Modern Wisdom - #166 - Fat Tony - How To Spend £1,000,000 On Drugs

Episode Date: May 4, 2020

Fat Tony is a DJ & promoter. Tony's story is fascinating. From being one of the biggest DJs in London's house music scene to running some of the best known events in the UK, spending £1m on drugs, group sex with Freddie Mercury, pills in Hong Kong and birthdays on concord - he's got enough stories for 10 episodes. Expect to learn his entire history, right through to his sobriety, the resurgence of his career and now his views on what happiness means for someone who has been from the very top to the bottom. Get Surfshark VPN at https://surfshark.deals/MODERNWISDOM (Enter promo code MODERNWISDOM for 85% off and 3 Months Free) Extra Stuff: Watch MixMag's Documentary on Tony - https://www.facebook.com/MixmagMagazine/videos/221336445670111/ Follow Tony on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/dj_fattony_/ Subscribe to Tony's YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxdyqv9zUgBWqT46aRlcaJw Take a break from alcohol and upgrade your life - https://6monthssober.com/podcast Check out everything I recommend from books to products - https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://www.chriswillx.com/contact Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello my beauties, welcome back. My guest today is none other than DJ Fat Tony. Now, you might have seen a video from MixMag floating around on Facebook or YouTube with millions of views about this DJ fella who came up through London in the 80s and 90s and is the best known DJ you've never heard of and spent a million pounds on drugs and all this sort of stuff and the documentary is phenomenal. It's linked in the show notes below and you should check it out after and all this sort of stuff. And the documentary is phenomenal. It's linked in the show notes below, and you should check it out after you've listened to this episode. But today we get to sit down with one of the most fascinating stories

behind a DJ career that I've ever heard. And we get to go through everything. So from being one of the biggest DJs in London's house music scene to running some of the best-known events in the UK, group sex with Freddie Mercury pills in Hong Kong and birthdays on Concord I probably could have got like 10 episodes out with him but I absolutely loved this it's such a wonderful insight into a golden era of clubbing in the UK and also a really nice story of redemption and finding what true happiness means in a life that's been beset with a lot of sort of hedonic pleasure. It's really, really good and I love Tony. He's just such a great dude. Yeah, this episode's fantastic. I really hope that you

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You had the rona? Yeah, I did. Yeah, I kind of was like, I went for a whole week of thinking, oh, this is all right, I can do this. It was kind of a mild flu, bad chest. But I was wise enough to ask my, well, my doctor decided he wanted to put me on steroids for my chest because I have a bad chest anyway. So thankfully I took the steroids. Then it went away on the Thursdayursday and i thought yeah i feel

really good friday night boom temperature 40 40 in the 40s for four days and four nights the worst fever uh it went into my chest i was breathless it was awful yeah it was really awful that's feeling good now feeling yeah i okay. I'm just taking it easy. Do you know what I mean? I'm in no rush to go anywhere. So it's not a problem. But yeah, thank God I had it mild. Yeah.

Yeah, I guess so. So my first question is, why are you called Fat Tony when you're not fat? That old, tired old question. When I was a kid, I was a fat kid. I got fat about the age of 14 to 16 uh kind of it was a coping mechanism for what I was going through uh so I kind of you know put on loads of weight as if you know it's a barrier between other people and me because I kind of went through a lot of

there was sexual abuse at an earlier age so i kind of just got fat as a protection so you know it was one of those names that people called kind of whispered behind your back so i just kept it you know i lost my weight at 16 and that was it it's interesting that two years of being fat like ages ago has branded you for the rest of your life like yeah it's one of those things people go you should change your name and it's like why your life. Yeah, it's one of those things people go, oh, you should change your name. And it's like, why would I change my name? It's taken me around the world seven times.

Do you know what I mean? I've made a career out of that name. I'm not going to change it. I think there was a year and a half in the 80s where I changed it to Phat, P-H-T, P-H-A-T. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I went all hip hop for a week. But yeah, no. Yeah. So I first heard of you as some of the people listening may have done through this recent mixmag documentary which has

come out which is absolutely phenomenal and i know i hey i'm have you been living under a stone in newcastle i look with no wi-fi there is we are currently in the 1800s and we're hoping to get the wheel and fire and and operating running water soon um but i mean in my defense they referred to you this is mix mag referred to you as the most famous dj you've never heard of yeah the reason that was that name came about was because seb who works for mix mag who he'd never heard of me and he was from cornwall so you know and and i actually said to him at the time you know the reason you've not heard me is because you you're from cornwall you don't you live in that but live under a stone in in like a wooden shack you know i mean you probably

haven't even got a smartphone uh but yeah so that's why we called it that because i don't really like that i like the fact that people haven't heard of me but you know in my world everybody's heard of me well i don't it didn't it doesn like the fact that people haven't heard of me. But, you know, in my world, everybody's heard of me. Well, it doesn't surprise me at all, but I think, you know, to touch on the way that industries work, especially nightlife, right? People, especially from outside of the country, might look at the UK and just be like,

oh, my God, it's just a speck. It's a state in America, right? But especially with partying, because party culture is so big in the UK, it is, there are, you can go from here to Middlesbrough, where I'm originally, originally from, 45 miles away. And the industry is different. The music policies are different.

The type of events are different. The promoters, you know, there's no crossover. So the little microcosms, they don't surprise me. Yeah, I mean, you know, come on, I don't expect anybody to know who I am because you know the industry but the thing about it was was because you know my career shifted in so many different areas throughout my career um and right now i've been the last few years i've been working within fashion and all that stuff so you know i i kind of the clubs i got to this level where the clubs i would still do

clubs they don't pay the money that i could get from i can command for doing you know working for victoria beckham or there's archer or any of those brands i work with so i you know the whole idea of calling it the most famous dj i've never heard of was because i you know it was about tapping back into that other market that i've been a part of for a while yeah I mean it looks like everyone that's listening will know the local DJ that has a couple of residencies a week or maybe you know three four residencies a week at good events and it looks great but it's a fucking grind you know like all of my buddies all my buddies are resident DJs working three or four nights a week finishing four in the morning you know grinding it out it's hard work you know I've done that for a lifetime do you know what I mean and

now I've got to this level of contentment within my career that I I've learned that there's a really beautiful thing about saying no and it's a really powerful thing say no without explanation And it's a really powerful thing to say no without explanation. I don't need to explain why I'm saying no anymore. And I turn down so many different types of gigs because they're not where I want to be right now. I don't need to be getting up at five in the morning to go to work. Do you get what I mean?

Don't get me wrong. That's really not me being obnoxious or taking it for granted for what i got but you know what i kind of you know i'd rather do bigger than than smaller on some levels don't get me wrong i do so so many different types of parties and events and if they appeal to me i'll do them it doesn't matter how much money it is or whatever but you know just got to that stage where i don't really do residencies anymore because I find that when you become a resident, you become a piece of furniture and you get treated like furniture. You know, the whole feeling of being special and different is gone

because you're suddenly there every week. So people take you for granted. There's no amazement about it. Do you get what I mean? I couldn't anymore. You just go there and people go, oh, he's there again. I heard him last week. It's like the bar staff.

You're just one of the bar staff, one of the glass collectors. Yeah, totally. And for me, I don't want to be that anymore. I can totally get that. There's a cool quote that I heard the other day about saying no. And it was that by saying no, you're only saying no to one thing. By saying yes, you are saying no to everything else. Because you know what I like, Chris, is like that.

I will say yes to something that I don't want to do, and then I will get so much anxiety around that. That one thing will keep me awake for three or four nights. I will fret and, you know, I get work myself up to this place right and then what i'll do is the day before i pull a sickie or the day you know i mean and i just think then you feel guilty after you felt anxious now you feel guilty you feel like you've let yourself down you're letting other people down so there's something really simple you know as an addict i people please quite a lot throughout my life and i don't need to do that today today i need to

please one person that's myself if i'm need to please one person, that's myself. And if I'm happy, everybody else is happy. Man, that's so much more holistic. I like that. But, you know, and with the film, you know, with that Mixmag film,

I really thought no one was ever going to watch it. You know, it started off as an interview for Mixmag. And in the interview, I said, you know,

it's only taken you 35 years to catch up. And, you know, it's only taken you 35 years to catch up, and, you know, because everyone they've had on, well, the majority of people they've had on their covers in that 35 years are probably stacking shelves right now, do you get what I mean? And whereas I've kind of continued through, and, you know, and then the boys at Mixmag,

the interview came out, it got a really big, really great reception, and then they said oh we really want to do an online thing with you the next day i was like yeah fine let's do it so we went up and did it and then two days later they came back and they were like oh you know what we want to we want to do something bigger and i was like fine you know i really like the guys seb and louis they were great really good fun to work with you know i kind of just like their cheekiness you know because each day they'd do an interview with me and then they'd throw these questions in at the end like on one

day uh seb kind of we're done we'd finish filming and then seb was like oh just one last question and i was like what and he'd be like what was freddie mercury like in bed and i was like i don't know there were seven other people there simple little banter like that and that's kind of just like the magic of what the film came out like you know they they brought it to my house to show me and uh and i was you know and i kind of was like oh i don't know if i want to watch it because i you know it's it's the thing about is it's the truth and the truth hurts so it's really hard sometimes to watch the truth in black and white or on screen or read it and uh they they showed me and it made me cry it make each time i watch it there's parts in it that make me cry because you know it really it hits a nerve and they showed me the film and they were like i started to cry and they

were like did you like it and i was like yeah they were like is there anything you want to change and i was like probably 95 of it but but it's your film and and you know what i respect it's your film and you know what no i don't want to change it i didn't want to change anything you know apart from the end i wanted them to big me up a little bit more in the in the uh in the uh in the uh he's doing now type thing yeah because they kind of just put a few things and i was like no you might as well stick it all in and then i was like actually no don't stick it all in you know i mean it doesn't need to all be there do you know i mean it was kind of one of those so we just left it as it was and you know what it's had nearly three million views it's insane it's it's three million phenomenal mental

man it's so good so again if you haven't seen it it'll be linked in the show notes below so once we've finished once you finish listening to the podcast go and check it out it is absolutely amazing it's like one of the first long-form facebook videos i've seen with like a couple of million views as well which is just unbelievable so yeah i mean the blew me away the bottom line is that your story resonates with a lot of people it's interesting and intriguing to a lot of people so i want to give you an opportunity to kind of delve into that and obviously show people that haven't seen it what that story is and then go further with with it as well so where do we start with your career where do you want to start with my career at the beginning yes

well you know i uh i i used to work on the door of a nightclub i i mean i started going out at a really young age start going out at the age of 14 uh to nightclubs uh got kicked out of school at 14 went to work in a place in king's road which is in chelsea which at that time people walked up and down all day long on saturdays it was like it was like social media so the likes of where i met boy george i met most of my friends would be walking up and down that road because punk had just come from that from from king's road chelsea so it was the next thing the next best thing the next next biggest thing so the photographers will always be there it was like kind of a place to go and be photographed so i got a job working there and then we started hanging out with met all my friends um made new friends obviously it made loads of whole new circle of

friends and we started going out clubbing and i would uh you know i would i had a mouth i could get what i wanted i was the most obnoxious person you'll ever meet and you know i would i had a mouth i could get what i wanted i was the most obnoxious person you'll ever meet and you know i was always in somebody's face so people just gave me what i wanted and so i had this job on this door of a club called the lice at the lyceum where lion king's playing at presently in london it's a big theater i was working on that door and each week i would moan about the music for no reason no reason at all just moaned about it And the guy rusty who run the club said to me. Oh if you can do better bring your own tracks and that was it I kind of went with four records the next week and

Within a month I was in New York playing DJ this point. I was uh at that point I was 16. Yeah 16 coming, coming on 17, yeah. And literally, that was it. Three weeks down the line, I'd started a new night on a Tuesday with my friend Stephen Leonard, a club called The Wag Club. And we did a night called Turtle Fashion Victim. And it kind of just spiraled from there. You know, I kind of, within, yeah, as I say, within a month,

month and a half half i had a residency in new york at the palladium and it's kind of just all went so that that first period there from some fella on the door some lad on the door of a venue to to being a guy with four records to having a residency in new york yeah that i mean, that's the lift-off, I think, that's probably most dramatic, right? Like, if you actually look at it. Yeah, it kind of just, it was, you know, London was a much different place back then.

You know, it had a nucleus of the way, which was the West End, which is Soho. And that was it. So that was the clubbing mecca area. So everybody knew each other. London was a really exciting, creative time. We didn't have social media. So everybody went out.

And going out was where you met people. And, you know, so everybody knew each other. And at that point, London was like the place to be. Everyone in New York wanted to be in London. And all the clubs in New York wanted people from London. So it just kind of all fell into place. And, you know, yeah, it literally happened so quickly. It's just like literally mad.

So you got flown to New York. I go to New York every two weeks. By who? By Steve Rubell, who used to own Studio 54. They got rid of 54. And then they opened this new super club called palladium there and you had schrager schrager owned like area this suburb club down the road and all of those clubs so i kind of got in with all that lot it was kind of really mad yeah yeah

that's insane what's it feel like as a 16 year old flying to new york to play records having been a dj for a month it was kind of, actually it was about, I was about 17 because I remember I went to New York for my birthday, my 18th on Concord and then I got a taste of Concord and then I stopped doing the Palladium for a few months and then they wanted me back and I said I'm only coming if you fly me on Concord and they actually flew me on Concorde and I was just like thinking oh my god you bunch of wankers but it was kind of just you know what it was kind of just that's what it was like in those days Joe suddenly we didn't have superstar DJs before that to go what I mean it was kind of just it all is all

about being in the right place at the right time with the biggest mouth. Well, you were positioned based on the brand that London had. You were given an unfair advantage there, right? You had competitive advantage because you were the British DJ that's come over and, you know, they can, you don't have, there's no fact-checking, right? You can't go on your SoundCloud and say, actually, you're shit and 12. Of course not.

They didn't give a shit because, you know, all they wanted was the word London and they wanted the Wack Club or any of the other venues that played that. So kind of that's how it was. You know, you had nothing to fall back on apart from your last set. Do you get what I mean? And I kind of, of yeah it's mad so what were you playing i was playing early house yeah house it kind of started off with things like luva bandros and uh you know chukka khan and all of that stuff that was out at that time

and then kind of progressed slowly into we play old disco and then from old disco went into early house the early you know chicago stuff what year are we talking here um i should know this stuff i'm but uh we're talking so i was 18 so i'm i'm 55 now this year so work out yourself 55 to 20 70 okay so you're talking like late 80s early 90s i guess so i mean you know for the people listening that are house heads you know that love defected and and good like quality modern i guess modern house brands um that is seen as one of the glory periods right for the development of house it totally was you know I used to go to sound factory I used to go to paradise garage I was you know a regular at a garage and you know I had an amazing time you know and it's like I was the first one me and my friend Steve Swindles were the first person ever to bring Frankie Knuckles to

London to get him to play so we brought him over and he played with us at this club called jungle which we did on a monday um yeah so kind of but you know there was none of that whole my god we got this person we've got that person at that point in time that come a few years later when everything suddenly got a lot bigger do you know what i mean at that point we had larry levine who was classed as the superstar dj because he played at paradise garage you know but it kind of as you got to meet these people you realize that they weren't superstars they were just people having fun taking a lot of drugs and having a really good time do you know what i mean like myself yeah you know unlike though most of those people i didn't't know when to stop. Okay, so we've touched on one of the defining characteristics,

I suppose, of your early DJing career. Can you remember your first drug? My first drug? Yeah, my first drug I ever took was cocaine poppers. I used to do poppers before that, you know, amyl nitrate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I kind of moved on. i didn't even smoke at that point i i didn't smoke until i was 21 uh and then i remember the first time i ever took cocaine i hated it i actually hated the feeling it made me

feel really paranoid uh i thought i'm never doing that again and then I one night I was outside heaven which is in the movie I tell you in the film that I and I I met with uh a gang of guys going into heaven and one of them happened to be Freddie Mercury and uh hung out with that lot and then we went back to their house in Holland Park and um and someone offered me cocaine Freddie offered me a line of cocaine I was like I don't do it, I don't like it and of course did it straight away and that was kind of it

that was my drug of choice I didn't do it for a little while I remember I didn't do it for about I think about 6-7 months I didn't go near it again and then there was a real major heroin vibe thing going on in london majority of people in london and on the club scene were really big smack heads and so i kind of anti that anyway

because all my friends were taking that so you know it was it was inevitable that i was going to end up being a junkie you know it's in my blood yeah i get it i get it so cocaine obviously is a good drug for people that are partying a lot and how often were you going out was it seven nights a week was life and partying just one one big sort of mesh well i mean you know i kind of suddenly i i had no goals i wasn't one of these people that thought right okay in a year's time i want to be this and then i want to go on to progress to that I never I never had that I was always you know I like I always have been in the moment and I kind of just you know I just I'd arrived clubbing was my life clubbing was everything suddenly you know I'd gone from

being this inverted you know kind of shy hiding behind my fat, hiding behind things, to actually discovering who I was. And, you know, so clubbing, it became my life. It became a job. It became everything, you know. So I was out seven nights a week. And, you know, slowly but surely, out of those seven nights, it would be three or four nights that I'd do drugs. And then it would be five or six nights that I did drugs, you know.

It was never, ever a problem the first i didn't i never had a drug for the first 12 years it wasn't a problem so until 28 sort of age yeah 27 it become a problem because i remember getting i remember on my 27th birthday i remember saying to my mum i don't want to live beyond 27 and my mom was like why and i was just like i had no i just thought 27 was like kind of the end of the road type thing my mom was like don't be so stupid 27 is one of the best years of your life and i was just like no no no and of course when i got to 28 i was gutted for some reason i was gutted that i didn't die when i was 27 uh like that you know i it a good fucking shot, I can assure you. And I kind of just, and that's kind of when it all kind of,

it's just like the drug taking, the drug use become abuse. It went from use to abuse. And I was just starting abusing drugs. I started, you know, I'd be up for four or five nights on the trot, you know. So talking about the years before drug use became abuse, what was a typical week like? Talk me through a typical week. So I would go out Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday night.

You know, I would literally, at that point in time, I was still living in Battersea, which is where my mum and dad lived, which is just over the river, which is central London. So, I i mean you know i had everything took 10 minutes 20 minutes in to get into soho from my house it's like uh so i kind of just i would be out and because i was living at home i didn't ever ever wanted to go home after all these illegal drinking clubs in soho so you would go to these illegal drinking clubs like 79 one was called and we had a club called the the Pink Panther, which was a gay 24-hour illegal drinking club.

And you'd go about three in the morning. And by 6 a.m., it would have been raided by the police. And you'd go out and you'd walk around the block and you'd go back in. And kind of that was just, that added to it. Everything was just like, you know, the thrill of the police raiding something. And, you know, so that would police raiding something and you know so that would be like monday tuesday and wednesday the first you're not djing through the week earlier in the week you're not no i think i was running my own night on tuesday at the wag club uh at that

point in time and then i was running saturday nights at wag club as well uh at the time the wag club was like the place to go I mean there would be a queue around like a three hour waiting to get in like on a Saturday night and we we basically

were on the door of our nuts saying no you can't come in you can come in we're just getting whatever we wanted you're a cunt

and you're a cunt and you're a cunt basically yeah totally like that you know and we'd say sorry you can't come in you're off you're not coming yeah yeah yeah calling cat totally and uh and taking cat but yeah it was it was a free uh

you know so that was saturdays and then what i bought a new club opened called the limelight which was opened in a big church and in the 80s it was like the place late 80s early 90s the place to go and they basically brought me in you know yet again i met with the owner called a guy called pete gation and they had these clubs all over they'd won in new york which was the place to go they and they won in atlanta and they wanted to open this one in london it was on shawlsbury avenue in the tissues church and i remember having a meeting saying you need to have you need to employ me and they were like wireless because if you don't i'll just annihilate your club and it's like the that would come out of my mouth and these guys were like yeah yeah so they employed me and you know like within a month

of working for them before it even opened i've become like the musical director of the limelight and i was like on a retainer of ridiculous amounts of money and it was at that point you know i had suddenly had all this money i took like i had my own office i was you know i just turned 18. you know i was kind of like just running so many different things and and little projects and scams going on in london and you know it kind of just i got swept away with it i got swept away with it you know i had i felt that i had to be there every night i had to take the more drugs than everybody else uh and it kind of just you know that kind of just become who i was it was It was fucking awful.

Speaking as someone who started club promotion in 2006, which is early by today's standards but late by yours, and me and my business partners started running events and I've got a very similar story without the hectic drug use

and the celebrities and Boy George and stuff like that, unless you count Geordie Shore um and no you don't no you don't okay um yeah yeah um but i understand and i can speak from personal experience about what it's like to be a young guy who finds himself having never been in a position of authority or being renowned potentially not being liked by people or having people need you and that sense very quickly can become your identity and you can wrap yourself around it and what I found slightly different to yours me my business partner started associating or at least me not darren he's a lot more it was a lot more stable than me uh he's got two kids now he's completely unstable now he's got two he's got

two kids and two dogs it's impossible for him out to pasture yeah oh for sure um uh what i did was i started associating my sense of uh self-worth and um well-being with the success of the business of course you do it seems like with you perhaps it was to do with the depth of the partying, to do with the level of renown. It had become more about ego and the ego got so big. Because, you know, people were blowing smoke up my house. I couldn't do no wrong. I was running two nights a week at the limelight with my name on.

My name was everywhere. I'd suddenly gone from being this fat obnoxious kid to being in the in the sunday papers you know i was suddenly in supplements i was suddenly doing interviews things and it just like kind of got bigger and bigger and bigger and i kind of you know in those days fashion had just come into play again i was like we're head to toe in jean paul gaultier you know i was wearing everybody wanted me to wear their clothes it was insane and you know of course you know you you give something those that stuff to an 18 year old they don't know what to do with

it exactly i'm like you know it's like a fucking pig in shit you know seriously no i had no tools to deal with that do you know what i mean i kind of just you know i the only way tools to deal with that. Do you know what I mean? I kind of just, you know, the only way I could deal with it was by taking loads of drugs and riding it. How did the drugs help? Well, the kind of drugs kind of led me into this like full sense of, okay, they fed the ego. They fed the ego. They kind of took away the fear. You know, the fear of being found out. I've always suffered from imposter syndrome you know and I always had that fear of oh my god I'm going to get seen found out here you know uh and kind of you know the the enjoyment of what I actually started off by doing by DJing

you know I kind of always when I look back on I always think because it was never a chosen job and it was never a chosen path, I think that's why I kind of tried to destroy it so much. Do you get what I mean? It kind of was like, it wasn't something that I studied to do. I didn't set out to be that. I kind of was just like, okay, this is what I've fallen into. I kind of was just like, okay, this is what I've fallen into. I think it's certainly about... George says it quite nicely in the film that when everybody else was off brand building,

I was off partying. Everyone else was building a name for themselves. I was off just building parties. Do you know what I mean? And because I always had that fear of... I always had a fear of success. It's really weird. The bigger I got, the more destructive I got. So, and success. It's really weird. The bigger I got, the more destructive I got.

So, and I've always been like that. I'm still like it today, but today I kind of have it capped and I work a program around it. You know, so there'll be areas where suddenly my career is going like this and then I'll be over here pouring paraffin on something to create a smoke screen

so that you can't really see who I am. Because it's, you know, it's a weird one. And, you know, at that point in time, success was given to me on such a massive scale. I mean, you know, I was doing TV stuff. I had a show on Kiss. Oh, it was all there. It was all there. Yeah.

And, you know, of course, my mouth and the way I was destroyed that. Do you know what I mean? I would remember I used to, Janet Streetport at that point was like head of BBC TV for youth, and she gave me like this job. She'd lined up all this presenting stuff for me, and she, as a part of the build-up to it, I'd have to go outside concerts and vox pop, where you'd stand outside concerts and say, hey, why have you come to see so and vox pop where you stand outside constantly hey what

why have you come to see so and so you know all that rubbish and i couldn't speak i'd be so coaxed off my nut i couldn't speak and she'd come and take the mic off me and then like just send me home and you know there was so many of those golden opportunities that i always thought doesn't matter i get it again do you know what mean? It's kind of the ego had taken over. I suppose what the drugs do is they stop you from being able to ask or do that introspection. They don't allow you to ask those questions because they create a buffer between what you see inside and how you feel. And it means that you don't ever have to worry about, well, hang on, maybe I should feel anxious upset regretful whatever about janet street porter just saying that i blew it again

or this not happening or that not happening or whatever and obviously you know drugs are a pretty surefire way to stop you from ever having to feel feelings it totally changes the way i felt like all drugs you know i I would take drugs to change the way I felt because I was never happy within who I was. You know, I never got to that point where I just think, you know what, your shit stinks. Shit does. I never ever got that feeling. I always had to counteract the way I was feeling by taking those drugs or drinking on it because I always felt less than. I never felt that I deserved the success that I had because it wasn't a chosen success I never felt that I deserved to be where

I was because it wasn't something I set out to do something I fell on do you get what I mean so therefore I kind of like cuckooed everybody else's nests you know and it was kind of weird you know with that drug of choice that cocaine it's kind of like the really famous line that Mark Harmon once said was that cocaine will get get you ready for the party but it won't take you to the party you know so you'll spend 16 hours getting ready at home and you won't leave the flat and it's true you know I saw what it was like for me yeah was there never a a concern with money like i know you were getting paid a lot but it sounds like you were sniffing even more never i i you know i'd i'd got myself to this position where i was getting paid you know you

gotta remember at that point in time we all become superstars after that the oakland folds my whole circle of friends if you go back and look at all those slides there was danny ramplin there was mints of paul oakland fold all of these djs suddenly became the biggest superstars and we would be i would be traveling up the motorway down the motorway playing all over the place for vast amounts of money you know and of course i was on this massive retaining from the limelight and the likes of that so it always went upwards do you get what i mean and then suddenly you know i was getting record deals i bought a house in in london which was incredible it's called the cottage on queen square very apt and uh you know i had suddenly i had this wealth you know i had so much money

i had so much money and you couldn't you weren't sniffing enough to make a dent in that oh i was sniffing enough to make a considerable dent in it but it always kept coming so whatever i spent i knew i was getting again i was always like you know i remember that house i talked to you know when i left that house that I talked to, you know, when I left that house, I got, I got thrown out of that, lost that house. Uh, and the day that I left it, I left one mirror.

And which was the mirror I used to cut, to chop lines on. Left everything else there. Just the TV, everything. And everyone was like, well, why are you not taking stuff?

We could, I was like, it's fine. I get it again. And it kind of was always that throwaway lifestyle that kind of just brought me to my knees in the end yeah very very blasé again it it's weird right because only with the benefit of hindsight do we look at that version of tony with sympathy right because at the time it must have been this guy's got it all sorted like he's got

so much he's getting free drugs he's basically getting paid for being a dickhead like he's getting you know and totally it's what i think we need to see or people need to try and look with a little bit more nuance at young success you know you've got djs like avicii i'm friends with tons and tons of djs that are blessed you know vici you know oh another one do you know what i mean just couldn't cope with success couldn't cope with the idiots because what happens is when we get to that that that place we're not on our own we've got 30 other tickets with us and those other 30 tickets are telling you what you want to hear. They're filling you up.

You know, what happens is, you know, you have suddenly realised that you're the party. And when you get to that place where you think you're the party, everybody else thinks you're the party. So, you know, they fuel what your beliefs are. And because you're a way and means for them to get more. And, you know, the realisation is the day that you get clean is the day that you realise you're not the buy. Do you get what I mean?

And, you know, with people like Avicii, they don't stand a chance. They didn't stand a chance. Do you get what I mean? It was there. And, you know, it's difficult. It's hard to say to people, you should feel sorry for this young superstar who's worth all this money, who's got all these record deals. But those people around him, they didn't want it around them.

But, you know, the yes people that are pulling the strings behind them, that are supplying them with drugs. And the day that I remember speaking to him, he wanted to get clean. And, you know, he started coming to meetings with us and stuff like that. And, you know, the powers that be behind that didn't want that people don't want that because they can't control you they can no longer control you you know it's amy all written all over all over again you know everybody pretends that they don't want you to be in that that position but they can't you're in that position because they can control you in that position Do you go what I mean? I would stop traveling. I wouldn't fly anywhere like

Unless I knew there was gonna be what I wanted at the other end. I remember one trip. I had to go to Hong Kong and It was a big money-shot job and I was like I'm not going and I remember getting to the airport and my manager was like You got on the plane. I was I'm not fucking going nowhere you know I mean I've been up for three nights I mean I spank as well and it was like you've got to get on that plane I was like I'm not going and he literally made a phone call a fake fucking phone call to this guy and he got this guy say yeah I'll meet you off the airplane I've got you know I've got an ape for you and I was talking to this guy and I was like okay great we got on the plane the guy didn't even exist it was somebody one of his mates so I go end up in

Hong Kong and I was there for four days five days and um I couldn't get any I couldn't get my drug of choice and all I could get was ease so I remember doing a fucking untold ease Hong Kong ease in the 90s must have been absolute rocket fuel yeah fucking mental and you know and i ended up i set fire to the hotel room and i yeah i woke up i was smoking in my hotel room set fire to the bed and i woke up in hospital covered in iodine bright orange iodine that covered me from head to toe i was like where am i and it's like and um yeah i tried to blame it on the light bulbs i was like no it must have been the light bulbs around the mirror and it was like fucking smoking in bed but i'd so i literally so off my nut on ease and after that i was kind of

just what i'm not doing this again do you know what i mean i'm not flying anywhere i would get to the airport and just decide now i'm going back to the dealer's house so i've become a loose cannon so people just stop booking me stop flying me out to places which for somebody of me like me at that point in time was great because i just thought i ain't gotta go anywhere good because i can still earn that money here and you want you wanted the familiar mentalness of home not the unfamiliar mentalness of abroad of abroad I had a triangle towards the end which I always explain to people when I meet them you know there was a triangle of addiction it was you know

I would leave my house I would go to the dealers I would stay at the dealers I would leave the dealers go to work go back to my house for two days then go back that was the triangle and then it was always so alcohol cocaine cock cock alcohol cocaine that was it that was up to three i could never do one of those one without the other two it was the same with the same as my pattern you know uh traveling

or going out of my comfort zone and then but towards the end it had to be set in stone i need to know where i was going i need to know that i was going to get what i wanted is it interesting that you're out of control in in some regards but completely over overly controlling of your own life in other regards you know i would say it's my shit but you know it was my life was shit but it was my shit and it was like you know, it was my life was shit, but it was my shit and it was like, you know, I You know I could control The little that I had to control and that's all I needed to control

Anything beyond that going to the airport checking in get on a plane. Fuck that. Why do I need to do that? Do you know I mean? I just sell that or that house can go or this can go that can go and that was that was always a much easier option you know and i i think towards the end of my using i was only happy when i had no money because i knew i wasn't i couldn't use you know i i it'd be a wednesday and i couldn't even afford a packet of cigarettes but i knew thursday i'd be working again do you you get what I mean? So for that Wednesday, there would be some ease in this disease that enabled me to sleep all right and just think,

okay, I don't need to leave the house today. So you said that your drug of choice was cocaine. Was that pretty much predominantly what it was? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. That was a drug of choice. You know, the drug of any other drug that i got my hands on you know i used tomazipan diazepam rohypnol they were kind of like the pegging parts of the cocaine so i would take cocaine i'd take downers to suppress the cocaine i would drink alcohol to level the cocaine and then i

would take more and then of course i discovered freebasing and crack and then i discovered crystal meth and you know it's just the natural progression so anyone it was it was a natural progression you know suddenly there'd be a new drug and someone oh you need to try this and i'll be like oh oh i don't like it and then boom bob's your uncle i'm on that for two years do you get what i mean it was kind of like anything that could take me somewhere else like than being in here and being in here was there anything that was too much for you anything that was too strong or that you said you didn't want to do crystal meth the first time i did crystal meth i just thought never ever touching that again the comedown was so bad i remember sitting on church on boxwell bridge wanting to throw myself in because i lived right by it at that point,

and I was sitting there and it was raining and I remember sitting there thinking, I can't do this anymore, I can't do this anymore, you know. And then I thought, oh fuck, I ain't got any cigarettes. So I went home to get my cigarettes, and of course, once I got home, I sat down and had a cigarette, and thought, I'm not going back out again. But you know, it was like, if it had been two more minutes on that bridge i probably would have jumped in you know because the come down was so severe and i thought you know what i'm never doing that again and and it wasn't the never doing the drug again i was never going to come down again from it so i had

every intention of still smoking it but i just thought if i leveled it and worked it out so that i didn't have to come down like I didn't do with cocaine. People just go, oh, you must have heavy come downs. Never had a come down. I was always on it. Do you get what I mean? As I say to people, I used and abused drugs for 28 years and there was never a point where I wasn't on drugs for 28 years. I was on some people's drug even when I slept.

And I knew that the last five years, when I finally went to sleep, I would sleep in the recovery position because I was that scared that I was going to choke on my own vomit every night. It's so bizarre, so awful. So that's getting us towards 27 now, 27 i'm gonna guess yeah yeah and then that's when you said it really started to turn into a like a spiral out of control well you know the crystal

meth didn't come until a lot later so the crystal meth was at the end of my drug using uh about 27 28 that kind of was like you know we'd gone through ecstasy. We'd gone back onto cocaine. I'd moved to New York. I'd moved back from New York. I lived in New York for a year thinking that, okay, you know, because ecstasy was really good at that point in time in New York. So I thought, oh, I'll go and stay there. Travelling around the world on an international drugs tour.

Totally, 100%. Because I could earn the money that I was getting and I could command that money for those audiences. So, yeah, it kind of just gone from partying. The party just didn't stop. It kind of went from party to three-day binges, four-day binges. And then the psychosis started

and I started to lose the plot a little. I kind of would read itosis started and kind of like I started to lose the plot a little I kind of would read it back in and just think I can't do this and I would end up in really dark situations and end up in places that no human being should ever end up and I kind of just thought used to think okay I've got a real problem this is a problem so what I would do is we just change dealer or i would change the situation i would change the scenario i would change circles of friends it's a proxy it's a proxy for making progress isn't it it's it's an analogy an analogous situation that works

side by side with what could be moving forward but it's not it's just a it's just different yeah it's different i used to call it hoovering out the hoover because you know it's like it's like you know you stick you you stick the nozzle of the hoover into the hoover bag and all that's going around is the same old shit being regurgitated constantly but you feel that you're doing something about it i'm actually cleaning people do that in all sorts of all sorts of ways right you know perfect example let's go to another um area that i touch on a lot which is productivity a lot of people will talk about how they they've got this new nootropic or i've really worked out my my morning caffeine timing and i'm like dude you work with your phone on your desk next to your laptop like you're sweating the small stuff um to talk about psychosis i'm microdosing yeah

yeah bro you've got like you've got twitter open on your laptop that is not where you're doing your work um i got a little story for you about christoph he supports eric prids at the moment he's a dj from the north of north i've known him for 10 years phenomenal guy and i had him on the podcast and he um he was telling us about a story about when he was at the back end of his world tour and he'd been on tour, I think, for around about six weeks. And he went to bed in a hotel on the Thursday night, South America somewhere.

And he remembers looking at his calendar and thinking, the next time that I get a bed proper bed is like tuesday it's thursday and he's got a gig uh goes straight from the gig to the airport get on the plane to get a couple of hours sleep do all this sort of stuff so um that finishes up at the end of a long tour where he's kind of real intense and he doesn't have a tour manager either which is an interesting one for him so he plays this big show has this big high has all this energy goes back to the hotel it's him and room service on his own in a dark room right so he's got this incredible crescendos of up and down

and then he gets back to newcastle uh gets into his house and essentially enters a state of psychosis that's um from everything that's happened over the last six weeks. And anyway, it's a morning time, about five in the morning, six in the morning. And he comes to, he describes this situation. He'd been watching like QVC, late night TV, because that's the only thing that's on at five in the morning. And he realized that his hair was shit. So he went to Asda and he comes to, to find himself sat on the floor of the toiletries aisle in Asda. And he's got one of every hair product out on the floor. And he's just taking a little bit and slapping it on his head and taking a

little bit of this wax and slapping it on his head and taking a bit of this gel and slapping it on his head. And he comes to, and he's like, what am I, what am I, what am I doing here? Oh,

not too sure. Stands up, gets a floret of broccoli, 48 dishwasher tablets, and just walks out. And he was like, and at that moment, I thought, do you know, I probably could do with speaking to somebody. I'm like, fucking hell. And that's just from sleep, Deb. Yeah.

I mean, I used to stay up for four or five days, and I would be out. And there was this one time I was in Liverpool Street Station, train station, and I was with all my friends. I was, like, talking to people and then they were morphing into the wall. And I was, like, running after people going, oh, did you see my mate? And literally I was on my own. I don't know how I got there. I lived, like uh in Brick Lane

at that point it's a Liverpool Street station obviously I traveled there to go home but and I was like talking to people and then cars would pull up and I was trying to get in cars and the cars weren't really there it was insane and it went on and on and on I managed to get home I remember being in my flat and I remember my boyfriend saying to me Tony you do realize these people aren't here? And I'm like, what are you on about? I'm in the bed. I was in the living room having a party with like eight or nine of my friends,

all dancing and literally having a party. They weren't there. And I remember eating soup on the bed and he was like, what are you doing? I was like, I'm eating. And he was like, Tony, you realise this isn't real. And he called an ambulance and the ambulance come and they were going to section me. And an ambulance and the ambulance come and they were going to section me and they took me to the hospital and they did all this and luckily it's

because I hadn't slept I'd gone into this state my brain had completely gone but I could it was at that moment that two days afterwards I realized why how people get committed and how they get sectioned where their minds go my mind had gone I'd lost my mind and people were like i was talking to people and they were like morphing literally morphing into car seats fucking mental and that was just from that was from being awake all that time and taking so much cocaine that my brain couldn't go my brain started and that was kind of at those turning points of where life had suddenly got a lot lot a lot lot darker because you know i was losing it i was losing the plot even the most balanced among us i think are only five days of no sleep

away from being completely mental from being that hobo on the street that shouts that shouts words and has poo on the back of his shoe. 100%. All of us are. And the thin line of sanity that all of us are kind of wobbling on, right? You're only a couple of travesties in your life away from something sending you down a spiral. And the problem that I feel so much sympathy for that particular area of your career because had you have had little breaks had it have been like five years on one year off five years on one year off during that one year you

could have done some work built up some resilience you know it started to do the introspection that you required to be able to know what but chris if i'd had a year off and i went back to into what i was doing i would have died. Why? Because my body wouldn't have been able to take what I was doing again. Do you know what I mean? It's like literally, you know, my body had got so accustomed to what I was putting in it, it kind of built up a resilience, you know. My liver, my kidneys and everything, you know, kind of become dependent on what I was doing.

When you stop doing that stuff and you take time out and, you know, addiction isn't something that you can time out and you know addiction isn't something that you can switch off and switch on in that sense so when I if I you know say I got clean and I have a relapse that relapse won't suddenly go back to one glass of wine and one line it will go straight back to six grams of coke and smoking crystal meth all night where I left off my body won't be able to take that so my body will go into shock and shut down and what happens is you can start to shut down and the mind the brain goes that's what happens is what kills so many people let's look at amy winehouse you know her body couldn't take it she started drinking again and that's what happens you know it people really

underestimate the power of what the what alcohol and other drugs do to the body do you get what i mean and kind of so taking time out was never an option anyway surprisingly surprisingly actually was one of the best safest things that you could have done was not taking a break yeah 100 that's interesting you know and i used to call it chemical scaffolding it was what kept me because people how come you're still fucking still up still awake still alive it's like chemical scaffolding it was what kept me because people are like how come you're still fucking still up still awake still alive it's like chemical scaffolding of course you've got these structures right that aren't part of you but that you're relying on yeah i totally get that so before we move on to kind of recovery and the rest of this stuff i wanted to ask what was one of the heaviest parties that you can remember going to might be the heaviest or just one that comes to mind i kind of think every weekend when we did trade i used to be resident a club called trade

which was at turnmills it's a legendary club and trade was like the club was the first places in in the country that opened at 3 a.m and went on till midday and it was uh yeah you probably would have been got that there proper burkham style stuff it was listen um burkham had nothing on trade trust me trade was like the mecca it had like an alley called muscle alley what the muscle marys hung out you had a heavy techno room with tony devitt and all those guys we did trade like they had archways where you would queue up to buy your drugs like proper dealer shops it was insane and trade was like you know it was groundbreaking it's revolutionary it was like the place to go so every weekend kind of would be the heaviest party and was that you were you playing there or just yeah i was resident there yeah

at my own room called trade light and uh i would you know that's kind of where the disco jesus thing came from because we turned seven records into a 12-hour set do you know what i mean it was just like it was insane you know so i mean there was so many and then i would leave there and go on all day sunday all night sunday to go to dpm and then all day monday tuesday wednesday so every weekend was kind of like that and then i would then after that there were other clubs that we started called orange and fire in london we started all those venues they all come from my my desire to take drugs you know um and my friends desire to take drugs we couldn't stop we so we would create these after-hour parties speaking as someone who's been in the industry for

a long time and a lot of the people that are in it as well listening might get this sense there's a lot of the things that you're talking about here that we now in the industry nowadays are trying to recreate but it's like it's the kiddies version it's the nerfed version right so you were talking about um the party that the late night drinking club that's open 24 hours and then the police come and they shut it down and then everyone kind of runs around the corner and then they come back like there is secret parties that get done now but it's all that happens is you get issued it via text message at 7 p.m on the night and it's that's rave culture that's rave culture we did that in the acid house days you'd go to a phone

box and have to call a number and they'll tell you where what field to go to okay you've got to go 40 miles from here right when you get there go to another phone box and it was like you know it's like being in scooby fucking doom it was like trying to get to that phone box to find a field and then you'd get there you'd be in a field for two hours the police would come and raid it 40 000 people would be sent home and that's kind of what it is that's rape culture you know people long for that today yeah people long for the thrill of that you think you look at this now and you know let's say you have these sorts of parties but it's the tickets fucking sold through fat soma or ticket web or fucking ticket arena right like it's not it's not underground it's right yeah it's people it's people trying to recreate that sense of the of

the golden era right and it is it's kind of i know that it's tragic and it's i mean you know ask those people that are trying to create that to name four of the tracks from that time that they're trying to recreate and the artist's name and i'm guarantee you they don't know them you know they they they read about rave culture they dream about rave culture you know there's something really amazing you know at the moment with this lockdown and uh the way we are we all put in our houses something really creative and magical is going to come from this a really creative and magical because you know it's times like this that something stuff starts to grow

our juices flow in our brains and we think i've got a really good idea let's do this and you know some really amazing stuff's going to come from this i saw um jackie mawn who's one of my good buddies just been out with roger sanchez in ibiza yeah juicing and um they're fucking they're producing tracks at 130 bpm and they can fuck off yeah okay I'll pass that on to him but you know in 6 months, 12 months time there is going to be some

ridiculous EPs, there's going to be some amazing books all of that stuff's coming what's pissing me off the most about this is when I keep hearing these idiots you know I'm not going and saying any names but there's certain djs setting up petitions to say we should have a seven-day party and it's like fuck off man do you understand that nightclubs and pubs are going to be like the lowest of the lowest right down there on the on the on the

after cafes after after restaurants. It's all got schools and colleges and factories are going to come first. It's going to be a slow turn. We ain't going to see a nightclub open this year. No way will we see a nightclub of Minstrelstown or any of those big clubs. They're not going to open until October, November, December. No way. This is not going to go away.

It's like Italy and all these places. No club's going to open in Italy until there's a vaccine. They've already said it. You know, why would they go down, get it under wraps and say, okay, you can go out partying again. I know. You can go back to the gym and start spreading this again. It's not going to happen.

Use your head. There isn't going to be no big VJ celebrations. There's not going to happen. Use your head. There isn't going to be no big VJ celebrations. There's not. What's going to happen is other avenues are going to come out of it. And it's not going to be live streaming from your bedroom, but it's going to be other avenues. Did you see the Defected Live Festival?

Yes, I did. Now that is a shit hot way to do it. I know everyone's doing live streams. A lot of DJs are. It's getting a bit old now but i mean i did one the other week for the evening standards i did one last week for harvey nichols uh live from my garden and this friday i'm doing a massive one which is going to get released tomorrow i'm doing victoria beckham's birthday party for the nhs live from live virtual

virtual birthday party yeah it's her birthday she wants to invite all the key workers in the nhs to her birthday party via my garden so i'm dj for two hours set playing all their favorite tracks um live from our garden for the nhs and people can donate and they can also download the next day they can download the playlist and they can also download the set uh and all the money goes to the nhs and key workers so that's this friday and that's going to go out just from her instagram feed alone to 28 million uh then from david bees i think he's got something like 100 yeah so it's going to go out it's going to go out by he's if they get the kids involved as well i think the kids are probably got a 20 mil 20 mil they're all gonna be involved because they're all

calling in to ask for tracks so the whole thing is just gonna level up and level up and level up that's amazing so we've been working on it for a week so they get they're gonna release it tomorrow which is tuesday um the the evidence they're gonna really like the press release it's going to go out tomorrow. So I'm really excited about that. I kind of just think, and then I'm doing a one for British Vogue

and that's it. I'm kind of just like, you know, this is my job. This is my career. I'm not a bedroom DJ. Do you know what I mean? Right now,

everyone's a bedroom. Well, you're a garden DJ. I am a garden DJ, yeah. But you know what? It's fine because that's my career. I'm not, I'm not DJing to 42 people on a live feed like most people do.

Do you get what I mean? This is Taylor. Taylor. So for the people that are just listening, there is a very, very nice doggo that's just been brought into the middle of the screen. I'm sorry, you don't understand my love for dogs and now I'm not going to be able to focus on anything

except for Taylor. Taylor is 14. She's the saviour of all life. She's the best thing in the world. She has such an amazing spirit and she's like everyone says that about their dogs. Trust me, Taylor has this magic about her. She's amazing. Well I'm looking forward to seeing her during the live stream. The best thing that I've seen seen avid listeners will know what i'm about to say best thing i've seen so far in lockdown is my friend david coverdale who was supposed to be going away on a stag do to istanbul and his missus organized a virtual stag do where he had all of his friends on skype video call and he got dressed up he had the inflatable hat and they were drinking and they did the full night that was a virtual stag day and i was like that's fucking sick um before we go that's it but that's it chris it's all about creativity and it's about you know

what we make the best of what we got and it's about i think what people will keep forgetting in this whole lockdown like i can't go out i can't i'm losing i've lost 50 quid from not doing that job look at what you have got instead of what you haven't got and you know what people are moaning about being locked indoors you're not locked indoors you're at home safe that's the difference do you go what i mean it's it's not about being like oh i can't do this i can't do that just breathe man this is this is a magical time it's highlighted to me the people that have a growth mindset and the people that don't and the people that have that growth mindset i'm seeing flourishing in this situation and the people that don't i'm seeing stagnating and even regressing

100 100 you know uh it's it's true it's fucking awful time you know i lost my one of my best friends this morning my friend Debbie, she passed away and her mum passed away on Sunday last Sunday so her sister Jane who I grew up with has lost not only her mum but lost her sister in a week from this virus and then you've got these idiots saying

it's not real, it's not happening and blah blah blah it's just like, you know what, fuck off don't get me started on David I eich in london real yeah so many of them there's so many of these dickheads and it's just like you know what you tell that to the key workers you tell that to the people that not being able to say goodbye to their own mums and sisters you know it's heartbreaking it really is it's just you know and you know and people the sad thing is people are buying into it. It's like, what the fuck?

So there's this thing called compensatory control, right? It's a psychological effect. In times of great uncertainty, people will turn to more spurious or more narrative-based solutions. So, for instance, someone that's given an uncertain medical diagnosis is more likely to see patterns in meaningless static on a tv and the reason is that we would much sooner believe that the virus is going around because of the plan of some malign scientists or the transhumanist lizard people whatever it might be rather than just chance mutation and that leads

us to want to create these crazy conspiracies because it gives us it gives us a semblance it personifies the the viruses the at the behest of someone someone chose this to happen not just it's a random chance you know yeah of course of course um i want to ask if you were to go back you might not even be able to remember this, if you go back and go across most of the big bits of your DJing career and you needed to absolutely take the roof off with a track, what are some of the tracks that you would drop from back then? Oh, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. It's like asking you to choose one of your favourite children.

You know, what it is, is when you ask someone what their favorite tracks are and and you know straight away you that person stops to think because i think if i say this it's going to sound like i'm cheesy if i say that you know there's there's tracks throughout my career that are that you know the right time in the right place you will take any roof off you know the old all the classics robin s we're lovely you know alison limerick all that stuff that i grew up with that people think of cheese now are major tracks you know someday cc rogers in the right place there's so many amazing amazing electric tracks of of every era of every decade that i just like go back to, you know,

that's what's so, I'm blessed. So blessed. So many of my sets that I play these days, especially for fashion. So if I'm in house DJ now for Versace, so when I do that stuff for Donatella, she wants all the old classics so I can reel that stuff out. I had the most amazing time. You know, I couldn't,

I could not pinpoint one track and say to you that's it because there's so many there's so much so many to go i mean it's kind of just like you know i have my own personal favorites that i are that tracks that mean so much to me do you know what i mean um that i wouldn't play out because i get too emotional oh wow yeah i um. Yeah, I think Christophe Cozzi that I mentioned earlier on, I think he's got a couple of those where he struggles. He sometimes struggles to drop them because he gets too emotionally involved. Also, I'm going to put it out there. It's the biggest drug.

Music is the best and biggest drug I've ever taken. It has the ability to transport you to anywhere in the world and to be with people that are no longer with us. You close your eyes and you play that track, they're there. And that's the magic of music. And, you know, when I'm DJing and I get one of those sets where I can take people on a journey, it always ends in tears. Always.

You know, because I will play a track and i just think you know like frankie knuckles tears i mean come on you know who can't lose it to something like that barry white ecstasy by barry white it's just like you know those certain tracks can take me back to that mud ridden field that i first heard them in you know the sounds of blackness the pressure will take me straight back to the sound factory with frankie knuckles when the first time you ever played it you know there's so many things that that i have so much euphoric recall around so many different tracks because i live those tracks it's not i just no one introduced me to them i discovered in it with a lot of other

people at the right time and you know that's the beauty of it it's because it's more than the music right when you hear a track and the people that are listening will know the old tracks i think this is why we have particular nostalgia and why so i'll just stop you there they're not old tracks chris you know what i mean it doesn't get old no my point is tracks that have... People get old. People get old. You know what? Music doesn't get old. Music's timeless. The perfect track is timeless.

It's not something that you go, oh, that's a really old track. It's not old. Music's timeless. Let me reframe. Tracks that have been with you for a significant duration of time, tracks that have been with you for years,

because what you get, well, the first time you hear a track, you hear the music and you hear the sounds and you get the emotional effect, but as you hear that track more and more and you're experiencing something while that track is playing, that track when it then gets played is more than the music, it's the compounding of every experience and every time that you have heard that track. So Teenage Crimes, the Axwell remote of that, was my first season in Ibiza, 2010. And it's got that really haunting, beautiful kind of vocal.

How old are you? I'm 32. It broke up then. That's how I heard. You're 32? 32, yeah. 32, okay, cool. Yeah.

Carry on. You just, I remember that because that was the year, 2010 was like peak Swedish house mafia. You know, it was when big house, big room house was kind of all the way. Yeah. And that track, man, like someone can drop that track. Someone can drop Eric Prid's Opus and I'll lose my shit.

That big swell, that big sort of 10 minute thing. Because it's stored back here. That feeling and that emotion's here. It's not here, this is stupid thinking. It's here. This is the part of our brain that wants to be loved. It wants us to be hugged. It wants us to have that feeling of euphoric recall

from our first ecstasy we ever took. It wants all of that stuff. And that's where it's stored. And those memories are stored here. And as soon as you play that track and you go straight back to that point. Do you get what I mean? It doesn't get better than that. It doesn't get better than that. It is, you know, and that's one of the reasons why... But we spend our lifetimes chasing that.

Yes, we do. We do. Did you ever do Ibiza? Did I do Ibiza? Of course I did. You didn't mention it. I think you haven't mentioned it today. Talk to me about Ibiza.

You know what? I did Ibiza in 89, 90, 91, 92. I used to play Amnesia. My best friends owned it. Sandra and Jose owned it. This is before it had a roof. And I used to go over and I used to play with Alfredo. I first played in Ibiza in 85 at Coup,

then, which is now called Privilege, for a guy called Basilio. I spent a whole summer out there. Yeah, I've always played Ibiza. I was there last year doing Glitterbox. I'm there this summer doing Glitterbox. Amazing. You know, for me, the island has so many memories.

You know, there's some amazing hidden films going around at the moment. There's one on YouTube where I'm interviewing Andy Weatherall in 1989 at Privilege, at Coup. No, it was at Amnesia and me and andy are talking i went over in uh in 89 with the film crew to ibiza uh and me danny rampling and all that lot we're all living in the same we said we were staying in the same villa and i interviewed everyone we felt we filmed the whole island and then the guy that did the films i I don't know what happened to him, he just disappeared with the films. And they've just started resurfacing now. There's one on YouTube at the moment, the Andy Weverill one.

What can people search? What should people search if they're… That's only Andy Weverill. It comes up 1989, Amnesia. But, you know, there's like a… There's about a whole week's worth of film footage floating around. I would love to get, you know… I know not last whole week's worth of film footage floating around. I would love to get, you know, I know not last year,

the year before they were showing them at Pikes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, I want to find out who's got them. Someone does. Yeah, someone does. Okay, so I want to talk about recovery now. Yeah, go on. You're living this life in deep. Kind of it sounds like there's been some experiences that have

been in stark contrast to the fun that maybe sort of teens into 20s into early 20s and then it starts to become from you said use to abuse is there is there an inflection point with this is it the meth on the bridge or is it something else or is it gradual compounding over time it just built and built and built and built and you know what happens is with addiction it strips away and it chisels away your self-worth and your self-esteem it leaves you with nothing and it left me like rocking back and forth in a room wanting to kill myself you know I lost everything I lost my teeth I pulled my own teeth out on crystal meth I went insane and what happened was at the end own teeth out on crystal meth i i went insane and and what happened was at the end uh there was a god-given moment one evening i was in a club called the cross rocking backwards and forwards as i did

my partner at the time came in and you know he never came to that club and it was a friday night and i'd already been out for two nights and i just thought i can't cope because he would go to the places that i worked and throw glasses at me and drag me out. That night, he didn't. He came out. And what he did do was he looked at me and said, what happened to you? And that was the God-given moment that changed my life. I kind of just looked at him and I just couldn't answer the question.

And when I tell this story, I do a lot of talks around the country and and then you know within na and other stuff uh it always makes me makes me want to cry because you know it was that god-given moment i changed everything um and it was from that night i i then decided i couldn't go on because you know i didn't think about where i was going to be next week or what what was coming in you know going on a holiday all i thought about was my funeral i thought about who was going to be at my funeral, what songs were going to be played at my funeral. And that was all I had to look forward to was dying. And then suddenly I decided that I didn't want to die. And I got help and I went away to treatment.

I went away to rehab for six months. And I came forward to London. Because you know when you're in treatment, they say, you can't go back to DJing. You can't go back to that life. You can't go back to that boyfriend. You know, and I was like, well, I'm not going back to anything. I'm going forward to it.

And I kind of kept that momentum going. And I'm now 13 years, four months clean. I had nothing when I came into treatment, when I went to, at the end of my years. I had one pair of trainers and one tooth left. And today I have everything. Today I have freedom. I have an amazing house.

I have, you know, I have, you know, I have gifts beyond my wildest dreams. I have freedom. I can do whatever I want in life i can't at the moment right now you're on modern wisdom podcast which is obviously exactly what you want to be doing yeah no but yeah but you know i can do but i had the freedom to do what i want because you know i'm not chained to anything i've just i've just realized based on your timeline of recovery, you've had your dog Taylor since before you were clean.

Yeah, I have, yeah. So Taylor was a guilt present for being out for four or five days, and I got Taylor as a present from my then partner. And I remember getting her, and I had another dog called Reggie before that, and we wanted another dog for Taylor to keep in company. And we got Taylor, and then I got clean. And Taylor got pregnant while I was in rehab. She got raped by the other dog.

So basically, Taylor's been through everything with me. You know, that's what I'm saying to you. She has this spirituality about her that just is incredible there she is there she is you know she knows every emotion she knows every feeling uh yeah she's like she's one of a kind and yeah so she's she's one of the joys of recovery she really is do you think it's possible to do the DJing life as a young guy and do it in a

well balanced way yeah I do how do you do that there's some DJs who maybe think I'm in an industry of excess I get stuff for free DJs get paid well. Some of them do well.

I just think that if you, this is your chosen job and this is your career, you look at it as your career. You don't look at it as a party. If you look at this, if you're in this because you want to party, then don't bother. You know, you're going to burn yourself out.

It's going to end in tears. You look at this as a career and you have a passion for music and you have a love for music and you you want people to to understand your passion then do it for the right reasons and you can do it constructively as long as you're creative and forever moving forward and not standing in one place or being in the jam jar with the lid screwed on and going around and around and around, then you're not going anywhere. As long as you keep going somewhere, you can do this.

You can do this. You know, you don't have to burn yourself out to do this for the love of a job. Because if you have, you know, the one thing that we all have in common is the love of music. You know, and I kind of think if this is your chosen career and you're gifted within that career of knowing how, you know and i kind of think if this is your chosen career and you have you're gifted within that career of knowing how you know some people play music and some people make music right a dj you know isn't about playing music it's about reading a dance floor it's about knowing your art form you know i see so many celebrities coming on going'm a DJ now, you're not a DJ you're pressing play there's a total difference

a DJ knows how to warm up a room it knows how to take you on a journey that's the difference you don't have to as I said before you're not the party you're there to facilitate the party if you stick to those rules

you can't you can do this job without burning yourself up i think a lot of now the prevalence of increased competition amongst nightlife venues and social media which is a specialist tool which needs to be used i think there's a lot of a lot of promoters that might be listening who feel that they are the party i've always made this this analogy ever since i started you know like 15 years 13 years ago that there's two types of club promoters one of them are people who realize that they can make good money quickly from filling clubs and they have a capacity to it and there's a second type that are people who love to party and they've realized fucking hell i can get paid to get pissed.

And the ones that get paid to get pissed don't have to party too long because they'll lose the party. That's the difference. And the ones that want to make money quickly aren't around for long either. You know, the ones with the biggest egos, they've got to remember there's going to be another 30,000 other people with the same size ego who are going to take their place. You know, it's a nightclub. Don't forget that. That's all it is, is a party. Do you get what I mean? You either do it well or fuck off. It's as simple as that. Man, the problem is that people believe that it's this crazy transcendent experience that all of this stuff's going on. They start to believe they're on hype, right? Especially

you've got these people blowing smoke up your ass you've got drugs and parties and girls and guys and all the rest of it that's all happening but you're right there is and i've said this to every member of staff that's ever worked for us there's like there's the chris speech right when they get promoted they become one of our junior managers and the chris speech says mate no matter how far in we get how long long you stay with us, whether you become full-time or whatever it is, don't forget that it's people getting drunk in a room to music. And that's all it's ever, ever going to be. And you know what?

You're the promoter of a party. You're not the one making the music. The music's the most important thing in there. Don't treat your DJs like they're a bunch of cunts. Do you get what I mean? They're the ones that are doing the job. They treat us like cunts. Yeah yeah but you know dj dickheads um okay so final final few things now um gq said that you'd met prince michael jackson and jay-z and were totally unimpressed by any of them

no that's bullshit that's bullshit prince prince is one of the most amazing geniuses I've ever worked this earth how could you not be impressed by Prince that was my question how can you Jay Z I've met so many people from my career just hang out with Andy Warhol these people are geniuses

how can you not be impressed by these people what they do they're masters of their art Prince isn't someone that went in the studio and got someone else to make his tracks for him. You know, that guy produced everything that he ever touched, played every instrument, did everything. How can you not be impressed by that?

Do you know, no, so there's your answer. Of course I'm impressed. Good, good man. I was in awe of these people. So what's next? What happens next? What's next?

There's a book. I'm writing a book. I have loads and loads and loads of mad offers all of a sudden. Lots of TV stuff.

I'm starting a new TV channel, programme. I'm doing a YouTube channel. I'm doing a, yeah, there's a lot of stuff coming up you know what um it's all creative and it's really i'm not you know i've been asked to do a lot of silly

things which i said no to too long in the tooth for that rubbish do you know what i mean um but for me uh most important thing is happiness as long as I'm happy doing what I'm doing, then it will work. What is happiness to you now? What makes you happy? Happiness is being at home with my partner, David, and being at home with Taylor, and being in the moment,

not chasing, looking at things that I don't have. Happiness is knowing that what I've got right now is enough to go on saying and and making do you know it's not about making do that's the what just long things like you know it's it's about making magic or what you have and that's what it's about and you know there's so many things that are coming now people could, people could go and say to me all the time,

oh, the last three years your career's really took off. And it's like, no, it hasn't. It's like being in the 13 years of sobriety and recovery that has enabled me to become the person who I was and who I am today. It's that person, and that comes from happiness. Yeah, I think, you know, I'm going back in the studio. We're defected there's loads of stuff coming up just you know some really amazing things that are in the

pipeline that's so cool yeah that's so so I'm blessed you know I'm blessed and nice it's not about luck luck's winning the lottery you know being blessed I'm blessed in the sense that I got a second winning the lottery, you know, being blessed, I'm blessed in the sense that I got a second chance at life and you know I'm not going to throw that away and I think that every moment that we have is precious especially today when you lose someone, you lose people in your life and you just kind of re-evaluate things, you know, because I don't need a drink or a drug to be an arsehole I can do that very easily myself but you know I but you know what happens is I this part of my brain is the took the the program that I work within Narcotics Anonymous which is how I stay clean and sometimes it takes a while

to kick in and when it kicks in it gives me a boot up the arse that I need to be your behaviors are off key or the way you're treating people, the way you're treating yourself, it's about self-care. And as long as I'm looking after this, everything else falls into place. Yeah. So after lockdown, who knows? Man, that's a beautiful message. What a lovely, lovely way to end it.

Thank you. I'm really excited. I think, you know,'s a a lot of djs and people in nightlife who need to hear this kind of message you know i'm around those who haven't gone to the extremes perhaps that you did yeah i wouldn't recommend that i wouldn't recommend it i know you know people always say oh if there's a part of you that you could change, what would it be? And I was just saying none of it because, you know, that's my journey.

That's who I am. That shit I went through, that shit I created, all of that stuff I went before, it's kind of brought me to this point in my life. And I think if I changed any of that, then I wouldn't be where I am today in the sense of I wouldn't have found what it was I was looking for all that time without sounding like a really bad U2 song. But you know what? It's a weird one.

It really is. Yeah. Life has another way of dropping serendipity on us a lot, doesn't it? There's some poetic irony that just keeps on looping around you know with the within you know when we we showed the film at Selfridges we did six nights of previews for the film and each night we had to go and talk and you know it was like a cute little Q&A and the guys were like saying it's not the film's not a story of pity it's a story of redemption and I kept thinking why are they saying that it was really, it really is

a story of redemption in a sense you know they, when you see the trailers for it or you, they use like dramatic lines like I spent a million pounds on drugs they're not boasts people are like how can you boast about that taking it out of context but

they've used those lines just so it catches people's eyes. When you see the story, there's no boasting in it. That's not me boasting about spending that money. That's far from it. I'm not reveling in it. You know, it destroyed my life. But the boasting about, there is no boasting in it. What it takes you to, you know, I'm just blessed to be alive.

I'm very glad that you are. Really, really glad you are. I think the world's a brighter place because of it. So people want to find out more about you, keep up to date with what it is you've got going on. Where should they go? DJ Fat Tony on Instagram. There's a link on there to my

YouTube channel. I'm on Instagram 24 hours a day. My partners don't hate the fact that I'm on there that much. You know I'm kind of you know it's an addiction, it's a healthy addiction. Yeah they're on my YouTube channel. Yeah those are the two places you can always find me. Amazing. We'll be linked in the show notes below of course. I recommend that you go and check it out because there are some fantastic memes i think i don't think there's anyone putting out a higher velocity of memes than you are on instagram at the moment you know what like chris i get so many messages every day of people saying thank you you're helping us get through this thank you for your sense of humor you know it's kind of like that

the messages that i get from certain people you you know, so many messages every day. I reply to every one of them because someone's taken the time to message me so they deserve to get an answer. And then people are really shocked that you reply. I reply, they're like, oh, my God, I wasn't expecting you to reply. Why wouldn't I? Well, I message David Beckham and he doesn't reply. And I always say to David Beckham, you need to start replying to your messages.

David, this is a you problem. They're all jumping the ship. Why aren't you putting up more memes, David? Why isn't your music track selection for your missus' birthday better? And why aren't you replying to your DMs? That's what I want to know. Look, Tony, it's been fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on.

I'm going to look forward to the book coming out and to following your YouTube channel. It's been brilliant. If you've enjoyed the episode, drop Tony a message or you know where to find me at ChrisWellX on all social media. Like, share. If you're new here, hit the subscribe button. But for now, Tony, man, thank you. Good bless. thank you very much for tuning in if you enjoyed the episode please share it with a friend it would make me very happy indeed don't forget if you've got any questions or comments or feedback feel free to message me at chris will x on all social media. But for now, goodbye friends.