The Bonkers name was based on the bar with the same name at
Butlins Minehead (which has since changed to an Irish Bar).
DJ Hixxy said in an interview with Vice “React wanted to sign '
Toytown', so we went up to London to meet them. I said, 'Listen, forget ‘Toytown’. You can have that, no problem. But I’ve got a bigger idea.' It totally changed the meeting. We sat and discussed [the idea for the happy hardcore compilation albums] 'Bonkers' for hours. The name came from a bar in Minehead Butlin’s that we’d played with Ramos and Supreme. I just loved the name.” Frequent contributors to the Bonkers collection include
DJ Hixxy,
DJ Dougal,
DJ Sharkey,
Neophyte and
Scott Brown. Bonkers has also been licensed for local release in Australia via Central Station Records. The Japanese edition of Bonkers vol. 1 went on sale on 26 October 2005 with a full TV advert in Japanese. "Get Over the Records" only released Bonkers 1-7 in the Japanese market and has since 2007 stopped releasing albums altogether. In June 2008,
Hardcore online news site 'happyhardcore.com' announced that British dance label
All Around the World (AATW) had purchased the rights to Bonkers starting from what would have been volume 18, set to be released in 2009. There had been speculation about a label change for some time, but AATW finally confirmed it. The
UK Hardcore genre, which has seen a recent unprecedented rise in popularity, has already helped AATW in securing number one chart positions with its
Clubland Xtreme Hardcore releases. The label also expressed their desire to expand the Bonkers brand, suggesting the use of
Universal Music TV as their distributor for future releases, as they do for their successful
Clubland compilations.
All Around the World relaunched the Bonkers series on 11 May 2009 under the title
Bonkers: The Original Hardcore, which was mixed by Hixxy, Sharkey and Chris Unknown. In 2017, Scottish rave promoters Twisted Events and Intenzifi revived the name with annual Bonkers events in Scotland (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 missed due to Government action regarding Covid-19, 2021 and 2022). In 2021, Scottish Internet Radio Station Beat 106 created the Bonkers Beats radio series alongside Hixxy,
Sharkey, Dougal and Scott Brown. The show features previous Bonkers contributors. In 2022, Bonkers started touring events up and down the United Kingdom. September 2023 - Bonkers published a Mission Statement regarding is to relaunch in October as two record labels by
Sharkey and Al Twisted. The main "Bonkers" which would have a multi-genre approach with all forms of Hard Rave and "Bonkers Legacy" celebrating the past. ==Compilation Series overview==