Fat Tony | How To Spend £1,000,000 On Drugs | Modern Wisdom Podcast 166

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 #fattony #djlife #clubbing - Listen to all episodes online. Search "Modern Wisdom" on any Podcast App or click here: iTunes: https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/modern-wisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: [email protected]

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  What was Freddie Mercury like in bed? And I was like, I don't know, there were seven other people there. Simple. I remember on my 27th birthday, I remember saying to my mum, I don't want to live beyond 27. And my mum was like, why? And I was just like, I just thought 27 was like, kind of the end of the road type thing. And my mum was like, don't be so stupid. 27 is one of the best years of your life. Tomazepam, diazepam, Rohit and all, they were kind of like the pegging parts of the cocaine. So I would take cocaine, I would 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. When I finally went to it, I would sleep in the recovery position because I was that scared that I was going to choke on my own vomit every night.

• 0:41Speaker 00

  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 you're no longer with, are no longer with us.

• 0:56Chris Williamson?

  DJ Fat Tony in the building. How are you, man?

• 1:00Speaker 00

  I'm okay. I'm good. I've, uh, I've been, yeah, I'm actually all right today. I've been ill the last few weeks, but I'm okay. I'm good now.

• 1:08Chris Williamson?

  You had the Rona?

• 1:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, I did. Yeah, it kind of, I kind of was like, I went for a whole week of thinking, oh, this is all right, I can do this. Uh, it was kind of a mild flu, bad chest, uh, 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. Uh, so thankfully I took steroids, uh, on the, then it went away on the Thursday and I thought, yeah, it's already good. Friday night, boom, temperature forty, forty, in the forties 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.

• 1:49Chris Williamson?

  That's harsh. But feeling good now, feeling?

• 1:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm okay. I'm just taking it easy. Do you get 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.

• 2:00Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I guess so. So my, my first question is, why, why are you called Fat Tony when you're not fat?

• 2:06Speaker 00

  Uh, that old, tired old question. Uh, I, 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. So I kind of, you know, put on loads of weight as it's, 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.

• 2:43Chris Williamson?

  It's interesting that two years of being fat, like ages ago, has branded you for the rest of your life.

• 2:51Speaker 00

  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? It's, I'd 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 eighties where I changed it to Fat PHT, PHAT.

• 3:08Chris Williamson?

  Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 3:10Speaker 00

  Well, I went all hip hop for a week, but yeah, no.

• 3:13Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. So, um, I first heard of you, as some of the people listening may have done through this recent Mix Mag documentary, which has come out, which is absolutely phenomenal. And I know, hey, I'm.

• 3:24Speaker 00

  Have you been living under a stone in Newcastle?

• 3:26Chris Williamson?

  I look.

• 3:27Speaker 00

  With no wifi.

• 3:28Chris Williamson?

  There is. We are currently in the 1800s and we're hoping to get the wheel and fire and, and operating running water soon. 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.

• 3:42Speaker 00

  Yeah. The reason that was, that name came about was because Seb, who works for Mix Mag, who had 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 of me is because you, you're from Cornwall, you don't, you live in a, live under a stone in, in like a wooden shack. You know what I mean? You probably haven't even got a smartphone. Uh, but yeah. So that's why we called it that. Cause 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.

• 4:13Chris Williamson?

  Well, I don't, it didn't, it didn't surprise me 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, it's a state in America, right? But the, 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.

• 4:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:39Chris Williamson?

  Forty-five 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 it, the little microcosms, they, they don't surprise me.

• 4:49Speaker 00

  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. And right now, I've been, the last few years, I've been working within fashion and all of that stuff. So, you know, 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 the Zart Show or any of those brands I work with. So I, you know, the whole idea of calling it the most famous DJ you've never heard of was because, you know, it was about tapping back into that other market that I hadn't

• 5:34Speaker 00

  been a part of for a while.

• 5:35Chris Williamson?

  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.

• 5:56Speaker 00

  You know, I've done that for a lifetime. Do you get what I mean? And now I've got to this level of, 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. I don't need, I don't need to explain why I'm saying no anymore. And I, you know, I turned 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.

• 6:39Speaker 00

  Don't get me wrong. I, I do so, so many different types of parties and, 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 special, the, the, the whole feeling of being special and, and different is gone because you, you're suddenly there every week. So people take you for granted. There's no amazement about it. Do you get what I mean?

• 7:11Chris Williamson?

  I couldn't be more.

• 7:12Speaker 00

  You just go there and people go, oh, he's there again. Yeah. I heard him last week.

• 7:15Chris Williamson?

  Well, you're part of, it's like the bar staff. You know, you're just one of the bar staff, one of the glass collectors.

• 7:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, totally. And for me, I don't want to be that anymore.

• 7:21Chris Williamson?

  I can totally get that. There's a cool quote that I heard the other day about, uh, saying no. And it was that, um, by saying no, you're only saying no to one thing. By saying yes, you are saying no to everything else.

• 7:36Speaker 00

  Cause you know what I, 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, that one thing will keep me awake for three or four nights. Uh, I will fret and, and you know, I will get, work myself up to this place, right? And then what I'll do is the day before I'll pull a sickie or the day. Do you know what I mean? And I just think, I, who you.

• 7:59Chris Williamson?

  Then you feel guilty. After you felt anxious, now you feel guilty.

• 8:02Speaker 00

  You feel you're like you've let yourself down, you're letting other people down. So there's something really simple, you know, as an addict, I've people pleased 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. And if I'm happy, everybody else is happy.

• 8:15Chris Williamson?

  Man, that's so much more holistic. I like it.

• 8:17Speaker 00

  But you know, and with the film, you know, with that Mix Mag film, I really thought no one was ever going to watch it. I, I, you know, it, it started off as an interview for Mix Mag, um. And in the interview, I said, oh, you know, it's only taken you thirty five 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 thirty five years are probably stacking shelves right now. Do you get what I mean? Whereas I've 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.

• 8:57Speaker 00

  So we went off 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 liked 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, Seb, we'd done, we'd finished 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.

• 9:39Speaker 00

  And, and I was, you know, and I kind of was like, oh, I don't know if I want to watch it. Because like, you know, it's, it's the thing about it 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 the screen or read it. And they showed me and it made me cry. 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 ninety five percent 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."

• 10:24Speaker 00

  I didn't want to change anything, you know, apart from the end, I wanted them to big me up a little bit more.

• 10:30Speaker 00

  In the, in the, in the, in the.

• 10:33Chris Williamson?

  What he's doing now type thing.

• 10:35Speaker 00

  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. Do you know what I mean? It doesn't need to all be there. Do you know what 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.

• 10:50Chris Williamson?

  It's insane. It's, it's phenomenal.

• 10:52Speaker 00

  Mental man.

• 10:53Chris Williamson?

  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've finished listening to the podcast, go and check it out. It is absolutely amazing. It's like the, one of the first long form Facebook videos I've seen with a couple of million views as well. Which is unbelievable. So.

• 11:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, blew me away.

• 11:13Chris Williamson?

  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

• 11:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, go on.

• 11:23Chris Williamson?

  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?

• 11:31Speaker 00

  Where do you want to start with my career?

• 11:33Chris Williamson?

  At the beginning, yes.

• 11:35Speaker 00

  Well, you know, I, I, I used to work on the door of a nightclub. I, I mean, I started going out at a really young age, started going out at the age of 14 to nightclubs.

• 11:46Speaker 00

  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 all 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 big, the next best thing, the next biggest thing. So the photographers will always be there. It was like, I know the place to go and be photographed. So I got a job working there and then we started hanging out with, met all my friends. Made new friends, obviously it made loads of, all new circle of friends. And we started going out clubbing and I would.

• 12:28Speaker 00

  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 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 Lyceum, where Lion King's playing presently in London. It's a big theatre. 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 uh, within a month, I was in New York.

• 13:08Chris Williamson?

  How old were you at this point?

• 13:09Speaker 00

  I was uh, at that point, I was sixteen. Yeah, sixteen, going on seventeen, yeah. And uh, it literally, that was it. Uh, 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, 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, I had a residency in New York at the Gladium. And it's kind of just all went.

• 13:38Chris Williamson?

  So that, that first period there, from some fella on the door, some guy, lad on the door of a venue, to, to being a guy with four records, to having a residency in New York.

• 13:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:51Chris Williamson?

  That, I mean, that's the, that's the lift off, I think, that's probably most dramatic, right? Like, if you actually look at it.

• 13:57Speaker 00

  Kind of just, it was insane, you know. London was 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, um, so everybody knew each other. And everyone, at that point, London was like the place to be. Everyone in New York wanted to be in London. And, and everyone, 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.

• 14:42Chris Williamson?

  So you got flown to New York? By who?

• 14:43Speaker 00

  I go to New York every two weeks.

• 14:45Chris Williamson?

  By who?

• 14:46Speaker 00

  By Steve Rubell, who owned, 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 Schreger owned like area, this suburb club down the road and all of those clubs. So I kind of got in with all that lot. I was kind of really mad, you know?

• 15:05Chris Williamson?

  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?

• 15:12Speaker 00

  It was kind of, actually it was about, I was about 17 because I remember I went to

• 15:20Speaker 00

  New York for my birthday, my 18th on Concorde, and then I got a taste of Concorde. And then I'd stopped doing Palladium for a few months and then they wanted me back. And I said, I'm only coming if you fly me on Concorde. And they actually threw 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. You know, suddenly, we didn't have superstar DJs before that. Do you get what I mean? And it was kind of just, it was all about being in the right place at the right time with the biggest mouth.

• 15:54Chris Williamson?

  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.

• 16:14Speaker 00

  Of course not. They didn't give a shit because, you know, all it wanted, all they wanted was the word London and they wanted the wag club or any of the other venues that played there. 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, yeah, it was mad.

• 16:34Chris Williamson?

  So what were you playing?

• 16:36Speaker 00

  I was playing early house. Yeah, house. It kind of started off with things like Lou Van Banderes and, you know, Chaka Khan and all of that stuff at that was out at that time. And then it kind of progressed slowly into, we'd play old disco and then from old disco went into early house, the early Chicago stuff.

• 16:56Chris Williamson?

  What year are we talking here?

• 16:59Speaker 00

  Um, I should know this stuff, I'm writing the book. Uh, we're talking, I was eighteen, so I'm, I'm fifty five now this year. So work it out yourself.

• 17:10Chris Williamson?

  Fifty five to twenty seventy. Okay. So you're talking like late eighties, early nineties, I guess.

• 17:18Speaker 00

  Early nineties.

• 17:19Chris Williamson?

  So I mean, you know, for the people listening that are house heads, you know, that love defected and and and good like quality, modern, I guess, modern house brands.

• 17:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:30Chris Williamson?

  That is seen as one of the glory periods, right, for the development of house.

• 17:36Speaker 00

  No, 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 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, 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 get what I mean? At that point, we had Larry Levann, who was classed as a superstar DJ because he played at Paradise Garage, you know, but it kind of, as you've got to meet these people, you realise that they weren't superstars.

• 18:20Speaker 00

  They were just people having fun, taking a lot of drugs and having a really good time.

• 18:25Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 18:25Speaker 00

  Do you get what I mean? Like myself.

• 18:27Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 18:28Speaker 00

  You know, unlike most of those people, I didn't know when to stop.

• 18:32Chris Williamson?

  Okay, so we've got, we've touched on one of the defining characteristics, I suppose, of your early DJing career.

• 18:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:39Chris Williamson?

  What, can you remember your first drug?

• 18:43Speaker 00

  Uh, my first drug, yeah, it was my first thing, the drug I ever took was cocaine poppers. I did pop, I used to do poppers before that, you know, Ammon Nitrate.

• 18:52Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 18:52Speaker 00

  And then I kind of, I, I moved, I didn't even smoke at that point. I, I didn't smoke until I was twenty one. Uh, and then I remember the first time I ever took cocaine, I hated it. 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, 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 all went back to their house in Holland Park and um and that someone offered me cocaine, Freddie offered me a line of cocaine. And I was like, I don't do it. I don't like

• 19:35Speaker 00

  it. And of course, did it straight away. And uh, that was kind of it. That was my drug of choice. And, you know, uh, then it I didn't do it for a little while. I can remember I didn't do it for about, I think about six, seven months, I didn't go near it again. And then it was a real major heroin uh vibe thing going on in London. Majority of people in London and on the club scene were really big smackheads. And so I was kind of anti that anyway, because all my friends were taking that. So, you know, it was it was inevitable that I was gonna end up being a junkie, you know.

• 20:08Speaker 00

  It's in my blood.

• 20:09Chris Williamson?

  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?

• 20:22Speaker 00

  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'd I'd 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 being discovering who I was. And, you know, so clubbing was, it was, it was, it'd become my life, it'd become a job, it'd become everything. You know, so I was out seven nights a week and, you know, slowly but surely, those out those seven nights, it would be three or

• 21:07Speaker 00

  four nights that I'd do drugs. And then it would be five or six nights I'd do drugs, you know. It was never ever a problem. The first. I didn't, I never had a drug for, for the first twelve years. It wasn't a problem.

• 21:19Chris Williamson?

  So until twenty eight sort of age?

• 21:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, twenty seven.

• 21:25Chris Williamson?

  Twenty seven.

• 21:25Speaker 00

  It become a problem. Cause I, I remember get, I remember on my twenty seventh birthday, I remember saying to my mum, I don't wanna live beyond twenty seven. And my mum was like, why? And I was just like, I had no, I just thought twenty seven was like, kind of the end of the road type thing. And my mum was like, don't be so stupid. Twenty seven is one of the best years of your life. And I was just like, no, no, no. And of course, when I got to twenty eight, I was gutted. For some reason, I was gutted that I didn't die when I was twenty seven. Uh, I, you know, I gave it a good fucking shot, I can assure you. And I kind of just, and that's kind of when it all, kind of just like the drug taking, the, the, 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.

• 22:11Chris Williamson?

  So, talking about the, the years before drug use became abuse.

• 22:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:17Chris Williamson?

  What was a typical week like? Talk, talk me through a typical?

• 22:20Speaker 00

  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 it was, I mean, you know, I had, everything took ten minutes, twenty 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. I had all these illegal drinking clubs in Soho. So you would go to these illegal drinking clubs, like seventy nine one was called. And we had a club called The Pink Panther, which was a gay twenty four hour illegal drinking club. And you'd go, uh, about three in the morning and by six AM it would have been raided by the police.

• 23:02Speaker 00

  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 be like Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

• 23:14Chris Williamson?

  So you're not DJing through the week, earlier on in the week?

• 23:18Speaker 00

  No, I DJ on Tuesday. I was running my own night on Tuesday at the WAG Club at that point in time. And then I was running Saturday nights at WAG Club as well. And at the time, the WAG Club was like the place to go. I mean, there would be a queue around like a free 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.

• 23:44Chris Williamson?

  You're a cunt and you're a cunt and you're a cunt.

• 23:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, totally like that, you know, and we said, sorry, you're, you're, you can't come in, you're off your nut.

• 23:53Chris Williamson?

  Coming from, yeah, yeah, potter calling cat.

• 23:56Speaker 00

  Totally. And, and taking cat. But yeah, it was, it was, it was a free, you know, so that was Saturdays. And then WAB was a new club opened called The Limelight, which was opened in a big church. And in the eighties, it was like the place, late eighties, early nineties, the place to go. And they basically brought me in, you know, yet again, I met with the owner called, a guy called Peter Gation. And they had these clubs all over, they had one in New York, which was the place to go. They, and they had one in Atlanta and they wanted to try and miss one in London. It was on Charles B. Avenue in the Dishous Church. And I remember having a meeting and saying, you need to have, you need to employ me. And they were like, why? And I said, because if you don't, I'll just annihilate your, your club. And it's like the bullshit that would come out of my mouth.

• 24:41Speaker 00

  And these guys were like, yeah, yeah. So they employed me. And we've been like, we've been 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 had took like, I had my own office. I was, you know, I, I just turned eighteen, 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.

• 25:23Speaker 00

  And it kind of just, you know, that kind of just become who I was. It was, it was fucking.

• 25:31Chris Williamson?

  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 partner 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.

• 25:53Speaker 00

  No, you don't.

• 25:54Chris Williamson?

  No, you don't. Okay.

• 25:57Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:59Chris Williamson?

  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 and my business partner started associating, or at least me, not Darren, he's a lot more, it was a lot more stable than me. 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.

• 26:39Speaker 00

  Out to pasture.

• 26:40Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, oh, for sure. What I did was I started associating my sense of self-worth and wellbeing with the success of the business.

• 26:50Speaker 00

  Of course you do.

• 26:51Chris Williamson?

  It seems like with you, perhaps it was to do with the depth of the partying, to do with the level of renown.

• 26:57Speaker 00

  It had become more about ego. And the ego got so big, because you know, people were blowing smoke up my arse. I couldn't do no wrong. I was having two nights a week, 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 Sunday papers. You know, I was suddenly in supplements. I was suddenly doing interviews and 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. And I was like, we're head sewing 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 give something, that stuff to an 18 year old, they don't know what to do with it.

• 27:38Chris Williamson?

  It's gonna lap it up, aren't they?

• 27:40Speaker 00

  Exactly. And like, you know, it's like, fucking pig in shit. You know, seriously. I had no 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.

• 27:55Chris Williamson?

  What did the, how did the drugs help?

• 27:58Speaker 00

  Well, the kind of drugs kind of led me into this like false sense of, okay, they fed the ego. They fed the ego, they kind of took away the fear. You know, I, uh, 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 gonna 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 it, 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?

• 28:40Speaker 00

  It's kind of was like, it wasn't something that I studied to do. I didn't set out to be that. I'm just kind of just like, okay, this is what I've fallen into.

• 28:49Chris Williamson?

  I think certainly.

• 28:51Speaker 00

  George, yeah, 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, uh, of, I, I, I always had a fear of 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, I work a program around it. You know, so there'd be areas where something in my career is going like this and then I'll be over here pouring paraffin on something to, to create a smokescreen so that you can't really see who I am.

• 29:31Speaker 00

  Cause it's, you know, it's, it's, it's a weird one and, you know, at that point in time, I got, success was given to me on, on such a, a, a massive scale. I mean, you know, I was doing TV stuff, I had a show on Kiss, I was doing, oh, it was all there. It was all there. Yeah, and, you know, and of course, my mouth, the way I was destroyed that. Do you get what I mean? I remember I used Janet Streetport at that point was like had a BBC TV for youth and she gave me like this job. She like 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 and outside concerts and vox pop. Where you stand outside constantly, hey, what, why have you come to see so and so, you know, all that rubbish.

• 30:15Speaker 00

  And I couldn't speak, I'd be so coked 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 were so many of those golden opportunities that I always thought, doesn't matter, I'll get it again. Do you know what I mean? It's kind of the ego had taken over.

• 30:31Chris Williamson?

  I suppose what 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 you don't ever have to worry about, well, hang on, maybe I should feel anxious, upset, regretful, whatever about Janet Streetport. 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.

• 31:07Speaker 00

  Totally. It changes the way I felt like all drugs, you know, I I would take drugs to change the way I felt because I wasn't ever happy within who I was. You know, I never got to that point where I just think, oh, 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 the success that I had because it wasn't a chosen success. I never felt that um 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 was I kind of like cuckooed everybody else's nest, you know.

• 31:52Speaker 00

  And it's kind of weird, you know, with that drug of choice, that cocaine, it's kind of like, there's a really famous line that Mark Harmon once said was. The cocaine will get get you ready for the party, but it won't take you to the party. You know, so you'll spend sixteen 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.

• 32:11Chris Williamson?

  Was there never a concern with money? Like, I know you were getting paid a lot, but it sounds like you were sniffing even more.

• 32:18Speaker 00

  Never. I, I, you know, I'd, I'd got myself to this position where I was getting paid, you know, you've got to 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 Rampling, there was Mips, Paul Oaklandfold, Sasha, all of these DJs suddenly became the biggest superstars. And we would be, I would be travelling 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,

• 32:57Speaker 00

  I was getting record deals. I bought a house in, in, in London, which was incredible. It was called The Cottage on Queen Square, very apt. And, you know, I had suddenly, I had this wealth, you know, I had so much money. I had so much money.

• 33:14Chris Williamson?

  And you couldn't sniff, you weren't sniffing enough to make a dent in that?

• 33:18Speaker 00

  Oh, I was sniffing enough to make 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 that I talked to, you know, when I left that house, I got, I got thrown out of that, lost that house. And the day that I left it, I left one mirror, and which was the mirror I used to chop lines on.

• 33:40Chris Williamson?

  The mirror.

• 33:40Speaker 00

  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. Do you get what I mean? And it's kind of was always that throwaway lifestyle that kind of just brought me to my knees in the end.

• 33:56Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, very, very blasé. Again, 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.

• 34:19Speaker 00

  Totally.

• 34:20Chris Williamson?

  And 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, good DJs like Avicii, I'm friends with tons and tons of DJs that are.

• 34:32Speaker 00

  Less Avicii, you know, Avicii, 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 thirty other dickheads with us. And those other thirty dickheads are telling you what you want to hear. They're, they're filling you up. You know, what, what happens is, you know, you, you had suddenly realised that you're the party. And, and when you, 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, your beliefs are. And because you're a way in 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 body.

• 35:16Speaker 00

  Do you get what I mean? And, and, you know, with people like Avicii, and they don't stand a chance. They didn't stand a chance. Do you get what I mean? It was there.

• 35:24Chris Williamson?

  And it, 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.

• 35:35Speaker 00

  Those people around him, they didn't want it around them. But, you know, the, the, the, 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, the, 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 get what I mean? I would stop travelling. I wouldn't fly anywhere. Like, unless I knew there was going to be what I

• 36:18Speaker 00

  wanted at the other end. And I remember one trip, I had to go to Hong Kong and, um, It was a big money job, and I was like, I'm not going. And I remember getting to the airport. And my manager was like, you've got to get on the plane. And I was like, I'm not fucking going nowhere. You know what I mean? I'd been up for three nights. I mean, I spanked as well. And it was like, you've got to get on that plane. And 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 saying, yeah, I'll meet you off the airplane. I've got, you know, I've got an eight 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.

• 37:03Speaker 00

  And all I could get was ease. So I remember doing fucking untold ease.

• 37:08Chris Williamson?

  Hong Kong ease in the nineties must have been absolute rocket fuel, yeah.

• 37:12Speaker 00

  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. Red stove. 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. I was like fucking smoking in bed. But I'd so, I'd literally so off my nut on ease. And after that, I was kind of just like, I'm not doing this again. Do you get what I mean? I'm not flying anywhere. And I would go to the airport and just decide, no, I'm going back to the dealer's house. So I've become a loose cannon. So people just stopped booking me, stopped flying me out to places.

• 37:54Speaker 00

  Which for somebody of me, like me at that point in time was, was great because I just thought, I ain't got to go anywhere. Good. Because I can still earn that money here.

• 38:04Chris Williamson?

  And you, you wanted the familiar mentalness of home, not the unfamiliar mentalness of abroad.

• 38:10Speaker 00

  You know, I had a triangle towards the end, which I always explain to people. Uh, when I meet them, you know, I had, there was a triangle of addiction. It was, you know. Uh, I would leave my house, I would go to the dealers. I would stay at the dealers, I'd leave the dealers, go to work, go back to my house for two days, then go back to the. That was the triangle. And then it was always alcohol, cocaine, cock. Cock, alcohol, cocaine. That was it. That was it for free. I could never do one of that, one without the other two. It was the same with, same as my pattern, you know, uh, travelling or going out of my comfort zone and then. But towards the end, you had to be set in stone. I needed to know where I was going and I needed to know that I was gonna get what I wanted.

• 38:54Chris Williamson?

  Isn't it interesting that you're out of control in, in some regards, but completely over, overly controlling of your own life in other regards?

• 39:06Speaker 00

  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, I, I.

• 39:15Speaker 00

  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, getting on a plane, fuck that. Why do I need to do that? Do you know what I mean? I'll 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 would be a Wednesday and I couldn't even afford a packet of cigarettes. But I knew Thursday I'd, I'd be working again. Do you know what I mean? So for that, for that Wednesday, I would add, there would be some.

• 39:55Speaker 00

  It is in this disease that enabled me to sleep alright and just think, okay, I might say, I don't need to leave the house today.

• 40:02Chris Williamson?

  So you, you said that your drug of choice was cocaine. Was that pretty much predominantly what it was or?

• 40:08Speaker 00

  Oh, no, no, no, no, no. That was the drug of choice. You know, the, the drug of, of. Uh, the any other drug that I got my hands on, you know, I used uh, tamazepam, diazepam, rohitnol. 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 freebasy and crack. And then I discovered crystal meth and, you know, it was just the the natural progression. So anyway. It was, it was a natural, it was a natural progression, you know. Suddenly there'd be a new drug and someone, oh, you need to try this. And I'd be like, oh, oh, I don't like it. And then boom, Bob's your uncle on a nap for two years.

• 40:50Speaker 00

  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.

• 40:57Chris Williamson?

  Was there anything that was too much for you? Anything that was too strong or that you said you didn't want to do?

• 41:02Speaker 00

  Crystal meth, the first time I did crystal meth, I just thought, I'm never ever touching that again. The come down was so bad. I remember sitting on chair on Boxwell Bridge, wanting to throw myself in. Uh, cause I lived right by it at that point and and I was like si- sitting there and it was raining and I remember sitting there thinking. 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. I went, all right. So I went home to get my cigarettes. And of course, once I got home, I sat down, had a cigarette, I thought, I'm not going back out again. But, you know, it was like, 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.

• 41:44Speaker 00

  So I 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. You know, people just go, oh, you must have heavy come down. Never had a come down. I was always on it. Do you get what I mean? You know, as I say to people, when I, you you know, I used and abused drugs for twenty eight years and. There was never a point where I I wasn't on drugs for twenty eight years. I was on something which I, even when I slept. You know, and I I and, you know, I knew that, you know, the the last five years, I I would sleep in. When I finally went to it, 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.

• 42:28Chris Williamson?

  So that's getting us towards twenty seven now, twenty seven, twenty eight, I'm going to guess.

• 42:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:34Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. And then that's when you said it really started to turn into a like a spiral out of control.

• 42:39Speaker 00

  Well, well, the crystal meth didn't come until a lot later. So the crystal meth was at the end of my drug using. About twenty seven, twenty eight, 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'm going to stay there and just stay there.

• 43:05Chris Williamson?

  Travelling around the world on an international drugs tour.

• 43:08Speaker 00

  Totally, hundred percent. Because I could earn the money that I was getting and I could command that money for those audiences. So, yeah, kind of like it, it kind of just gone from partying. The party just didn't stop. It, it kind of went from party to three day binges, four day binges. And then the psychosis started and kind of like started to lose the plot a little. I kind of would reel 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'd just change dealer or I would change the situation. I would change the

• 43:53Speaker 00

  scenario. I would change circles of friends.

• 43:56Chris Williamson?

  It's a proxy, it's a proxy for making progress, isn't it? It's, 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, it's just different.

• 44:10Speaker 00

  Yes, 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, you stick the nozzle of the Hoover into the Hoover bag and all that's going around is the same old shit being re-entertained constantly. But you, you feel that you're doing something about it.

• 44:26Speaker 00

  I'm actually cleaning.

• 44:27Chris Williamson?

  People feel, people do that in all sorts of, all sorts of ways, right? You know, perfect example, let's go to another 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, you're sweating the small stuff. And to talk about psychosis.

• 44:51Speaker 00

  I'm microdosing.

• 44:52Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, yeah. You've got like, you've got Twitter open on your laptop. That is not where you're doing your work. I got a little story for you about Kristoff. He supports Eric Prinz at the moment. He's a DJ from the north of, north of England. 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.

• 45:33Chris Williamson?

  It's Thursday and he's got a gig, uh, goes straight from the gig to the airport, get on the plane, get a couple of hours sleep, do all this sort of stuff. So, um, that finishes up at the end of a, a, 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.

• 46:13Chris Williamson?

  And anyway, it's a morning time, about five in the morning, six in the morning, and he comes to, and 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 realised 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? Ah, not too sure. Stands up, gets a floret of broccoli, 48 dishwasher tablets and just walks

• 46:55Chris Williamson?

  out. And it was, he was like, and at that moment, I thought, do you know, I probably could do with speaking to somebody. Fucking hell. And that is, that's just from sleep, Deb.

• 47:06Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, I used to stay up for four or five days and I would be out and I remember there was this one, one, one time I was in Liverpool Street Station, train station. And I was with all my friends and I was like talking to people and then they were morphing into the wall. And I was like, 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, I lived like in Brick Lane at that point. It's Liverpool Street Station. Obviously, I'd travelled 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. And I remember being in my flat and I remember my boyfriend saying to me, Tony, you

• 47:49Speaker 00

  do realise 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 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 like, 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 they took me to the hospital and they did all these things. Luckily, it's because I hadn't slept. I'd gone into this state. My brain had completely gone. But I, it was at that moment that two days afterwards, I realised 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

• 48:32Speaker 00

  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.

• 48:55Chris Williamson?

  Even the most balanced among us, I think, are only five days of no sleep away from being completely mental, from being that, that hobo on the street that shouts, that shouts words and has poo on the back of his shoe.

• 49:10Speaker 00

  A hundred percent.

• 49:11Chris Williamson?

  All of us are. And the, the thin line of sanity that all of us are, 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, the good, the problem that, I, I feel so much like sympathy for, for the, 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, started to do the introspection that you required to be able to do.

• 49:45Speaker 00

  You know what, but Chris, if I'd had a year off and I went back into what I was doing, I would have died.

• 49:51Chris Williamson?

  Why?

• 49:51Speaker 00

  Because my body, my body wouldn't have been able to take the, what, 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, they kind of built up 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 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 your organ start to shut down and the brain goes, that's what happens is what

• 50:36Speaker 00

  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, of what, 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.

• 50:57Chris Williamson?

  Surprisingly, surprisingly, actually, was one of the best, safest things that you could have done was not taking a break.

• 51:03Speaker 00

  Totally, a hundred percent.

• 51:04Chris Williamson?

  That's interesting.

• 51:05Speaker 00

  You know, and I used to call it chemical scaffolding. It was what kept me because people were like, how come you're still fucking, still up, still awake, still alive. It's like, chemical scaffolding, of course.

• 51:15Chris Williamson?

  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?

• 51:32Speaker 00

  I kind of think every weekend when we did trade, I used to be resident at a club called Trade, which was at Turn Mills. It's a legendary club. And Trade was like the club, well, the first places in the country that opened at 3am and went on till midday. And it was, you probably would have been, got that there.

• 51:52Chris Williamson?

  Proper Berg, Bergheim style stuff.

• 51:54Speaker 00

  It was, listen, Bergheim had nothing on trade, trust me. Trade was like the mecca. It had like an alley called Muscle Alley, where the muscle mayor is hung out. You had a heavy techno room with Tony Devitt and all those guys. We did trade light. 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 was revolutionary. It was like the place to go. So every weekend kind of would be the heaviest party.

• 52:23Chris Williamson?

  And was that, were you playing there or just out there?

• 52:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was resident there, yeah.

• 52:26Chris Williamson?

  Got you, got you.

• 52:27Speaker 00

  In my own room called Trade Light. And 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 of those venues. They all come from my, my desire to take drugs, you know, and my friends' desire to take drugs. We couldn't stop. We, so we would create these after hour parties.

• 53:10Chris Williamson?

  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 the party, 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 7pm on the night and it's-

• 53:46Speaker 00

  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'd 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 was like being in Scooby fucking D. 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. Forty thousand people would be sent home. And that's kind of what it is. That's rave culture. You know, people long for that today. People long for the thrill of that today.

• 54:17Chris Williamson?

  You think, you look at this now and, you know, like I say, you have these sorts of parties, but it's, the tickets fucking sold through Fatso or Ticketweb or fucking Ticket Arena, right? Like, it's not, it's not underground. It's, 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-

• 54:38Speaker 00

  I mean, you know, ask, 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 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 the way we are, we all put in our houses, something really creative and magical is going to come from this. Really creative and magical because you know, it's, it's times like this that some stuff starts to grow, our juices flow in our brains and we think, oh, I've got a really good idea, let's do this. And you know, some really amazing stuff's gonna come from this.

• 55:19Chris Williamson?

  I saw Jackie Morn, who's one of my good buddies, who's just been out with Roger Sanchez in Ibiza, producing and they're fucking, they're producing tracks at 130 BPM because

• 55:30Speaker 00

  They can fuck off.

• 55:30Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, okay. I'll tell, I'll pass that on. I'll pass that on to him. But you know, in six months, 12 months' time, there is going to be some ridiculous EPs. There's going to be some amazing books.

• 55:44Speaker 00

  You know, there's gonna be, you know, all of that stuff's coming, you know, what's pissing me off the most about this is when I keep hearing these idiots, you know, I'm not going in 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

• 56:09Chris Williamson?

  After gyms, after cafes, after restaurants.

• 56:11Speaker 00

  It's all got schools and colleges and, 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 open a nightclub of Ministry of Sound 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, get it under wraps and say, okay, you can go out partying again. I know, you go, 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 V day celebrations. There's

• 56:52Speaker 00

  not. What's going to happen is Upper 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 Upper Avenues.

• 57:00Chris Williamson?

  Did you see, did you see the defective live, defected live festival?

• 57:04Speaker 00

  Yes, I did.

• 57:05Chris Williamson?

  Now that, that is a shit hot way to do it. I know everyone's doing live streams, a lot of DJs are, you know, it's getting a bit old now, but

• 57:12Speaker 00

  I mean, I did one the other week for the Evening Standard. I did one last week for Harvey Nichols, uh, Live from a 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

• 57:27Chris Williamson?

  Virtual, virtual birthday party.

• 57:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's her birthday. She wants to invite all the key workers in the NHS to her birthday Fire my garden. So I'm DJing for two hour set, playing all of her favourite tracks, um, live from our garden for the NHS and people can donate and they could also download the next day, they can download a playlist and they can also download the, 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 Beez, I think he's got something like a hundred. Yeah. So it's going to go out, it's going to go out by his.

• 58:10Chris Williamson?

  If they get, if they get the kids involved as well, I think the kids have probably got a 20 mil, 20 mil.

• 58:14Speaker 00

  They're all going to be involved because they're all calling in to ask for tracks. So the whole thing is just going to level up and level up and level up. So we've been working on it for a week. So they're going to, they're going to release it tomorrow, which is Tuesday. Um, the, the, the evidence, they're going to release like the, the press release is 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?

• 58:43Chris Williamson?

  Right now, everyone's a bedroom. Well, you're a garden DJ.

• 58:45Speaker 00

  I am a garden DJ. Yeah. But you know what? It's fine because you're, that's my career. I'm not, I'm not DJing to 42 people on a live feed that most people do. Do you get what I mean? This is Taylor.

• 58:57Chris Williamson?

  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 not, I, 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, except for Taylor.

• 59:11Speaker 00

  Taylor is, uh, Taylor's 14.

• 59:13Chris Williamson?

  Wow.

• 59:15Speaker 00

  And, uh, she's a saviour of all, of all life. She's the best thing in the world. She has such an amazing spirit and she's, she's like, everyone says that about their dogs. But trust me, Taylor, Taylor has this magic about her. She's amazing.

• 59:28Chris Williamson?

  Well, I'm looking for, I'm looking forward to seeing her during the live stream. Um, I, the best thing that I've 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 organised a virtual stag do where he, 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 do. And I was like, that's fucking sick. Um, before we go on to.

• 59:57Speaker 00

  But that's it, Chris. It's all about creativity and it's about, you know what, we make the best of what we've got. And it's about, I think what people are forgetting in this whole lockdown is like, I can't go out, I can't, I'm losing, I've lost fifty 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 get 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.

• 1:00:31Chris Williamson?

  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.

• 1:00:44Speaker 00

  A hundred percent, a hundred percent, you know, it's, it's, 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 a mum, but lost a sister in a week from this virus. And then you've got these idiots saying, oh, you know, it's not real, it's not happening. And, and the blah, blah, blah. It's just like, you know what, fuck off.

• 1:01:10Chris Williamson?

  Don't get me started on David Icke in London Real.

• 1:01:12Speaker 00

  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 are not being able to say goodbye to their own mums and sisters, you know, it's, it's heartbreaking. It really is. It's, 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?

• 1:01:32Chris Williamson?

  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.

• 1:02:09Chris Williamson?

  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

• 1:02:24Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 1:02:25Chris Williamson?

  Random chance, you know?

• 1:02:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, of course, of course.

• 1:02:27Chris Williamson?

  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, 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, from back then?

• 1:02:45Speaker 00

  Oh, do, do, do, do, do, do.

• 1:02:47Chris Williamson?

  Asking you to choose one of your favorite children.

• 1:02:49Speaker 00

  You know, you know, it's what it is, is what I like, you know, when you ask someone what their favorite tracks are and, and you know, straight away, that person stops to think because they 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, at the right time and the right place, you will take any roof off, you know? The, the old, all the classics, Robin S, where lovers, you know, Alison Limerick, all of that stuff that I grew up with, that people think is cheese now are major tracks, you know? Some day, C C Rogers, In The Right Place. There's so many amazing, amazing electric tracks of, of every, of every era, of every decade that I just like go back to, you know?

• 1:03:32Speaker 00

  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 Visage, so when I do that stuff for, 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 many, so many, do you get what I mean? It's kind of just like, you know, I have my own personal favorites that I, are, that tracks that, that mean so much to me, do you get what I mean? That I wouldn't play out because I get too emotional.

• 1:04:10Chris Williamson?

  Oh, wow. Yeah, I think Christoph Cozy 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 gonna put it out there.

• 1:04:23Speaker 00

  It's the biggest drug, music is the best and biggest drug I've ever taken. It has the ability to, to transport you to anywhere in the world and to be with people that you're no longer, are no longer with us. You close your eyes and you play that track, they're there. And that's, that's the magic of music. And, you know, when I'm DJing, and I'm very, 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, hmm, 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

• 1:05:08Speaker 00

  of blackness, the pressure will take me straight back to 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 them with a lot of other people at the right time. And, you know, that's the beauty of it.

• 1:05:34Chris Williamson?

  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.

• 1:05:42Speaker 00

  So I should stop you there. They're not old tracks, Chris.

• 1:05:45Chris Williamson?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:05:46Speaker 00

  Music doesn't get old.

• 1:05:47Chris Williamson?

  No, my point is, tracks that have.

• 1:05:49Speaker 00

  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. Or that's, it's not old. Music's timeless.

• 1:06:01Chris Williamson?

  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 that 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 actual remode of that, was my first season in Ibiza, 2010.

• 1:06:35Chris Williamson?

  And it's got that really haunting, beautiful kind of vocal.

• 1:06:40Speaker 00

  How old are you?

• 1:06:41Chris Williamson?

  I'm thirty two.

• 1:06:42Speaker 00

  Thirty two, okay, cool.

• 1:06:43Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:44Speaker 00

  Carry on.

• 1:06:45Chris Williamson?

  You just, I remember that because that was the year, two thousand and ten was like peak Swedish house mafia. You know, it was when big house, big room house was kind of all around.

• 1:06:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:06:54Chris Williamson?

  And that, that track, man, like someone can drop that track, someone can drop Eric, drop Eric Pridd's Opus and I'll lose my shit. That big swell, that big sort of ten minute thing.

• 1:07:04Speaker 00

  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 will, it doesn't get better than that. It doesn't get better.

• 1:07:33Chris Williamson?

  It is, you know, and that's one of the, one of the reasons why.

• 1:07:36Speaker 00

  But we spent our life, we spent our lifetimes chasing that.

• 1:07:39Chris Williamson?

  You do.

• 1:07:40Speaker 00

  We do, and you know.

• 1:07:41Chris Williamson?

  Did you ever do Ibiza?

• 1:07:43Speaker 00

  Did I do Ibiza? Of course I did.

• 1:07:46Chris Williamson?

  You didn't mention it, I think you haven't mentioned it today, talk to me about Ibiza.

• 1:07:49Speaker 00

  I did Ibiza in eighty nine, nineteen, ninety one, ninety two. And I used to play Amnesia. My best friends owned it, Sandra, Sandra and Jose owned it. And this is before it had a roof. And I used to go over and I used to play with Alfredo.

• 1:08:07Speaker 00

  We, I first went to Ibiza, I first played in Ibiza in eighty, in eighty five at Koo then, which is now called Privilege. With a guy called Brazilio. And I spent a whole summer out there. Yeah, I, I, I've always played Ibiza. I was there last year doing Glitterbox, I'm there this summer doing Glitterbox.

• 1:08:26Speaker 00

  You know, for me, the island has so many memories, you know, there's, there's some amazing hidden films going around at the moment. There's one on YouTube where I'm interviewing Andy Weverall in nineteen eighty nine at Privilege, at Koo. No, it was at Amnesia. And me and Andy are talking and I went over for the whole summer with a film crew. And me, Danny Rampling and all that lot, we're all living in the same, we were all staying in the same villa. And I interviewed everyone, we filmed the whole island. And then the guy that did the films, I don't know what happened to him, he just disappeared with, with the films. And they've just started resurfacing now. There's one on YouTube at the moment, the Andy Webber one.

• 1:09:10Chris Williamson?

  What can people search? What should people search?

• 1:09:12Speaker 00

  Tony Andy Webber comes up 1989, Amnesia. But you know, there's like, there's about a whole week's worth of film footage floating around. I would love to get, you know, I know last, not last year, the year before, they were showing them at Pikes.

• 1:09:27Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:28Speaker 00

  So, you know, I want to find out who's got them.

• 1:09:31Chris Williamson?

  Someone does somewhere. Okay, so I want to, I want to talk about recovery now.

• 1:09:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:09:36Chris Williamson?

  You're in, 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 twenties into early twenties, 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?

• 1:10:00Speaker 00

  It just built and built and built and built. And you know, what happens is with addiction, it strips away and it chisels away at your self-worth, at your self-esteem. It leaves you with nothing. And it left me rocking backwards and forwards in a room, wanting to kill myself. You know, I lost everything. I lost my teeth. I pulled all my own teeth out on crystal meth. I went insane. And what happened was, at the end, 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. It always makes me, makes me want to cry because, you know, it was that

• 1:10:41Speaker 00

  God-given moment. It changed everything. And it was from that night, 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 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,

• 1:11:07Speaker 00

  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. Um, 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, you know, and I was like, well, I'm not going back to anything, I'm going forward to it. And I kind of just kept that momentum going and I'm now thirteen years, four months clean.

• 1:11:37Speaker 00

  Uh, I had nothing when I came into treatment, when I went to, uh, at the end of my using, 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, you know, I think gifts beyond my wildest dreams, I have freedom, I can do whatever I want in life. I can't at the moment, I'm locked down.

• 1:12:01Chris Williamson?

  Right now, you're on Modern Wisdom Podcast, which is obviously exactly what you want to be doing.

• 1:12:05Speaker 00

  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, I'm not chained to anything.

• 1:12:12Chris Williamson?

  I've just realised, based on your timeline of recovery, you've had your dog, you've had your dog Taylor since before you were clean.

• 1:12:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, I have, yeah. So Taylor was a guilt present for being out for four or five days and I got Taylor

• 1:12:29Speaker 00

  as a present for my then partner and, uh, I remember getting her and, you know, I had another dog called Reggie before that and we wanted another dog for Taylor to just keep him company. And we got Taylor and then I got clean and Taylor got pregnant while I was in rehab. Uh, she, she got raped by the other dog. And I, yeah, so basically Taylor's been through everything with me. You know, she's, that's what I'm saying to you, she has this, uh, spirituality about her that just is incredible.

• 1:13:01Chris Williamson?

  There she is.

• 1:13:02Speaker 00

  There she is. You know, she knows every emotion, she knows every feeling. Uh, yeah, she's, she's one of a kind. And yeah, so she's, she's one of the joys of the recovery, she really is.

• 1:13:16Chris Williamson?

  Do you think it's possible to do? The DJing life as a young guy and do it in a well-balanced way because I don't.

• 1:13:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, I do.

• 1:13:28Chris Williamson?

  How do you, how do you do that? There's some DJs who maybe think I'm a, I'm a, in an industry of excess. I get stuff for free. DJs, DJs get paid well. Um, some of them, some of them too well.

• 1:13:39Speaker 00

  I just think that if you, if you, this is your chosen job and this is your career, you, 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 job 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.

• 1:14:22Speaker 00

  You can do this. You know, you don't have to burn yourself out to do this for the love of a job. Cause if you have, you know, the one thing that we all have in common is the love of music. You know, and, 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 along going, I'm a DJ now. You're not DJ. You're pressing play. There's such total difference, you know, a DJ knows how to warm up a room. It knows how to take you on a journey.

• 1:15:05Speaker 00

  That's the difference. And I mean, if you, you don't have to, as I said before, you're not the party. They're there to facilitate the party. That's the, you know, if you, if you stick to those rules, you can, you can do this job without burning yourself up.

• 1:15:21Chris Williamson?

  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 promoters that might be listening who feel that they are the party. I've always made this analogy ever since I started, you know, like 15, 13 years ago, that there's two types of club promoters. One of them are people who realise 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 realised, fucking hell, I can get paid to get pissed.

• 1:15:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, the ones that get paid to get pissed don't have the party too long because they'll lose the party.

• 1:16:03Chris Williamson?

  That's it, man.

• 1:16:04Speaker 00

  That's the difference. And the ones that want to make money quickly aren't around for life. 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 is 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, fuck off. It's as simple as that.

• 1:16:27Chris Williamson?

  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 arse, you've got drugs and parties and girls and guys and all the rest of it.

• 1:16:41Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 1:16:41Chris Williamson?

  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 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 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.

• 1:17:05Speaker 00

  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.

• 1:17:16Chris Williamson?

  They treat us like cunts.

• 1:17:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, but you know.

• 1:17:20Chris Williamson?

  Okay, so final, final few things now. GQ said that you'd met Prince, Michael Jackson and Jay-Z and were totally unimpressed by any of them.

• 1:17:30Speaker 00

  No, that's bullshit. That's bullshit. Prince, Prince is one of the most amazing geniuses on earth, what this earth. You know, how could you not be impressed by Prince?

• 1:17:40Chris Williamson?

  That was my question.

• 1:17:41Speaker 00

  How can you, you know, Jay-Z, I couldn't give a shit about, you know, I've met so many people from my career, just hang out with Andy Warhol, these people are geniuses. Do you know what I mean? How can you not be impressed by these people or what they do? The masters of their art, you know, Prince isn't someone that went in the studio and got someone else to make his tracks for him. You know, he, that guy produced everything that he ever touched, played every instrument, did everything. How can you not be impressed by that? You know, huh? No. So there's your answer. Of course I'm impressed.

• 1:18:13Chris Williamson?

  Good, good man.

• 1:18:14Speaker 00

  I'm in awe of these people.

• 1:18:17Chris Williamson?

  So what's next? What happens next?

• 1:18:20Speaker 00

  What's next? There's a book. I'm writing a book. I have loads and loads and loads of ad offers all of a sudden. Lots of TV stuff. I'm starting a new TV channel, a programme. I'm doing a YouTube channel. I'm doing a, yeah, there's a lot of stuff coming up. You know what? 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've said no to. Too long in the tooth for that rubbish. Do you know what I mean? But for me, the most important thing is happiness. As long as I'm happy doing what I'm doing, then it will work.

• 1:18:58Chris Williamson?

  What is happiness to you now? What makes you happy?

• 1:19:00Speaker 00

  Happiness is being at home with my partner David and being at home with Taylor and being in the moment, not chasing what, looking to things that I don't have. It's knowing, it's not, happiness is knowing that what I've got right now is enough.

• 1:19:20Speaker 00

  Do you understand what I'm saying? And making do with, you know, it's not about making do, that's the wrong thing to say. You know, it's about making magic with what you have. And that's what it's about. And, you know, there's so many things that are coming. You know, people could go and say to me all the time, oh, the last few years, your career's really took off. And it's like, no, it hasn't. It's like been the thirteen 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.

• 1:19:59Speaker 00

  We're defected. There's loads of stuff coming up. You know, there's some really amazing things that are in the pipeline.

• 1:20:06Chris Williamson?

  That's so cool. That's so, so.

• 1:20:08Speaker 00

  I'm blessed, you know, I'm blessed. And, you know, 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 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, when you lose people in your life, you just kind of reevaluate things. No, because I don't need a drink or a drug to be an asshole. I can do that very easily myself. But, you know, but you know, what happens is I have this part of my brain, this, the program that I work within Narcotics Anonymous, which is how I stay clean.

• 1:20:49Speaker 00

  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 behaviours 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?

• 1:21:10Chris Williamson?

  Man, that's a beautiful message. What a lovely, lovely way to end it.

• 1:21:13Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:21:14Chris Williamson?

  I'm really excited. I think, you know, there's 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.

• 1:21:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, I wouldn't recommend that. I wouldn't recommend it. And I, you know. People always say, oh, there's a part of you that you've changed, what would it be? And I was just thinking, 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 that went before is it's it's kind of took 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 kind of it's it's a weird one, it really is. And yeah.

• 1:22:09Chris Williamson?

  Life has a weird way of of dropping serendipity on us a lot, doesn't it? There's some poetic irony that just keeps on looping around.

• 1:22:17Speaker 00

  You know, with the within the, you know, when we we showed the film at Selfridges, we did six nights of previews of the film and to each night we had to go and talk and, you know, it was like a Q and 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? And you know what, it was really, it really is a story of redemption in the sense, you know, they, when you see the trailers for it, or you do, they use like dramatic lines, like, I spent a million pounds on on drugs, they're not boasts. People are like, how can you boast about that, taking out of context? They've used those lines just so it catches people up, people's eyes. When you see the story, there's no boasting

• 1:23:02Speaker 00

  in it. That's not me boasting about spending that money. That's that's far from it. I wouldn't, I'm not reveling in it. You know, it destroyed my life, you know. But what the boasting about, there is no boasting in it. What it takes you to, you know, I'm just blessed to be alive.

• 1:23:23Chris Williamson?

  And 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 got going on, where should they go?

• 1:23:33Speaker 00

  DJ Fat Tony on Instagram. My link, 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.

• 1:23:53Chris Williamson?

  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.

• 1:24:03Speaker 00

  You know what, like Chris, I get so many messages every day of people saying to me, thank you, you're helping us get through this. Thank you for your sense of humour. You know, it's kind of like, the messages that I get from certain people, 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. That I reply. They're like, oh my God, I wasn't expecting you to reply. And I said, why wouldn't I? Oh well, I messaged David Beckham and he doesn't reply. And I always say, and I always say to David Beckham, you need to start replying to your messages.

• 1:24:39Chris Williamson?

  David, this is a you problem.

• 1:24:40Speaker 00

  They're all jumping shit.

• 1:24:42Chris Williamson?

  Why aren't you putting up more memes, David? Why isn't your music track selection for your missus's birthday better? And why aren't you replying to your DMs? That's what I want to know. Look, man, Tony, it's been, 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 what, find me at Chris Well X on all social media. Like, share. If you're new here, hit the subscribe button. But for now, Tony, man, thank you.

• 1:25:11Speaker 00

  Good bless.