8 years after first meeting legendary hard house/ techno pioneer Tony De Vit, Fergie is both Northern Ireland's biggest club star and at 24, the leading light of the new generation of DJs (Mixmag recently dubbed him 'the most exciting DJ in the world'). Making his name spinning the hard house style his mentor Tony helped popularise, he's gone from being an anonymous unqualified Northern Irish club kid (he left school at 13) to Dolce & Gabbana-wearing Radio 1 celebrity DJ.

"Do you fancy coming for a night out in Northern Ireland? We've got a big weekend lined up, I'm doing my last night at the Met, then another club and We'll sort everything out for you, flights and all that. I reckon it'll be a mad one."

Sitting in a cafe not far from Radio 1's Central London office just before Christmas, DJ Fergie was persuasive in his invitation to sample night out in Belfast and 2 months later, I'm in a black cab leaving Belfast City Airport for my first trip to the British province. Upfront in the cab, the driver's chatting to Fergie via my mobile, receiving detailed instructions of how to find the brand new state-of-the-art guest house one of Fergie's friends has just opened for visiting DJs.

The Met (February 2004, Armagh)

"I still like to do the clubs in Northern Ireland, places like The Met in Armagh. It's a great feeling coming back having three thousand people coming to see you play; you're thinking 'fucking hell'. I remember going there when I couldn't even afford a box of cigarettes." Fergie January 2004.

"It's Saturday night and it's the 'Weeeek-eeeeennnnndddddddd!"

Bellowing his catchphrase from the side of the stage, local promoter/ MC Mark Dobin scans the packed tiers of Armaghs' infamous club The Met, Ireland's best known superclub-style venue, where Fergie is something of a local hero. In its time the venue's hosted both Gatecrasher and Godskitchen events as well as being regularly graced by jocks like Judge Jules and Sonique though for Fergie, particularly during his hard house peak, it's been his home turf. Tonight, though, it's the last night for both Fergie and MC Mark Dobbins, closing a circle that began for them both, some 13 years ago.

"I opened the club in 1990 and I first took Fergie down when he was a young kid when he was 13," Mark recalls.

"I sneaked him in through the back door and he stood in the DJ box with me. That was Fergie's first adventure in the club scene."

Few of tonight's revellers appear to be 13 (and even fewer over 20) and most are dressed in the teenage uniforms du jour. For the girls that means miniskirts and skimpy tops while the lads favour the casual street uniform of white shirts, hoodies and sportswear. Entrance to the club comes via football style cages and turnstyles and the vibe inside is not unlike a football terrace of old, with packs of shaved-to-the-bone skinheads facing off, drinking and clearly getting ready for testerone driven ultra-violence should the chance come later. Faint-hearted types appear noticeably absent, so when an angry pack of delinquents begin taunting me over my bleached hair, a hasty retreat to the VIP Room is immediately called for.

Fergie's new long spiky hairdo is also visibly at odds with the cropped skulls of Armagh's ravers, as is his DJ set with its focus on funky techno and pumping energetic house as opposed to the ultra-fast hard house he first made his name with.

"I got really badly criticised for making the move and I still do, from hard house clubbers saying 'Fergie's a fucking traitor'," he admits.

"Because at the time Lisa (Lashes) and I were the biggest DJs playing that hard house circuit but I just felt it wasn't going anywhere, except getting faster and the music started sounding really stale," he explains.

"I think they should put some trust in the DJ that they've followed for a long time, and give them a break, to see what they're going to come up with. "

Most of the crowd happily go along with his set (particularly the scores of girls trying to catch his eye at the front of the stage, though just after he finishes the lads take control, as a massive free-for-all fight breaks out. Clearly well practiced bouncers dive into the fray and as our minibus pulls out of the venue's caged perimeter, ejected combatants can be seen snarling with rage as the bouncers tear them apart. The next club Kube, some 50 miles down the road in Belfast, has a better reputation than the Met, though inside the same white shirted (slightly older) skinhead types dominate, alongside a scattering of student sorts absent from The Met. Slightly worryingly there's no VIP area, though unlike The Met, Kube's skins refrain from in-your-face aggression, so much so that it's even a surprise when another fight breaks out towards the end of Fergie's set, scattering clubbers across the floor. Fergie continues unabashed, and no further incidents spoil what's another highly accomplished, floor-filling house set that most of the crowd clearly adore.


The After-party: Larne.

"It all started between Fergie and Tony De Vit at an after hours party in Larne. I'd brought Fergie in to work at the club, collecting bottles. This was when he was 15 and that was the only way he could get into the club because you had to be over 18. At that time we were bringing Tony over maybe three or four times a year and they met at the after-party." Mark Dobbins.

Back at Mark Dobbins' place (a cottage in the coastal town of Larne), about 30 or 40 of Fergie's mates are scattered around the place, drinking beer and chatting, or more often than not breaking out into mass group sing-songs (usually led by Mark, who's clearly something of a keen minstrel). Fergie's at home and one of the boys, mixing easily and checking up on me frequently ('you alright, you having a good time, you sure?')



It was at one such do that he changed his whole life, by applying an inspiring amount of determination onto connecting with Tony De Vit.

"I used to work in a club in Larne, had a night off and Tony was playing there and I just made sure I was in the DJ box the whole time he was playing," he recalls.

"Every time he took a record off, I'd be chatting to him saying 'alright Tony, what's the crack, I'm a DJ too', basically pestering, pestering and pestering him."

Making friends and more importantly getting his UK number, Fergie then began calling Tony until he was invited to visit him in England, for a guided tour of Britain's clubs.

"I was there for a week and I was supposed to come back home then he said 'If you want to stay, I'll look after you'," said Fergie.

"So I just phoned my Mum and said 'see you later, I'm not coming back'."


Trade (London, 1996)

"When I first started going to Trade I hated it, I'd never met any gay people before, then all of a sudden I'm walking through Muscle Alley with Tony and there's all these big fucking prettys trying to catch my eye. They must have thought I was right fucking prey, a fresh faced 16 year old wandering about. But after a while I started loving Trade, there was nowhere like it."

With Northern Irish masculinity firmly based around the concept of the hard man, homosexuality can easily be frowned on, a fact Fergie was made well aware of the first time he met Tony at the Larne after-party.

"When Tony finished his set, I went up to his hotel room with him because his hotel was in the same complex as the club. I didn't know he was gay or anything so I went up to his room, carrying his records for him and was up there for half an hour, going through his records while he asked me about myself," Fergie recalls.

"When I went back downstairs, everybody really took the piss out of me, going 'Fergie the faggot, Fergie the faggot'." However, on moving to London 12 months later it was Fergie who had a surprise.

"When I moved over to England quite a few of my friends did including one of my best friends, who came over then realised he's gay," he chuckles.

"I couldn't believe it, he's the fucking hardest geezer you'll ever meet in your life, he's mad."

"But Tony never ever tried it on with me though I'd be telling a lie if I said Lawrence Malice (Trade's legendary promoter) didn't, he tried it on with everybody. But I also had a really good relationship with Lawrence, he's a geezer, do you know what I mean? We had so much fun.

Tony De Vit RIP

"There's one more thing I'd like to add, I'm bringing over to South Africa what I call an 'up-and-coming-Baby-DJ' with me. His name is Fergie, he's from Northern Ireland and when I brought him over to play in the UK, he was so impressive. He's 17 years old and he's going to blow everyone away. I want to introduce him because he's such a talented DJ and I'd love people to hear him. He's like my little prot_©g_©."

Tony De Vit died aged 41 on the 2nd July 1998 days after England were knocked out of the world cup by Argentina, a game Fergie watched with him at his bedside.

"Me and Tony's boyfriend smuggled in a couple of Budweisers into the hospital, I remember sitting on his bed watching the football and having a few beers with him," he says.

"I saw him on the Tuesday night and he had a little chat with me and said a few things and I just thought he was saying stuff in general. I remember walking out of the door saying 'see you later' and that was it. On Thursday morning he died, I couldn't believe it."


Fergie- The Future:

5 years after losing his mentor, Fergie's lived up to Tony's expectations and even surpassed them, picking up his mantel and transforming himself into the international DJ that Tony hoped he'd become. It's a debt Fergie remains highly conscious of.

"I still speak to Tony and say a prayer for him regularly, he was such a major influence on my life," Fergie admits.

"My Mum always says to me, if they'd put their foot down and stopped me from coming to England until I was 18, then Tony would have been already dead. It just shows you how different things might have been. When Tony was DJing in Northern Ireland, he used to go and stay at my Mum's house and sleep in the single bed and my Ma would bring him a cup of tea. He was just a nice guy."

Moving among his mates in the Larne cottage, Fergie remains also 'just a nice guy' with a well-developed open-minded sense of the future.

"I'm so into the music right and there's still so much new stuff always coming out, the radio show is also important to me and I need to keep on putting a lot of time and effort into that," he admits.

"I'm also in the studio a lot more these days," he concludes.

I've been making electro and techno."

You can catch Fergie at Redz nightclub in Launceston on Friday 27th of February (Check the Club Guide for more details) or online on Radio 1 every Friday night (Each 2 hour show is also archived each week).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/dance/fergie

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Comments

Fergie: A Night With Fergie & Friends

by clubber

Wednesday, 18 February 2004 09:53

i didnt realise he was only 24!

i had a couple of mixes of his for ages (since bout '99). he was just a kid!

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