Godskitchen, Reloaded: Fergie Returns to the Room That Made Him

The last time Decoded sat down properly with Fergie aka Robert Ferguson, Daz Pearson was holding the dictaphone, the venue conversation revolved around Legends in the Park, and the phrase “global pandemic” was still something only epidemiologists used in sentences. That was 2019. Seven years is a long time in any industry, and in dance music it is closer to a geological era. Residencies have folded and reopened, formats have risen and quietly died, an entire generation of DJs has emerged who learned their craft on platforms that did not exist when we last had Fergie on the line. He, on the other hand, has carried on doing what he has done since he could barely walk, with the same Larne grin and the same uncompromising read of a room.

For the uninitiated, and there cannot be many of you, Fergie remains one of the most distinctive voices in British and Irish dance music. He cut his teeth under the wing of Tony De Vit after a chance meeting at fifteen, built his reputation through long residencies at Godskitchen, Trade, Space Ibiza, and latterly Hakkasan Las Vegas, and spent a defining run on BBC Radio 1 as an early advocate for the techno wave that was reshaping the underground at the time. His own catalogue speaks for itself, from “Anon” and the remix of Slam’s “Positive Education” through to a debut album, Dynamite and Lazerbeams, released on his own Excentric Muzik imprint and voted album of the year at the Dance Music Awards.

The years since our last conversation have hardly been quiet. “Alpha Centauri” has cleared a million and a half streams, his remix of Tony De Vit’s “The Dawn” has joined the small canon of tributes that actually do the original justice, and a run of releases including “Time to Burn”, “Muzik”, and “Here Comes That Sound” has put him back in the Beatport top ten on each occasion. Through it all he has continued to base himself in Las Vegas, a city that suits his work ethic if not always his accent, and he has used the distance from the European circuit to think rather more carefully than most about where the scene is actually heading.

The thinking has produced something tangible. On the Session, his weekly vinyl podcast, began in 2023 and has built a quietly devoted audience for what is essentially an hour of Fergie and his records, no production gloss and no algorithmic favours. That, in turn, gave rise to Vinyl Sessions, his open-to-close vinyl-only event concept, which sold out its inaugural Belfast date in twenty one hours and prompted a second show at a two thousand capacity venue that went the same way. The Instagram clips that started the whole thing are still clearing a million monthly views, which is not a number you can wave away as nostalgia.

And then there is Birmingham. Godskitchen, the residency that did more than any other to shape Fergie’s early trajectory, is back at the forefront of the conversation, and Fergie is back on the bill at the brand’s forthcoming hometown show. Few DJs get to return to the room that made them with their craft intact and their relevance unargued. Fergie is one of them. We caught up with him ahead of the Birmingham date to talk Vegas, vinyl, Tony, AI, and what the last seven years have actually taught him.

It has been almost seven years since we sat down for the “Legends in the Park” piece… Looking back at that version of Fergie in 2019, what has genuinely shifted for you, and what has remained non-negotiable?

Seven years. Christ on a bike. Gone like that. 2019 me was comfortable. Big studio, the Vegas residency, nice house. It looked great from the outside. But honestly comfort makes me a nightmare. I get bored and restless and I start doing stupid shit.

Then 2020 came and sorted that out for me pretty sharpish. Sold the lot. House, studio, everything in it. Me and My wife Ellie living in a caravan while the whole world was going mental. And I know this sounds mad but it was brilliant, I absolutely LOVED IT. Best thing that happened to me in years. When you’ve got nothing left you find out pretty quickly what you actually care about. And for me that was just the music. Not the stuff around it. Not the big studio or the residency cheque. Just the actual music and what it does to people in a room. Whether there’s thirty or three thousand, that connection is everything.

So what’s different now? I just don’t do things I don’t want to do anymore. Simple as that. If a gig doesn’t get me excited I’m not going to take that booking. I’ve learned that I don’t need to be chasing every gig… I just really enjoy the ones I do take and as you have seen that attitude has got me playing 5 or 6 hour sets most of the time so yeah… Being crazy busy for the sake of it? NA, fuck that bollocks.

What hasn’t changed? That feeling when a room goes full pelt. When you and the crowd are both in it together and something magic happens. I still get that. I still live for it. That’ll never change. Everything else is just noise.

Vegas is a peculiar city to call home… What does a normal Saturday actually look like out there? Has the city ever properly felt like home?

People hear Vegas and they think casinos and madness 24 hours a day. It’s not like that, it’s 23 hours a day :-) joking, I’m not at that craic all the time. When you actually live here, off the Strip it’s just a normal city. Suburbs, people cutting their grass, plenty of them smoking it too :-) kids in the street. Pretty normal really.

My Saturday. Right. Coffee first, always. I’ve become a complete nightmare about coffee. Ellie thinks it’s hilarious. I get up at 6am or whatever and the first thing I do after coffee is get the decks on, pick a record I want to play for my IG crew… I’ll do that. Then I’ll be digging. Records, online, whatever. That never stops. If I’m playing that night I’ll go quiet for a few hours. Just listening. Getting my head right. If I’m not playing we’ll find somewhere good to eat and just switch off, which generally ends up being at home. Ellie loves to cook and we end up just saying fuck it, let’s just eat here, stay on with the pups and chill. Ellie has built a beautiful cottage for us, very organic, lots of plants and it’s very calming, so yeah we really do end up staying home most of the time.

Has it felt like home? Yeah it has actually. But Larne never leaves you. It’s in how I talk, how I think, how I connect with people. Vegas is where I live. Larne is who I am. There’s a difference. It took me a while to stop worrying about that and just let both things be true, but as they say you can’t take the man out of Larne and all… Best wee town in all the land and my wee school mates are still my wee mates, we chat regularly and they always get me pissed when I go home so that’s nice, kind of hahaha. At the time it was anyway.

Which structural shifts in how Americans consume dance music have stood out to you most? And where do you think the underground genuinely sits in the US today?

When I got to Vegas properly the EDM thing was absolutely mental. Money everywhere. Production budgets, people chucking money at you etc. I wasn’t against that to be honest, it was nice hahaha… I’ve had worse things chucked at me that’s for sure.

What’s happened since I got here is dead interesting though. America has found its feet with the real stuff. The underground has got back on the radar again. Cities like New York, Detroit obviously, Chicago, LA, Denver, Miami, they’ve always had it, but now there’s genuine appetite for it in places that weren’t really on the map before.

The thing that stands out most is the American DJ. There’s a whole generation now who’ve done the actual homework. Gone and dug for records. Learn history. Served some kind of time. That wasn’t as common when I arrived. That’s the most encouraging thing I’ve seen over here. The underground in the US right now is in a good place. Better than it’s been since I got here.

Growing up in Northern Ireland in the eighties and early nineties, the Troubles were the weather everyone lived under… How much did that environment shape your approach to music?

It shaped everything. I really believe that.

My first real experience of it was the Hellraiser rave. Ulster Hall. 1993. I was 13 years old. Me and my brother, a couple of thousand people, Carl Cox, Pablo Gargano, some acid, some whizz and for good measure a bomb scare. Ha. That was my introduction to unity. Both sides of the community in that room together having the time of their lives. And nobody was thinking about anything except the music. That night changed something in me permanently.

When you’re a kid growing up with all that as the background. Checkpoints, tension, whole communities not talking to each other. And then you walk into Lush at Kelly’s in Portrush on a Saturday night. Or The Arena in Armagh. The Network Club in Belfast. Shine. People from both sides with their hands in the air. Nobody gives a shit about anything except what’s coming out of the speakers. That’s not nothing. That’s massive. I saw it happen from a very very young age. I felt it. And then later when I got to Trade in London, which didn’t even get going until four in the morning, and you’d see the exact same thing happening in a different city, different people, same feeling. That confirmed everything I already believed about what music could actually do. Trade was a very different world, but with what was evidently going on for the queer community in the 90s it was brutal, and when they got into that club they sure did let loose. I am so happy I was a part of that.

But I think that’s why rave hit Northern Ireland so hard. We needed it more than most places. It was doing something real for people. Not just a good night out.

Did it give our generation something others didn’t have? Yeah I think it did. There’s a seriousness underneath the craic. An understanding of what music can actually do when it matters. You can’t fake that. You can’t teach it either. And it’s probably why Northern Irish crowds are still the best and hardest in the world to play for. They’re not just going out. They’re going for something and you better deliver…

Leaving school at twelve is not a decision anyone makes lightly… How do you look back on that call now?

Look, I wouldn’t tell every kid to do what I did. That’d be mad.

But for me at that time? School had nothing for me that was going to beat what I was learning just by being around music and clubs. Larne had an incredible amount of very famous DJs, prob the biggest that were in the whole of Ireland. Gleave, Robbie Nelson (Agnelli and Nelson fame). Robbie was taking me out on the weekends when I was super young and I was selling his tapes to kids at school lol. I was getting my education from the people who were best at it. Tony taught me more in six months than I’d have got anywhere else in years.

The stuff I missed out on. Normal teenage things. The academic path, na… I learned how to skin up with one hand as that’s what Robbie had to do driving to the gigs hahaha. I’m at peace with it, school and what it was like for me. I got other things instead. Things most people never get at any age.

But I want to be honest about it. It worked because I was completely obsessed with one thing and I got incredibly lucky with the people who came into my life, and Jesus I got lucky that my parents were always so supportive of me in whatever I did… When I started dealing hash my mum even got me to make a joint so she could try it. The only problem was I had no skins or tobacco so I had to improvise. I found an old cigar from god knows what Christmas and no skins, so I used a page from the bible as it was the only thin paper I could find haha…

But take either of those things away, the people I was able to meet and hang with or my parents, and it’s a very different story. So for a kid today with my kind of wiring? Stay in school a bit longer than I did. But don’t ever let anyone convince you that what you love isn’t important. That’s the bit that matters. Just be obsessed with it, be fucking weird, enjoy people complaining that’s all you do. Music is a magic power. I have tried to leave it a few times but fuck me it never lets me go. The wee bastard :-) x

What was Tony actually like as a person when the lights were off and the records were away? What did he see in a kid from Larne?

Warm. Genuinely warm. He didn’t make a show of it, he just had it. What you saw was what you got with Tony. No performance. No bullshit. He was kind in a way that was completely natural to him. It wasn’t something he switched on. It was just who he was.

And he was a pioneer. Not just for the music. For people. He was a pioneer for the gay community and the straight community equally. Everyone was welcome. Everyone belonged. At a time when that wasn’t always the case in clubbing, he created a space where none of that mattered. Just the music. Just the people. That was Tony.

And his sound. Instantly identifiable. You knew it was him within seconds. And his mixing style was like nothing else. He didn’t hang about getting into the mix. Sometimes long blends and sometimes bang, no easing you in gently. He was straight in, no kissing. Bang. Full pelt with the crossfader. And it should not have worked as well as it did but it was sublime. Perfectly mixed in Tony’s own way. Kind of like someone giving you a massive warm hug and a headbutt at the same time. Ha. That’s the only way I can describe it. That was Tony De Vit.

What did he see in me? I’ve asked myself that loads. I think he just saw someone who was completely mad about music and DJing. Fully consumed. When you love something that much at that age it shows. It just radiates off you. And I think Tony recognised that because he’d had it himself. He wasn’t investing in my talent. He was investing in that obsession. And I’ve tried to do the same for other people ever since because of him.

Of everything Tony passed on during those years together, which piece of advice has proved the most durable?

He always said the dance floor tells you what it needs. Your job is to listen before you lead.

Sounds simple. It’s not.

What it actually means is you have to be willing to throw out your plan the second you walk into that room. Because every room is different. Every crowd is different. The energy coming in the door is different every single time. A great set is a conversation. Not you talking at people.

Tony could read a room like nothing I’ve ever seen. He was never imposing himself on an audience. He was meeting them where they were and then taking them somewhere they hadn’t expected. That’s the difference between someone who plays records and someone who actually DJs. I still hear his voice when I’m in a booth and I’m getting too attached to what I’d planned. Every time. Works every time.

Why do you think Tony’s legacy has outlived so many of his contemporaries?

Because the music was just genuinely great. Simple as that first. You can’t manufacture legacy. The tracks hold up because they were made properly. Not chasing anything. Just made with real love for what they were doing.

But beyond the music. Tony’s life had things in it that make it impossible to reduce to just a DJ story. The AIDS crisis. The community he was part of. The personal courage of just being who he was in that time. The Don’t Ever Stop documentary on Prime showed a whole new generation what was actually at stake back then. To be a part of it, to have part of my own life featured alongside Tony’s story, that’s something I’ll be able to keep forever. And young people really respond to it because they’ve got good bullshit detectors. They know when something was real. It was a genuine insight into Tony’s world and what that time meant for so many people.

What does it say about the scene now that we keep going back to him? I think it says we’re hungry for someone who stood for something and didn’t water it down. That’s rare in any era. It’s getting rarer. Tony had it. He is missed by so many people and I feel that every single day. I would have loved nothing more than a proper conversation with him now, as a man.

When you cast your mind back to those Air nightclub Saturdays in Birmingham, what is the first memory that actually surfaces?

The queue outside the first night. There were helicopters flying overhead, news teams outside, Digbeth was a roadblock. Every time I think about it, that’s what comes first.

The energy before anyone had even got through the door. People weren’t going to a club. They were going to do their thing. Their people. Their Saturday. You could feel it just standing in that queue. Something was going to happen tonight and everyone knew it. And then the sound system inside. Air had a sound system that was something else. When you dropped the right record in that room you felt it in your chest before you heard it. I can still feel that now if I think about it hard enough.

What do I miss most? Everyone is just being fully in it. No phones, nobody documenting. Just in the room living it. When it was good, and it was very often very good, there was nothing like it anywhere in the world. I mean that. The god squad, yeah man, proper full-time melters, clean on it and absolute music connoisseurs.

Residencies can either make a DJ or pigeonhole them for life. How did Godskitchen shape you?

Honestly it did both. Made me and pigeonholed me at the same time. Because Godskitchen meant a particular sound to people. A particular era. And some people filed me under that permanently no matter what I was actually playing. That took years to shift. Years. But inside the club the Godskitchen massive were very trusting and they were up for me trying new styles out.

But I want to be clear about how far back me and Godskitchen go. I first played for them in 1996. A small club bar in Northampton called the Roadmender. So I’ve been there from the very early days. Long before it became the massive superclub thing it became. I grew up with Godskitchen and Godskitchen grew up with me. And the relationship with Birmingham and that crowd, it’s huge. I’ve grown up with everyone that goes to it. We are all on the same page. A tight knit bunch of crazy bastards who don’t know when to go home. And honestly that last part is what I love most about it. Ha.

People book me, they don’t always know what they’re getting every time music wise, but they do know regardless of that it will be a fucking interesting party, that’s for sure. And a big part of that reputation was built through those Godskitchen years. That means everything to me.

What do you make of the Godskitchen resurgence, how involved are you in the current iteration?

Right now I am absolutely leaning into the nostalgia of it and I’m loving every second. Because it’s a beautiful thing. It really is.

You’ve got people who were there the first time around. People who maybe drifted away from clubbing, had kids, got busy with life. And now they’re coming back out. Dusting themselves off. Coming through the door with this massive smile on their face because the music takes them somewhere they haven’t been in years. That’s special. I don’t take that lightly for a second.

But here’s the bit that really gets me. The young crowd. Kids who weren’t even born when some of this music was made. And they’re not there because their parents dragged them. They’re there because they heard it somewhere and something clicked. They’re discovering it completely fresh and losing their minds to it just the same way we did. That to me is the whole thing. That’s what tells you the music was always great. It wasn’t just great for a moment. It’s a great full stop.

So yeah. Nostalgia? Guilty and proud. And I wouldn’t change a thing about it.

But I’ll say this as well. I’m not just living in the past. I have been working on music, released quite a few bangers on the Armada label over the last 7 years which went down a treat and a nice tasty number 1 in the techno chart so it’s been super. I’m also bringing my label Excentric Muzik back. Twenty years old next year and we’re relaunching it. The first release in a few months is me with my dear friend and incredible producer Dave Robertson, most of you will know him as Reset Robot. Me and Dave have made so much music together over the years. Going back into his studio just felt like home. We picked up exactly where we left off but the music has more emotion in it now. We’ve both lived a bit more. You can hear that. And when I play the five hour sets I always make sure there’s new stuff in there too. Always. Because that’s the conversation I want to have with the crowd. Here’s the music you love. And here’s where I’m going next. Come with me. That’s the fun of it and I can do this because my crew trust me. I have earned their trust and they mine. I trust that they will give me some room to try new records out.

It’s important to respect your past. But you have to keep moving forward. That’s just the truth of it. And look, I’ve been doing that. Playing regularly in America alongside CamelPhat, Black Coffee, Solomon, Damian Lazarus, Rufus Du Sol, Jordan Nocturne. Carl Cox in Vegas and in Glasgow. I’m playing with Eli Brown, Rebuke and Charlotte De Witte next week for EDC week here in Vegas. So nobody can accuse me of standing still. I’ve been moving forward for a long time. The nostalgia stuff is just a beautiful bonus on top of that.

And that’s actually what Godskitchen was always about. Even back then it wasn’t just about the headline names. It was about new music and putting up and coming artists from the city on. Giving people their shot. That’s still happening now. That’s still part of what it is. So yeah we’re all enjoying this moment of looking back. But we’re looking back while moving forward. That distinction matters to me. That’s everything really.

And the thing about these older records, every single one is different. Not one sounds the same. That’s what people forget. These aren’t genre records. They defy genre. And the joy for me, the actual joy, is taking all of these completely different records and making them sound like one thing. One continuous thing. That’s the beauty of standing in a club with fifty people or five thousand people and creating a story together. A love story really. That’s what it is. That’s what it’s always been.

What was the actual spark that took Vinyl Sessions from an Instagram obsession into a standalone event concept, and why did it have to be Belfast first?

The Instagram thing was an accident honestly. I was doing a live show on my YouTube and I started posting short clips on my Instagram, they started getting great comments. I then saw FishOCTAGON and what he was doing was different, it was close up. He’s a really super lovely guy, I have a lot of time for him. Anyway, I thought I would have a bit of that craic so that was it. I just started digging, playing stuff, filming it because I was excited. It was like what I used to do when I was a kid and had bought some records. I would have my mates round my house and play them this and that and see what they thought. So what Fish was doing made sense to me. And the response was mad. Way bigger than I expected. People tagging their mates, having proper conversations in the comments about the music. That told me something was there.

The event came from just asking one simple question. What if this was the whole night. No laptop. No safety net. Just records and a room. Not as a gimmick. Just as the most honest way I know how to DJ. Belfast first because of course Belfast first. You always go home first. That crowd has been with me longer than anyone. They deserved to be first. They always do. Simple as that really.

The opening Belfast date sold out in 21 hours, and the 2,000-capacity follow-up sold out as well. What did that response tell you?

It told me the industry has been talking to itself and not listening to what people actually want.

There’s all these conversations in the trade press about what audiences want. And then people go and vote with their money for a vinyl only night with no visuals and no safety net and it sells out in under a day. So. What those numbers said to me is that people are hungry for something real. Something where the DJ is fully exposed and the music and the DJ mixing has to do all the work on its own. People can feel that even if they can’t explain what they’re feeling.

And the thing about the crowds at Vinyl Sessions. All ages. Young people who’ve never owned a record in their life standing there completely locked in, perhaps also a bit wiped out hahaha. But that tells you it’s not nostalgia driving it. It’s something else. Something that just connects regardless of your age. That’s the bit I find really exciting.

The Instagram vinyl clips have been pulling over a million monthly views for eighteen months now. What do you think is genuinely driving those numbers?

I think people are starving for something that feels real and physical. Everything now is instant. Tap a screen and music appears. Which is great in lots of ways but somewhere along the way the actual ritual of music got lost.

But here’s the thing that really made it take off. When I posted a track people didn’t just comment. They had a story. Every single track. Everyone forgets how they got home on a night out but my crew on Instagram, they remember every moment of a track that melted their head. Every detail. They have stories for days. That was the real connection. We all connected again through these tracks and the memories attached to them. And not just the old crew. We met thousands of new like minded nutters along the way too.

Because the music has the power. It really does. And look, we were all mental back in the day. Four day benders. Absolute carnage. So yes there are plenty of hilarious stories. But there are also deeply heartfelt ones. People telling me how the music helped them cope with loss. With depression. People say it helped pull them back from the edge when things got really dark. That stuff hits differently. That’s not about a DJ playing records. That’s the magic that lives inside the music itself. And when I see that I think yeah. This is why we do it.

What is it that keeps pulling you back to the crate? Is it craft, is it memory, or something harder to put into words?

The fact that it leaves me nowhere to hide. That’s the honest answer.

With digital there’s always a safety net. You can fix something before anyone notices. With records every decision is final. You’re fully exposed the whole time. And that changes how you play. Makes you braver in some ways. More precise in others.

There’s also just the physical thing of it. Holding a record I’ve had for twenty or thirty years. One that carries a memory from a specific room on a specific night. Or it could be the newest record I’ve just bought that I’m super excited to play. The music lives in the object in a way I can’t fully explain. I love buying and owning records. I love having a collection and there is the memory, there is a credibility aspect to it also, because you cannot just get up and play records. It’s a craft that you have to put the time into over many years. It’s super hard to put into words.

Do you see a genuine trend emerging with younger DJs choosing vinyl, or is this a smaller subculture than the social media coverage suggests?

It’s real. Bigger than people want to admit.

I see it all the time. Young DJs getting in touch asking about pressings, cartridges, technique. These aren’t kids doing it for the look. They’ve made a proper choice. They’ve done the work. Is it as big as social media makes it look? Probably not in raw numbers. But the commitment within that group is something else. And those are the DJs who are going to matter in ten years. The ones who go the long way round. Who build an identity through their music rather than their profile. And honestly seeing a kid in 2026 learning to beatmatch on Technics the same way I was doing it in Larne in my wee bedroom. That does something to me every time. The whole circle of it. I love it.

Which structural change in the industry has surprised you most, and which one has quietly disappointed you?

The surprise is longevity. When I started out the assumption was you had your moment and then you were done. Nobody told me you could still be doing this at my age and still be developing and still playing to crowds who aren’t just there for the nostalgia. That genuinely wasn’t on offer when I was coming up. I don’t take that for granted for a single second.

The disappointment is that the apprenticeship has basically gone. When I came through you had to prove yourself in small rooms before anyone gave you a big one. You served your time. That process filtered out a lot of people who weren’t ready yet. That filter has gone now and some brilliant people have come through without it so I don’t want to sound like a dinosaur about it. But I miss the idea that there was a standard. That you had to earn it. That meant something and it actually helps you grow in every way as a DJ, especially your confidence. I have faith the pendulum will swing back again. It’s kind of fun that everyone is so interested in the music and the DJing. Most will move on though, like most fads, and we will be left with the folks that can’t move on hahaha. Like me, fucking stuck in this beautiful DJing world. It never leaves you once that hook is really in.

Where do you sit on AI as someone whose craft is built on decades of selection, touch, and hard-earned instinct?

I’m not scared of new technology. Never have been. I’ve adapted to every shift that’s come along because the alternative is becoming irrelevant and I’m far too nosy about music for that.

But here’s the thing. The selection. The instinct. Knowing which record to play at which exact moment in which room. That comes from decades of obsessive listening and thousands of hours playing to real people. You can’t shortcut that. An algorithm can copy the output without any of the journey. And the journey is the whole point.

My worry isn’t for me or people of my generation. We’ve done the work. My worry is for the next lot. If the industry stops rewarding the long road, the digging, the small rooms, the years of figuring out who you are, what replaces it? How does someone find their voice if the shortcut is always sitting there? Nobody’s answered that properly yet. That bothers me.

A DJ coming through today is expected to be an artist, a brand manager, a content creator, and an algorithm whisperer, often before they have played a decent room. How does that pressure look from where you are sitting?

Exhausting. And I think it’s genuinely unfair on a generation of talented people who are being asked to dilute the most important thing before they’ve even figured out what the most important thing is. The ones who are making it work are the ones where the content is just an extension of who they actually are. Not a performance of what they think the algorithm wants. Because crowds can tell the difference. They always could.

Does it produce better DJs or more visible ones? More visible ones. Definitely. Whether that matches up with quality varies massively. Some of the most talented DJs I know are hopeless at all this stuff and their careers reflect it. Some average ones are brilliant at building a following. In the long run the music wins. It always does. But surviving long enough for the long run is getting harder.

Sort out what you actually sound like before you worry about how many people are listening. That’s what I’d say. The second question only matters if the first one has a real answer. The other side of the coin is it’s brilliant that we can control our own page and tell our own story. Years ago if you were lucky enough to get an interview or a write-up, and damn if you got your picture in the magazine, wow that was huge stuff. But you always had to worry whether the journalist got your story across the way you meant it. You were always relying on someone else’s interpretation. So there are many pluses for social media and that for me is one of the big ones. Plus we get to connect straight away in real time with the people who follow us, and it’s super important to reply. Oh, am I having the absolute craic with my crew in the comments. It’s kind of like being at school, some playground banter and some history lessons and some futuristic comments about new artists coming through and of course the heartfelt stories. So yeah I enjoy this aspect of this new time in the life of the DJ. The connection spreads far beyond the dancefloor and we must embrace that…

If a 15 year old version of yourself walked into your Vegas studio tomorrow with a record bag and no plan, what is the one piece of advice you would actually hand over? And what would you tell them to ignore entirely?

Stay interested in everything. Not just what you’re already playing. Not just the genre you’ve decided you belong to. Everything. Country music, soul, gospel, film soundtracks, stuff that seems to have nothing to do with a dancefloor. Because the DJ who’s heard everything has a completely different vocabulary to the one who’s only ever gone deep in one direction. The breadth is what lets you surprise people. And surprising people in a good way is the whole job.

What to ignore? The timeline. Completely ignore it. Ignore anyone telling you that you should be somewhere by a certain age or that if you haven’t broken through by 25 it’s over. That is not how this works and it never has been. I know DJs who found their best years at forty, fifty. The music doesn’t care how old you are. Neither do the best crowds.

And one more because I can’t help myself. Be decent to the people coming up behind you. Always. Tony did that for me and I’ve tried every single day since to pass it on. That’s the real legacy of this job. Not the gigs or the records. The people you brought with you along the way.

Tracklisting

Taiko – Silence – Nukleuz Records

LAVA aka Tilllman Uhrmacher – Spring Time ( Let YourSelf Go ) May Mix ) – Nukleuz Records

Mario Pui presents Dj Arabesque – This Vision – BXR Records

Sacoman – Recall – BXR Records

Das Klangwerk – Kiss My Ass – Pumpin Records

Technasia – Final Quadreant – Technasia Records

Y.O.M.C – In My Mind – Overdose Records

Lunn & James – Conspiracy- Nukleuz Records

Maurio Pui & Maruo Picotto FT Amel Whaby – Arabian Pleaure – Nukleuz Records

Transponder – Transponder – Underground Records

Godskitchen takes place in Digbeth Triangle including XOYO Birmingham – Tickets via here

by Damion Pell

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