dave Ralph’s Stuff

Dave Ralph leads a charmed life: he lives in quaint New Hampshire with his wife and son, yet he also jets into the city each night to oversee Royale, the Tremont Street nightclub in the old Roxy space. Before that, he was music director at Avalon and an internationally acclaimed DJ. At heart, though, the transplanted Liverpudlian is a simple guy who loves Breaking Bad and treasures his British football jerseys. We caught up with him after hours for a chat.

So football jerseys aren't exactly nocturnal garb. Yet they're your most prized items of clothing. How come? They're a link to my homeland. I grew up in Liverpool. Football - soccer - is part and parcel of my culture. When I moved to America, it was really difficult to recapture that part of my life. The actual jersey is a talisman, a piece of home that I just can't let go. I wear them, and my son wears them too.

Why did you come to America? I moved to America in 1998. I'd been coming here since 1984, and I fell in love with it when I took a vacation here. I went to the West Coast, and I was blown away. I always thought I wanted to live here. I used to be a DJ all over the world; when I stepped up to an international level, America was on the table, and I took the opportunity. It came to the point where I was literally playing in London on a Saturday night and would take the first flight out on a Sunday morning to do gigs here. That really started to wear on me, so I made a decision to move here. I came with a suitcase full of clothing. I'm a product of the American dream. I moved to Miami and really worked very hard. Met my wife, got married, and moved to New England.

Miami's a lot different than Boston - to put it mildly. Why did you choose here? I was tired, and I stopped DJing. My wife is from New Hampshire. My only criterion was that the airport needed to be good, so I could travel. I also loved the guys at Avalon. I was thinking about spending more time at home. Miami is not a great place to raise a family.

So you decided to . . . open a nightclub? Well, two years ago I took over a space that used to be the Roxy. I renovated it and, along with the help of my very good friend Brig Dauber, made it into this superclub, Royale. We took a run-down, dilapidated venue that nobody cared about and built it into the fabulous thing it is now.

What sets the club apart from the pack? The beauty of Royale is that it's not a new space. It's an old theater, built in 1920, and so it has an aura about it. It has its own unique personality that can only come with an older venue. It's quite a nice size, with a beautiful balcony, and we're able to do things there nobody else can. Even if it's a club show, we have aerialists and entertainers and things you don't see in many other places. It's all about the party here: people walk in, and anything could happen. You could see a 10-foot crocodile walk across the room. It's just fun.

What's next for Royale? We're about to bring Royale to Providence. Over the past year, we've brought in a lot of international talents, like [DJ] Tiësto. We wanted to establish ourselves as a brand. That market doesn't get a chance to see some of these bright young stars. We're going to kick that off probably in November. If that's a success, who knows?

When you're not enjoying the nightlife, where might we find you? This sounds so stupid: I love watching TV, and I love walking. My wife, my son, my dog, and I will walk trails and do stuff like that. And my favorite TV show, without a shadow of a doubt, is Breaking Bad. For a network channel to produce a show like that - the depth of the writing and the acting is phenomenal.

If you had to define the Boston club scene in a few words, as compared with Miami, what would you say? We burn brightly, very shortly, then go to bed.