The F Word

“In this decade, I made a change in the music I play,” replies Fergie. “That started in early 2000. I was known for playing a lot of harder stuff, but I didn’t think that it was moving forward and I started getting bored with it. I thought the producers were sticking to the same formula, so I wanted to branch out. I started playing a few different other styles, just to see what I was happy with. I ended up going down the tech-ier route, and that’s still what I’m playing now.”
What were the best DJing gigs you played?
“I joined [the UK's] Radio 1 early in 2000 as well, and I did a lot of outside broadcasts with them,” recalls Fergie. “We did a beach in Brazil, and I hosted the whole dance segment for the day. It was like eight hours or something. That was pretty big. I also did the Berlin Love Parade and Glastonbury. Also, we did the Radio 1 weekend in Ibiza every year. They’d be the bigger ones.”
How did you find hosting the BBC show overall?
“It was weird, I’d never done my own show on radio before. When they approached me, it took me aback a bit. I never saw myself doing that on any radio station, never mind Radio 1. I’m dyslexic, so reading stuff out was a bit of a problem for me at first. When it’s live, you have to read a lot of material, and it’s totally different to having a few beers and DJing in a club. But I ended up being there for six years, and I did choose which way to do the show.
“When I first went there, they gave me a script. That didn’t really work, so I started doing my own scripts. I wrote them the way I speak, and that gave me a lot more confidence. When the show ended, I wasn’t over the moon. It was a mutual decision. In the beginning, I was in a transitional period, and the music I was playing was a lot different to what I played at the finish. I was playing a variety of styles, which sort of suited Radio 1. As time went on, my sound kept changing and went into the tech-ier thing, although I still kept playing some house, techno and breaks, so I felt the show was broad enough.
“But they wanted me to go back to playing the harder stuff and some trance. From my point of view, I’d worked over five years to get away from that, so there was no way I could really go back to it, because it would disrupt what I had built up in the clubs. It was just one of those things – they wanted to get someone who would bring that to the station. But everything ended quite amicably and I still have a lot of good friends there.”
Which artists and tracks have particularly impressed Fergie?
“There’s a guy from France, Agoria,” he answers. “He put out this record called ‘Deliverance March’, which was quite normal until Phil Kieran from Belfast did a remix. That was a pretty big tune for me. It grabbed my attention and a lot of other people’s too. I still play it now. It was quite hard and groove-based, which given my background, I gravitated towards. It’s percussive and it had a techno vibe, but at the same time it had a big build up in the break, which grabbed me. Techno records veered towards repetitive industrial stuff, but that came away from that.
“Then there was ‘Rocker’ by Alter Ego, which I played constantly on my show. Then it got developed and they started playing it on daytime radio as well, so that was a real crossover record. Also, ‘Washing Up’ by Tiga is up there. That was still techno, but going down the electronic route. I think that record really brought the electro house thing out into the open.”
It must have been great to have the legendary Carl Cox expressing admiration for your label, Excentric.
“Yeah, totally,” he enthuses. “Carl was one of the first DJs I went to see, when he played at the Ulster Hall in Belfast in ‘93. I was about 12-years-old. He’s always been someone that you look to as a DJ – he’s a great ambassador for the scene. For him to be into what I’m doing in the studio, and supporting the label, it was amazing.”
The night before our chinwag, I listened to the killer electro track ‘La La Land’ by Green Velvet (a.k.a. Curtis Jones), the gifted Chicago producer cited as an influence by one of my own favourite acts of the noughties, Klaxons. Is Fergie familiar with Green Velvet?
“Yeah, I know Curtis, I’ve played with him a few times,” he affirms. “He does all his own vocals and stuff. His sound is really out there but it really works in the clubs. He just goes into the studio and jams, but he still has his own sound. It’s raw and different, but it works really well.”
Apparently he became a born again Christian after some unpleasant experiences with marijuana and magic mushrooms.
“Yeah I had a laugh about that,” remembers Fergie. “We were in a casino in Perth a couple of years ago, and he was gambling. I was asking him how that worked with being a Christian. He said, ‘Well, what happens on tour stays on tour!’ (laughs) But he’s a really good guy, and I think the whole born again Christian thing is more the 21st century version. He’s quite relaxed but still has strong beliefs, like no sex stuff and that sort of thing. It was quite bizarre.”
Did Fergie party hard during the decade?
“Yeah, really hard,” he admits. “It’s only been in the past four years that I’ve really calmed down. Even when we were on Radio 1, we would be drinking at 9 in the morning when we were recording the show. I’d go from there, drinking on the Friday morning, right through the weekend. There just seemed to be partying every day. I mean, people say that and sort of exaggerate, but I’m not exaggerating – it was pretty hardcore. I sit back and wonder how I got through it a lot of the time. I was just so drunk and so fucked.
“When I left Radio 1, I wanted to take a look at everything. Up until then it had been a mad 10 years; I moved to London in ‘96 and left Radio 1 in 2006. For me, that decade was absolutely mental. The last four years I’ve been looking more at how I can build the brand; we have the agency, the label and the club nights. There was a bit more of a strategy. I also got into the studio and made people more aware of what I was about musically, not just through the DJing but through the productions. That’s what the latter part of the decade has been about for me.”

FERGIE’S TUNES OF THE DECADE
Agoria - ‘11th March’ (Phil Kieran remix)
Alter Ego - ‘Rocker’
Tiga - ‘Washing Up’,
Sharpeside - ‘Space Cruising’
Umek - ‘Gatex (Fergie remix)’
Dk8 - ‘Murder Was The Bass’
Nathan Fake - ‘Outhouse (Valentino Kanzyani remix)’
Oliver Koletzkie - ‘Muekenschwarm’
Adam Beyer - ‘Walking Contradiction’
Spektrum - ‘Kinda New ( Tiefschwarz remix)’