BY DONNA MCGARRY – donna@ragazine.co.uk
IT is safe to say that most of us get that inner cringe feeling when we hear someone from Northern Ireland speak on the radio or TV. The unmistakable twang usually sparks the dreaded question ‘Oh no, do I sound THAT bad?’
We’ve been lucky enough to export some of the country’s finest across the media spectrum to represent our dodgy accent and no-one has done us more proud than dance music DJ, Fergie who is most famous for taking Radio 1 by storm with his controversial weekly show.
There is no denying that Fergie, better known as Robert Ferguson to friends and family, has an impressive CV spanning over ten years playing to music lovers worldwide. Gigging across the globe in places like Hong Kong, Berlin and the clubber’s paradise that is Ibiza, this Larne native could be considered a DJ veteran at only 28.
Back home for the upcoming Northern Ireland Dance Music Awards next month, the superstar DJ took some time out to talk about the dance scene in the North and the social awareness message the Awards are promoting to young people this year.
After only turning a teenager himself, Fergie got his first taste of dance music when a family friend invited him down to watch Robbie Nelson play at the Arena in Armagh. As a Queen fan and not knowing much about the scene he soaked in the atmosphere watching the clubbers in amazement.
“The journey on the way back in the car was just me trying to find out about these different genres of music, what is trance, why is it called trance and doing their heads in really.
“From then I just started spending a lot of time down in the local record shop which Mark Dobbin owned and just generally annoying them.”
Landing his first job collecting glasses in a nightclub owned by Mark Dobbin, this was the only way the aspiring DJ could get a taste of the Northern Ireland club scene still being underage. The glass collecting didn’t last long though as he started getting gigs playing around the North in clubs like the Airport, Templepatrick and the now closed down Network Club in Belfast.
Describing his mini fame as being “quite gimmicky” due to the lack of young DJs about at the time, Fergie was lucky enough to find a mentor in British Hard House DJ Tony de Vit. Being a personal fan of his stuff, Fergie admits to have pestered the DJ after seeing him play which eventually led to an invite to London to check out the English dance scene.
“I must have phoned the guy three to four times a day, I was just fascinated that this big star would take time to speak to me. I didn’t know I was pestering him because he never gave me that impression.
“ Only after a lot of years after I’d been living in England for a long time and I’d got well known, I’d often give my number out to new DJs and it was only when these guys weren’t phoning me half as much as I rang Tony I realised I must have really stalked this guy.”
With the help of Tony de Vit, he was able to make a name for himself in clubs across the water and it wasn’t long before the big wigs at Radio 1 wanted in on the Fergie action getting him to co-host The Essential Mixes with Carl Cox.
“For me doing that with Carl Cox after going to see him in the Ulster Hall when I was young then working with him was just mind-blowing. They got me to do a little pilot for my own show and the boss of Radio 1 said I sounded like I had a coat hanger stuck in my mouth but they liked it.”
What made the show so well known was the madness that Fergie brought weekly to the dance enthusiasts that would tune in. However, he admits that it was a tough job keeping up the energy and he ended up being drunk quite a lot of the time which resulted in suspension.
Over his six year stretch working in Radio 1 Fergie was able to reach out to up and coming DJs who needed a platform to get themselves recognised in the industry. Not forgetting his roots, he has helped launch the careers of a few young protégés from the North into the world of DJing.
“If you’re going to help someone there’s got to be a consistency with it and you need to keep pushing, I don’t see any point in only half helping people.
“Northern Ireland has always been a really good breeding ground for DJs. A couple of years ago my mum pointed out in a Top 100 DJs list there was me, Phil Kiernan, Robbie Nelson, Chris Agnelli. That’s four people from here.”
The dance scene in the North has never been better with the best of Hard House and Techno DJs coming to venues like The Stiff Kitten and Shine to play to local audiences.
The Northern Ireland Dance Music Awards are celebrating the growth of the dance music scene by celebrating the cream of the crop in the industry. This year, the organisers have taken on a campaign of promoting social awareness to young people in relation to responsible drinking and suicide awareness.
An issue close to his heart, Fergie has lost four of his friends through suicide in the space of a year. He admits that even though his mother works with parents who lose children through suicide, he is not clued up on the facts and feels there needs to be far more awareness made for young people about the topic.
“These people to see weren’t depressed. They were all close friends and there were no signs. It wasn’t like they had tried it before and it didn’t work. There weren’t heavily into anything that people would say they need to calm down on.”
“When do you take notice of it? It’s a hard situation, you don’t want to highlight it that much because you don’t want to put it into their head even more but at the same time you don’t want to neglect it.”
Another social problem often married with the dance music scene is the promotion of underage drinking and the Awards want to change this perception ASAP and have dropped WKD as a sponsor this year.
Known as a bit of a party animal in his younger days, Fergie has realised the life threatening effects of drinking beyond your limit after playing at clubs where people have actually died because of drinking too much.
“I don’t understand why people want to get that off their face. For a long time it was quite publicised I was quite a big drinker and I’d be pissed out of my head for days on end.
“It’s a tough one I just think that if there was a way of people not drinking as much and knowing when to stop then that is the answer. It took me a long time to find that answer, after all you always think you are alright when you’re drunk.
“There are certainly a lot of my mates when I’ve played at Shine who haven’t got in because they are drunk and they are texting me and there’s nothing I can do about it. They don’t want people who are falling about the place on the dancefloor being sick, the club scene has changed a lot.”
And with the ever changing club scene, the Awards promise to blow the roof off St George’s Market with a range of electro beats from the best of Northern Ireland’s talent. With a shift in his own musical direction from Hard House to Techno, Fergie always makes an extra effort when playing at home.
“I love coming back here because it is challenging. People that go to the clubs know their music and they’re a hard bunch to please. I would certainly through my music 10 times more when I’m coming home than when I’m going anywhere else.
“I’m not technically an amazing DJ but I try to up my game when I come back. It’s not because I don’t want to get slagged off, it’s just they have the best DJs from all around the world but it’s great to come home.”
Now living in Glasgow with his girlfriend, the DJ actually lives a pretty normal life and hopes to juggle performing to crowds across the UK with the inner student in him by taking part in a radio production course at his local college.
You’re able to catch Fergie perform live at this year’s Dance Music Awards at St George’s Market Belfast on May 25th and tickets are available on www.ticketmaster.co.uk.
