Fabric London Press Website

BORN
Kristian: I was born in Karlsruhe but grew up in Mannheim; it’s a nice area, the warmest area in Germany. We grew up with nice weather and we are frank and open people in South Germany. It was good to grow up in this area of Germany instead of growing up somewhere else.
Frank: I was born in Karlsruhe, Germany, Southwest Germany. Kristian was born in September, 1973 and I was born in March 1973. We were born on the same day, in the same neighbourhood, but six months apart. There are about 300, 000 people in Karlsruhe – it’s small and nice and has everything that a town of this size needs. We both found that with the bigger cities, we like to stay there for a couple days or weeks to visit but we like the feel of a smaller town. We like to have everything nearby and when you walk down the streets, you might run into someone you know, it’s a lot calmer. It’s a lot more difficult to have a proper club night there, because there’s no real audience for it but we are working on it.

FAMILY
Frank: My family was into music, absolutely. My father was a trumpet player – not professional, but a good amateur, he played in a lot of jazz bands. He always pushed me to play piano and get in touch with music really early on. My mother doesn’t play any instruments but she loves music. She has a jazz club these days. There was a lot of jazz in my house growing up. My dad collected records a bit, but not as much as I do now. He played everything he was a huge Miles Davis fan especially. The first record I got from my parents was Stevie Wonder. We were both into what you’d expect, the classics.
Kristian: My parents weren’t really into music at all. My mother wasn’t into classical music so the earliest thing I can remember listening to is Wagner, lots of German music. I started playing guitar when I was around 15 – my parents actually brought me to a music school to learn because “the son shouldn’t only do science and sport, he should have a musical education too!” At the end, I had a teacher at this music school and we always decided to play football instead of practicing guitar lessons. (laughs) My parents discovered that and I had to stop.

BORN
James: I was born in Stoke On Trent in 1977. It’s just south of Manchester and it’s very rural.
Jas: I was born in Farnborough in 1976. I’ve never been back there to be honest; it’s a boring little town just outside of London.

FAMILY
James: My dad played bass, there was always a lot of music around the house. My mum and dad always played records. My mum’s a big Stones fan and the Beatles; I suppose my dad’s got more of a proggy side to him – he’s into Jonathan Richman, Caravan and Gentle Giant.
Jas: My parents listened to pretty straight stuff – Beatles, Elvis, David Bowie. In terms of getting into music – because I was from such a small town – I’d take a lot of trips up to London and go to all the record shops. Because there was nothing back home, it felt like I was getting into completely new things. I’d just buy any records, as long as they weren’t the obvious ones. I probably got into a lot of things that weren’t that good simply because it was new to me. I remember getting into the Cure, rock ballads, stuff like that. You get into Pantera just because it pisses your parents off…
James: Well, and they’re a good band! (laughs)
Jas: And they’re a good band, yes.

BORN
24th of Feb, 1009. No, not really – 1978. I was born in a little village in Switzerland.

FAMILY
My father is Swiss and my mother is Chilean. I moved from Switzerland to Santiago, Chile when I was about 11 or 12. My mother wanted to go back to Chile so my sister and I went with her. At that age, it was hard to leave all my friends and once we got there it was such a change. We’d been living in such a little, small village and we moved to Santiago, which is like 10 million people. So it was really intense at the beginning. Because my mother is Chilean, we already knew the language and we were a little bit used to the culture. Still, everything changed completely – the rules, everything. But the best time of my life was in Chile for sure; I’ve always felt like Chile’s my home. When I went back to Switzerland, I didn’t feel like it was home again. Now I’ve been back here in Switzerland for 8 years and I’ve started to feel again like this is a place I can stay for a while. Maybe one day I’ll go back to live there, Chile’s really amazing, it’s a beautiful country.

My father – when I was very young, this is when we were still living together in Switzerland – used to fix juke boxes for a living so we had many, many records. A lot of disco, some French music, a lot of the hits, but the good hits! We had a lot of music at home, always. Neither of my parents were musicians but they loved music.

BORN
Born in Chicago, Illinois in March, 1969.

FAMILY
I’m an only child, my parents are still married and living in Chicago. I probably see them once every two months, since I play in Chicago often. My parents were pretty confused when I first started DJing. They didn’t really know what it was all about, but these days they’re coming to grips with the whole medium. They weren’t super musical growing up; they listened to the radio and had a few albums that they loved, but they weren’t particularly musically inclined. They were into Trini Lopez, Johnny Mathis, Elton John, lots of pop music, nothing too crazy. They were more radio people than anything else; they didn’t buy tons of music. My grandparents would come over for holidays, and they weren’t super musical either. I must’ve acquired it on my own...

BORN
I was born on 07.07.77 and grew up in London.

FAMILY
My parents were in the music industry when I grew up, which certainly lead to me DJing. My dad stored all his records in my bedroom. So I could basically sift through my dad’s records, piss around with them pretending to DJ and scratch. They were mostly crap anyway, it was all ‘NOW 19,’ or whatever it was – actually, it was probably more like ‘NOW 4’ back then. I managed to ruin a whole bunch of his records and my parent’s Hi-Fi system doing that. So I was messing around with pop records when I was just getting into hip hop - you know, listening to Big Daddy Kane, Salt ‘n’ Pepa, Ice T. So I used to mess around with pop music and hip hop, which isn’t far from what I do now!

My dad has as many records as I have. But I think I went through them all and found about 5 that I would play. He grew up on rock – we even had a Beatles toilet in our house! It had all the memorabilia in it, so every time I take a shit I think of George Harrison! (laughs) The Beatles is something I learned to appreciate very early on. My dad was a manager - he used to manage Eddy Grant and Eurhythmics, and my mum worked for a music producer. Neither works in the industry any more – maybe they got out at a good time?! My dad plays every musical instrument badly. I learnt to play the piano and I wish I carried on more than I did. My brother tried to DJ but I think that was quite short lived. He was always into hip hop by default though; I used to buy him CDs for his birthday that he didn’t want and that were always meant for me. There was tons of music in the house – my whole family loved music.

Perhaps the sleepy town of Chertsey, near Surrey, is not the first place you’d guess as the origins of some of the loudest, rawest, most powerful sounds to come out of electronica. But indeed, Keith Tenniswood was raised on the river side of Weybridge, where much of his days were spent with a guitar in hand and ruffling through his dad’s vast record collection. His mum and dad were both music enthusiasts, though “in the 60’s, she was more Beatles and he was more Stones.” After a youth full of electro, graffiti, mixtapes, break dancing and skating rinks, as a teenager Tenniswood started taking the train up to London every weekend to get lost and found at acid-tinged squat parties. Equipped with crazy bands (with descriptive names like Gaye Bikers On Acid, Screech Rock), crazy outfits and all around general insanity, it was no surprise that the acid house scene had immediate effect on Tenniswood’s day to day life, taking him from London squats to the rest of the country…

BORN
I was born (in 1965) and raised in Detroit.

FAMILY
Growing up in Detroit, I grew up with Motown in the house - a lot of Motown and Philadelphia soul, artists like Marvin Gaye of course and Curtis Mayfield. I remember Isaac Hayes, the soundtrack from ‘Shaft’ had come out - I think I was around 4 or 5. Supafly was out at that time. I had a babysitter who would come over and play a lot of 50’s music; she’d play 50’s doowop on the radio. There was always a lot of music going on. My father was a jazz musician; he played piano, trumpet and drums. My mother was in an R’n’B group, they recorded a little 45 locally. As I said, we listened to a lot of Motown - in fact, my grandfather’s first cousin is Berry Gordy. My uncle managed lots of jazz bands and R’n’B bands, so we’ve always been musically inclined and had an ear for it. I guess I get it mostly from my father - he was an artist and a musician and I picked up the same things from him. I’m an artist as well, an illustrator. I do mostly pencil and charcoal renderings. I’m not really a painter - though he was painting and drawing and doing illustrations. I do some graphite renderings too.

BORN
I’m from Miami, Florida. I was born in Nicaragua and I moved to San Fran when I was 3 years old, and then when I was 5 I moved to Miami and I’ve been living there ever since.

FAMILY
My mom is a teacher for my middle school – the one I used to go to. Nobody in my family was into music. My dad’s cousin was a good guitarist so I guess something came from him. Growing up, my parents were listening to a lot of salsa, a lot of meringue, a lot of old Nicaraguan folk music...yeah, they’re old school, mad old school. But all the music they played had a lot of bass – meringue has a lot of bass in it, salsa too, so that’s where I developed my love of bass.

BORN
Philipp: Patrick was born on the 21st of May in ’70, and me, I was born on the 16th of December in the same year. Patrick was born in Zurich and I was in a town called Saarbrücken, which is close to the French border, kind of near Frankfurt. Patrick moved from Frankfurt to Saarbrücken when he was about 10, we met at 15 and then we went our separate ways for university.

FAMILY
Philipp: Patrick’s father listened to a bit of jazz but he didn’t really have a musical family. Patrick’s father used to run an insurance company and his mother was a schoolteacher. And was my family musical? Actually no, not at all. It would be nice but it’s not like that. My father was a truck dealer – not drugs, trucks! (laughs) My mother ran a boutique for expensive clothes for little kids, which was nice when we were growing up. Basically because my parents were never there, I had older brothers and cousins looking after me. I was hooked on records; I maybe started out with AC/DC when I was 7ish, 8. Patrick started to listen to jazz and that, his parents had a really large record collection but he wasn’t allowed to touch the records for good reason - we would always scratch them! My older brothers listened to a lot of hard rock, when I was really young it was like Queen and AC/DC, then my musical taste at 14-15 was Tears For Fears, The Cure, a lot of dark electronic stuff. I was really hooked to early pop electronic bands, and a lot of…well, I can’t call it gothic but it was dark. Patrick was into Janis Joplin, a lot of rock. We met at 15 and I was more into electronic stuff and Patrick was more into rock. As for us meeting, we’re never really sure if it was in a swimming pool on a diving board or if it was in a tennis court. The only thing we did when we were young was sports all day. And then we’d hang out and everyone would tape music for eachother, we’d make nice little music tapes and stuff.

BORN
Caspa: I was born in Islewood in 1982.
Rusko: I was born in 1985 in Leeds, sort of between Leeds and Yorkshire. So I was brought up in Yorkshire and went to the college of music to get a music degree in Leeds, learned the trade up there and then moved down here to apply the skills. (laughs) But I’m still reppin’.

FAMILY
Caspa: My mum works in a doctor’s office as a receptionist, and my dad works in the council. My old man’s a record collector, he’s mainly into punk but his collection’s varied – from Elvis, 50’s stuff to the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s…he’s into everything really, but he’s especially into punk, big time. Music was always around me, but I was never a music person, really. Before I got into music, I used to play basketball. I was quite serious with basketball; I played for England and got a scholarship to America. But I dislocated my shoulder – I’ve done it about 15 times now. I used to play basketball all the time, semi-professionally, and I was really serious about it but I had to stop playing because of my shoulder. I was always interested in music growing up but whenever I stopped playing basketball, I started paying more attention to it. I’d always wanted to DJ but didn’t have time before then, so I started to DJ a bit and then I learned to produce, and got deeper and deeper and deeper into it…
Rusko: My mum used to be in a band, right up until 3 months before I was born. It was kind of like weird folk, country music, she used to sing and play the mandolin. (Caspa laughs) What are you laughing at? I’m only telling my story! What do you expect me to say – I was born in fucking Croydon, raised in the ghetto selling drugs and now I make dubstep? (laughs) It’s not like that, it’s a nice story! I wish I had a ghetto story but no, my mom used to sing in a folk band in Yorkshire. Before I was born, I was at the front of the stage in my mum’s belly – so yeah, before I was even born, I was rockin’ it on stage. Her band was called Ventura Highway – she’ll absolutely love that I just dropped that name!

BORN
I was born in Nuremburg, a very small city between Hanover and Bremen, in 1969. At the age of four, we moved to Kamp-Lintfort, another small west German city close to the Dutch border. Shortly after, my parents split up and my mother and I moved back to Bremen, where I actually grew up.

FAMILY
My mother, back then an employee at a bank, wasn’t really into music. She was listening to all the usual stuff like everyone else but I do recall her liking Supertramp. Music wasn’t massively present during my childhood but somehow I remember that I was into music at a very early age. I was making cardboard guitars imitating Gene Simmons from Kiss. Retrospectively, I think I thought about music alot more and with more intensity than alot of my peers.

BORN
Pat: 1973, Ithaca New York.
James: I was born in February of 1970, just missed the 60s, in Princeton New Jersey.

FAMILY/MUSICAL ROOTS
Pat: My father is an economist and my mom’s an actuary at an insurance company. We did have music in the house all the time, like folk and for some reason reggae which was kind of weird for a white suburban family, and plenty of rock music. I always wanted to play the drums but my parents made me play the saxophone which I hated. They told me that there’d be 15 drummers in the band and only one saxophonist and there was like 25 saxophonists and 1 drummer. No one wants to have drums in their house. When I was 13 I heard the Violent Femmes and was sold. I remember riding a bus with this kid and he was like I like hardcore and I like punk what do you like, and I said I like Violent Femmes and he just rolled his eyes. But he was Scotty Cum Stain from a fine local punk ensemble.
James: My parents have passed away. My dad was a bean counter and my mom was a mom. My dad was really into big band jazz and small band jazz of the same era, but I have older brothers and sisters and they were into classic rock. Everybody played an instrument at some point. I played guitar but I was a singer in various new wave ensembles in the early 80s so I taught myself how to play guitar badly. I’m the youngest so I was the new wave kid. My oldest sister was into like Loggins and Seaman and shit like that. My brother listened to a lot of Yes and Utopia. My other sister listened to Jay Giles Band and Kansas. And I listened to the Violent Femmes and B-52s and The Clash, maybe a little Flock of Seagulls, you know? Dead Milkmen, Black Flag – anything that was weirdo music. You know, when you’re a kid you don’t know the rules of what’s punk and what’s new wave, it’s all just weirdo music. My dad was born in 1931 so I think we had some musical differences.

BORN
I was born in Chile the 6th of August in 1970 - it was exactly 25 years after they dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima, exactly the time. I was born at 1:00 and it was 8 in the morning there. So exactly the same, except 25 years later…

FAMILY
One part of my family is from Germany, my mother. She is half German, Czech-German, quarter Italian and quarter Chilean. My father’s completely Chilean. So I’m half Chilean, quarter Italian quarter German. My mother was at university teaching journalism, and my father was also at the university teaching physics and math. There was a military coup in Chile in ’73 [General Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratic government of Salvador Allende in 1973], when I was three years old, and then we flew to Germany because my mother had family there. It was a dictatorship, a right-wing military coup, not communist but the opposite, and so we had to leave the country immediately. My father’s friends died and got tortured and everything, it was horrible. But I was lucky because if I’d grown up in Chile, I would be something very normal, like an engineer. I would’ve taken the normal, academic route. In South America, you either go academic, studying a particular subject, or you have to work. There’s no in-between. In Europe, the possibilities are much bigger – you have the possibility to find alternative ways of life, to earn a living with music or whatever art you want.

BORN
Marcus: “I was born in 1971 in a small town in the north of England called Burnley, which is about 25 miles north of Manchester, about 80,000 people. Actually, great fact – a few years ago, there were more people leaving Burnley than anywhere else in England. So the population is getting smaller and smaller…I was the first out!”

FAMILY
Marcus: “I lived in a small family that was me and my mother, and my grandparents lived round the corner. I was spoiled, not overly spoilt but I was well looked-after. My mum had given everything up for me basically, so I got looked after. During my youth, all I ever used to do was play football, I was a nice kid. My mum was into music; she had loads of albums, the Beatles, the classics. But at the time I didn’t really listen to that kind of stuff. There was no figure in my family that put me on to music, really. It was something I found out for myself.”

BORN
I was born in Kidderminster in Worcestershire in 1972, the first of April. I lived there for the first eighteen years of my life, and then headed off to college.

FAMILY
Music’s always been a big part of my family life. My Dad plays guitar as a hobby; he’d been in bands since he was a kid, he was in a folk group and pub-rock bands when I was younger. In fact, I played keyboards in my Dad’s rock band when I was a teenager for about half a year. Although she doesn’t play my Mum’s always been a big music fan. She left home and moved down to London when she was seventeen; she was really into jazz and reggae and used to go to Blues parties and stuff like that. If she’d have grown up 20 years later, I think my Mum would have been at Schoom - she would have been into Acid House. My Mum’s always had really good musical taste actually, she’s always playing me stuff; we’re always swapping recommendations and CDs back and forwards. They’re great, they’ve always been very supportive of me doing music. There were concerns that I was always going to be broke, but they’ve always been very encouraging.

BORN
The actual date? I’m going to keep my birth date a mystery but I was actually born on April the 1st, which is a good day because everyone remembers your birthday being an April fool. I’m not going to say how old I am but I was born in Kingston Upon Thames, which was a really nice area. I’ve got fond memories of when I was a kid around there. I used to play soccer and I was actually a marathon runner when I was younger.

FAMILY
The strangest thing about my family is we’re all very close, good friends, stuff like that. I’ve got two brothers, I looked after my brothers after my Dad left and I became quite. Still got a good bond - me and my Dad go fishing a lot. My Mum gets very emotional and really proud of me, but there’s no musical connection in the family what so ever. That really came from me being, it sounds quite bizarre, but I was bullied at school - to get away from the bullying I would become the class entertainer, so that way I became quite talkative and confident in doing things in front of quite a lot of people. So I was always known as the funny guy. It wasn’t bad bullying, just the odd bullying here and there until I eventually stood up for myself, but it really helped me with my ideas in life and wanting to do something special with my life. I either wanted to be an actor or a soccer coach because all I did was play football and swimming and bike riding when I was a kid.

BORN
I was born in Berlin in 1978.

FAMILY
My father played guitar and piano and my sister listened to Nina Hagen, Cat Stevens and Pink Floyd all the time. A friend of ours had a juke box and I always got the old singles from that – 80’s and 90’s hits. I listened to them a lot and was sunk in music. This was my favorite thing to do. Or playing the organ that was in our hallway...

BORN
Alex: “Baltimore, Maryland 1978.”
Chris: Christopher Devlin was born at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center in 1978.
Ronnie: I was born in a hospital in Annapolis, Maryland also in 1978 - holla! - and I’ve lived in Glen Burnie all my life, which is about 15 minutes outside of Baltimore in the suburbs. It’s like the suburbs, like strip malls and malls and Taco Bells.

FAMILY
Ronnie: “I was a rambunctious child, I was always hyperactive…And I had two older brothers and stuff would happen, and they would deny it so I would always get the beating. I spent a lot of time in time out. I don’t think my parents really listened to music much, but we used to go camping a lot so during our travels we were always listening to the radio so I was privy to listening to a lot of old Motown and Archie’s and a lot of the fun old stuff on the radio. So I was always listening to everything. My older brother was listening to heavy metal but we were all just listening to hip hop when we were younger.”
Chris: “I’m the middle child of three boys. My mom was always into education and my dad did carpentry and public service. So, you know, they were younger when I was growing up, they grew up through the 60s and they were involved in a lot of social movements. So growing up I had a lot of Beatles, Paul Simon, Richie Havens, James Taylor, Simon & Garfunkel. But my shit was like Michael Jackson ‘Thriller,’ Beastie Boys ‘Licensed To Ill,’ and I was really into Aerosmith for a while. My brother was real big into Led Zepplin, so I was definitely real into rock too. But I was always into hip hop and rap music, but mostly just off the radio til, you know, I paraded off into the world of the underground…”
Alex: “My parents were both visual artists. My mom was a professional painter of, like, paintings. (laughs) And my dad taught sculpture at the art school in Baltimore. They had pretty bad taste in music. My mom listened to a lot of classical music but it was all pretty bad romantic classical music…”

BORN
North London, in the year the man walked on the moon.

FAMILY
My Mum’s a teacher, a lecturer at university level, and my Dad’s done all bits and bobs. I wouldn’t call them musical really, no. They like music but they don’t play anything. I’ve actually got my Mum’s records now, which is great. She had some classic 60’s pop music in her collection, like the Beatles White Album. She had some Stones’ albums, I remember we used to dance around to them when I was a kid. As for my Dad, he’s a straight up classical head.

BORN
August 1975, South London, Lambeth.

FAMILY/MUSICAL ROOTS
My family were into music, My Mum loves Opera so I grew up listening to Opera. My Dad had loads of Nigerian records. My brother and I both started playing the piano but stupidly gave it up. I was being made to play extremely classical stuff and also I wanted to play football and chase girls so I ended up giving up the piano, which I do regret now. My brother was a pirate radio head, rare groove, so because of him I got listening to Norman Jay, Jasper the Vinyl Junkie, Westwood, Trevor Nelson when it was the mad hatter sound system and that was my musical basis. There was always music around and I was always making tapes but when my brother got heavy into pirate radio and that influenced me. So he got me into Public Enemy, Prince (who as well is my all time hero), George Clinton, Parliament, so that’s where all that stuff came in.

BORN
I was born apparently in Reading in 1968. It was a good year. It was the year of Mungo Jerry. He’s one of my glam rock heroes. I’ve never actually been there.

FAMILY
My dad was very much into gramophone records. I grew up from the age of 4 just surrounded by records. I was mesmerised by them. My dad wasn’t a musician but he just loved music. He was into the big band stuff like the orchestras where you had the full band in the pit with a crooner at the front, that kind of 20s and 30s stuff. I just kinda grew up listening to that really. You get all these people who are singing on the streets and under the arches, Dixieland jazz greats, and I know them all. I just grew up with it. He was musical in that way. I was playing the drums at 6, and playing the piano too. The piano was encouraged but the drums were kind of a rebellious thing. There was this one evening when I was playing them in this room in the house, and it was about 10 o’clock at night, I was about 10. It was around the time of Pink Floyd ‘The Wall’. I was playing away and these three blokes just walked into the room, and I thought oh, they must be like friends of the family or something, and they go, is this a party mate?, and I said no, and they just walked out and I never saw them again. It was great. That was my first house party. My dad just loved music so much. It was really inspiring. When I reached teenage years other music took over my life.

BORN
M: 1970. In Ghent, Belgium.
B: 1969. In Ghent, Belgium.

FAMILY
M: There was a bit of music in the house, a bit of African music, Arabic music and Michael Jackson. But we had a lot of radio and recording tapes from the radio when I was 10-years-old or something. The jukebox in my parents’ bar was owned by a company that delivered 7 inches, whenever they replaced the selection we got to keep what they took out..They were all scratched and had played on the jukebox 100-times already. But it was still cool to have those to play around with and listen to.
B: My parents used to have Clubs and DJ Bars in the late 70s in Ghent. My father was the DJ, he played a lot of Rock and Seventies stuff. I remember at the age of 8 I saw him playing records. I wanted to do that as well! My love for music and dj-ing definitely started there.

BORN
Napoli, Italy, 1975

FAMILY
My family was zero with music, all my family. I didn’t actually learn music or get in contact with music through my family. It was something that happened more with friends and going to clubs when I was really young. One of my best friends when I was a little kid was the son of the owner of the biggest clubs and radio station in Napoli. So when I was 12 I was basically living in there - in recording studios, in clubs. So that was definitely where my passion started.

BORN
Eric: “Los Angeles in the seventies.”
Tom: “Cambridge England, 1969.”

FAMILY
Eric: “I always listened to records since I can remember. There were always parties and records around. No musicians, but music was always around. Gram Parsons, Hall & Oates, Otis Redding – I can always remember that cover when I was a little kid of the blue cloud when I was seven or eight. I wasn’t into all the records that were at my house, I was into different stuff that my mom wasn’t into, and my dad wasn’t into. But now I’m back into the stuff that they’re into, I wish I had all those records now. There’s like a thousand records at the house that I wish I had now, that were great, that I wasn’t into then.”
Tom: “For me it was The Beach Boys, and Stevie Wonder. That’s about the sum of it. I think I influenced their [my parents] tastes. I was really into records from a really early age. I was more into music than any one else. I sort of DJ’d for the family since I was a kid.”

BORN
Dominic: I was born in Bristol, South West, 1974.
Mark: And I was born a little bit further south than that, just on the outskirts of Dartmoor, in Devon, in 1975. So that makes me younger, and better looking. (laughs)

FAMILY
Dominic: I came from a sporting family, and I’m rubbish at sport, so no. Actually I have a granddad who I’ve never met before who is a country and western star in the black hills of South Dakota.
Marc: Wow. Yeah, I had a fairly musical family, my father was the musical one. He had a massive vinyl collection, all across the border as well, very eclectic. Stevie Wonder and Deep Purple and Mozart, completely across the border, so, yeah I definitely got my love of music from him.
Dominic: I didn’t get any musical influence from my family at all actually.

BORN
Dan: Melbourne, 1978

FAMILY
Dan: My family wasn’t particularly musical. Apparently my great grandma was an opera singer, but of course that was before my time. My parents just listened to jazz when I was younger, which I didn’t really like at the time at all, in fact I used to hate it. So I’m not sure entirely if that was an influence, though I do like it now. Certainly in hindsight, some of the stuff they listened to was cool, like 60s stuff like the Animals and things like that. But I’d say as a whole, my musical taste wasn’t really influenced by my parents or anyone around me.

BORN
Ali: 7 June ’67, Stuttgart, Germany
Basti: 28 Dec ’69, Stuttagart, Germany

FAMILY
Ali: “We have a very strong relationship with our family. We don’t have a musical background, but we have a big party background. My parents loved to party, especially my father. He was always bringing old records and tape machines to parties. He was such an entertainer. He was into all kinds of music: pop music at the time, from the 50s, the Beatles, the Stones, classic music, everything. They loved to dance and they’re very open-minded so that’s why they are also our biggest fans. Our father died last year and that’s still very sad. He was such a big influence and the most important person to us. He would often come touring with us and when we did really big parties, he’d be at the door hosting people. It’s really sad, we miss him terribly. But the same with my mother: when she comes out on tour with us, she’s always on the dancefloor or opening the dancefloor and it’s so sweet. She’s amazing.”

BORN
Tom: “Slough, England, 1973. I’d like to point out that I didn’t actually live in Slough, I was just born there. Not that there’s anything wrong with Slough.”
Pat: “I was born in 1975 in Bournemouth in Dorset. It’s a lovely place which I moved away from as quickly as possible.”

FAMILY
Tom: “My mum and dad didn’t play any instruments and they can’t really sing in tune…my uncle was really arty, he’s an art teacher, so I suppose maybe that’s where my artistic side stems from. Nobody else in my family is really into art or music. My mum likes a lot of classical music, which was obviously good. You know with a lot of families, they either listen to the Stones or the Beatles – mine was definitely the Beatles. Simon and Garfunkel, all that. And of course my Dad, like any 80s dad, loved the Dire Straights. My parents are quite open minded, my dad’s really into our music now.”
Pat: “It’s pretty much the same for me really, no one in my family has ever really been musical. My older brother loved music when I was growing up; he was a lot older than me so he introduced me to a lot of the music that I listen to now. But other than that, not a single musical bone in the rest of my family. My dad was one of those strange people that didn’t like music at all, full stop, which I obviously don’t understand at all. And I think that influenced me a lot, being the exact opposite of that. My mom was quite a big country music fan, which has definitely had an influence on me!”

BORN
I was born in 1970 in Enfield, North London.

FAMILY
I grew up in Wood Green, North London and had a really nice upbringing. My Mum was always playing music around the house while she was doing the hoovering and embarrassing me in front of my mates. She was into all sorts, really - anything from the Beatles to Bob Dylan. When my Mum and Dad divorced, I would go and stay with my Dad and he was more into his jazz side of things and early funk, people like The Meters, who were an influence on me as well. I got into what my Dad was playing really. He really got stuck into some of the more early electronic soul that I started liking, so took an interest in that and we sort of had a bond there; my Mum as well. The music my Mum played at home did influence me, I suppose both of them did influence me, but then I found my own way really, with a sort of more black orientated roots sound.

BORN
Nathan: “1970, Enfield, North London.”
Terry: “I was born in 1966 in Epsom”

FAMILY
Nathan: “My old man had always been into jazz and a lot of the rare groove stuff, while my mum had been into anything from Bob Dylan to the Beatles, so the background music that I grew up to was really all over the place. I suppose it did have a big influence on what I play in some ways, and through the journey of going to parties over the years, from the early rare groove days. I suppose that’s the reason I’m a bit of an old soul boy.”

Terry: “My Mum and Dad were listening to James Last and stuff like that so I didn’t get much influence from them. I got to about 14 and realised that I enjoyed dancing I started listening to early soul stuff, Motown, that kind of thing. I actually got into a bit of rock when I was 15. That was my brother’s influence really his room was next to mine and I had to listen to it every day. I wasn’t into school really. I wasn’t really very good at school but I went. I was better at art and crafts than the academic stuff. Later on my Mum and Dad thought I was wasting my time. All they could hear was ‘BANG-BANG-BANG’ coming from my room, they thought I was just wasting my money on records and staying up all night when it would never go anywhere. They are really proud of me now. It’s the same for any walk of life that’s not the norm I suppose. When I was eight my mum made me take Cha-Cha lessons. The neighbour’s kid went so I had to go. I got my bronze medal actually. I remember getting booted off the course for not paying attention. But it was definitely the start of my rhythm!”

BORN
Southampton, 1973.

FAMILY
When I was about 10 or 11 I used to be in trouble at school for being the class clown so my mum and dad used to offer me incentives to better myself with my school reports. After a while I think they finally figured I wasn’t gonna be academic so they gently persuaded me to do piano lessons. But truthfully, my heart wasn’t really in it because I already had my eye on something else. I discovered hip hop around the age of 13, and that was it. My dad was a big music lover too; he used to buy soul 45s. Not anything special or rare though. He would go and buy Sam & Dave, Lee Dorsey and Otis Redding. He was also into a lot of ska, Prince Buster and stuff like that.

BORN
“I was born in south Texas, 1979.”

FAMILY
“I was born into a loving and musically driven family.”

BORN
Mark Pritchard: "I was born in Taunton, Somerset, England, 1971."
Tom Middleton: "If my memory serves correct my first incarnation was around 150,000 BC, middle of the African savanna (at least it was the last time I did regression therapy). And more recently Kingston upon Thames, UK, northern hemisphere, Earth, solar system, milky way."

BORN
Jake: “Maidstone in Kent, 1970.”

Ollie: “Hammersmith, 1970.”

BORN
"Cardiff, 1979."

FAMILY
"My dad is actually a manager and booking agent for ‘50’s rock n roll bands. So growing up, naturally we listened to a lot of 50s rock and roll. He hated the Beatles – it was all pre-Beatle rock n roll, it was pure rock n roll. So that’s what he was playing and being in such close proximity to it, it kind of turned me off it. Then my mum meanwhile was playing Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen and things like that. But apart from that I was only hearing music from films."

BORN
"Detroit, 1969."

FAMILY
“Of course there were some musical people in my family, like my brother playing guitar and my sister played flute. But my parents didn’t play any instruments. For the most part, I think by the time I came along, because there’s almost a decade gap between my brother and I, that the majority of the music that was being listened to in the house was music from my older brother and sister. So anything that my parents were really interested in, they weren’t that interested in anymore because it was dominated by the children. Of course between brothers and sisters there was always the fight for the radio; my brother wanted to listen to more of the local black stations and my sister wanted to listen to, you know, things that were a bit more candy-coated. With the case of anybody that has any older brothers or sisters, their influence is going to be tremendous - as well as if you have a parent that is a keyboardist or if you have a parent that is really into music, then of course they’re going to influence your likes and dislikes in music. But I think that, because a brother or sister are closer to your age, you’re going to listen to what they have to say and what they like a lot more.”

BORN
“Mississippi, 1978.”

FAMILY
“I grew up all over the place, all throughout the south, and went travelling a lot. I have two sisters. My mom just goes to church all the time. My dad works on boats and stuff, catching shrimp."

BORN
“I was born in Zambia, 1972”

FAMILY
“My dad’s an engineer, my mum’s an artist. My upbringing was very musical because we didn’t have a TV. My dad was a big jazz head, really into his blues and my mum was into a lot of African soul stuff, so I have had a very good musical upbringing on that side. It was very much about music at home, at dinner time we’d put a record on and they would be like “ah, good choice!” They were laid back, quite hippy-ish parents.”

BORN
“1971. I was born in a suburb of Paris – not in a rough suburb or anything, but not in a great suburb either. It’s still quite different here to be born inside the city than to be born in suburbia. I came and actually lived in Paris on my own when I was 18, for my studies in politics.”

BORN
“Stockholm, 1976.”

FAMILY
“I grew up with my mother, my parents divorced early. My father died when I was thirteen… so up until thirteen I was pretty good in school, but after that I sort of drifted off a bit and did other things. I was in a district of Stockholm at first and moved into the city at the age of nine. That changed quite a lot of things for me. Coming into the city I got in touch with people listening to other kinds of music like hip hop. I started to DJ when I was about twelve, so that was the biggest event in my life. I finished school after twelve years, we had to, but it was never really my intention to go further than that. I was already releasing records when I was in high school.”

BORN
Kingston, 1971

FAMILY
“I’m not a confident person, but I am confident in what I can achieve. I don’t walk around thinking ‘I’m the shit’, but I know that I can do things if I put my mind to it. I can make things happen just by sheer determination and being relentless, it’s just a matter of making things work. When I think about how I started, you know, all my friends ended up in prison or dead, and now I’m doing the things I’m doing. It’s shocking and incredible, but in a nice way, because if I can do it I know that anyone can. I got kicked out of my house at 15 and I left there with no shoes or socks. I never went home since… but everyone has their problems. Now I’m 33 and I have my own family, I run my own record label, have my own studio and I DJ all over the world. I have to turn work down now. And that’s all from sheer commitment. I haven’t got a qualification to my name. So the good thing for me about music in general is the creative thing, and no one can say that there’s a right or a wrong way, or you can’t do it. It’s all down to personal taste.”

BORN
April 17, 1969

FAMILY
“Mom has been a College Administrator for many years and my father’s been in the corporate world but primarily a military man. He graduated from West Point which is a big deal military school here in the States. They divorced when I was 11 or 12 and that’s been about it. My mom lives in Chicago and my dad’s in Los Angeles. I think they’re still getting used to me being a DJ or being involved in the music scene. They’re happy that I’m happy.”

BORN
“Yeovil, 1978.”

FAMILY
“My parents ran the Gog Theatre Company, taking shows and workshops around the world. I was exposed to a variety of different cultures at a very young age. They’re really cool about me being in music, really supportive; they even come to my gigs, and can relate to what I do. My mum is very clued-up on new music and dance music, she knows what’s good. I’ve always been in an environment of performance and entertainment. I’ve got one brother who is doing shoe design at fashion college, and he’s really into music as well. He DJs and is involved in that side of things, so our parents’ creativity has rubbed off on us both.”

BORN
London, 1977

FAMILY
“There was a time when I was going out a lot, I got into dance music at a very early age and went to all the clubs I could get into. I was going to raves in the area to listen to the music – it wasn’t like I was a tearaway or anything. It didn’t really infringe on my education and when the time came when it was a choice between school and music, I was earning enough to justify what I was doing at that point. So I was lucky to get into it early really. My parents are in the film business so they haven’t done a kind of 9 to 5 and they’re very laidback. They’re proud of what I do and take an active interest in it.”

BORN
“I was born in Hastings sometime in Spring. I don't remember too much about it really.”

FAMILY
“I was the one that was really into music. The main reason I got into clubs was a guy called Martin Wong. He worked for my parents and was the flatmate of a local DJ, Terry Johns. He was a dancer and would give me these mixes from events. So while all my mates were listening to Madness I was listening to all these mixes from UK clubs. That’s how I got my influence. He also got mixes from Kiss FM in New York featuring DJs like Francois Kevorkian, and Shep Pettibone, playing loads of Prelude style tracks etc. I was fascinated by the fact that you listened to Radio One and there was a DJ talking between every record, and you heard these other mixes and it was continuous music. At a very early age I was just fascinated by this new music that you couldn’t hear anywhere else, and the way DJs joined all of it together."

BORN
Aston Harvey – London, 1969
Matt Cantor – London, 1973

FAMILY
Aston: I wasn’t from a musical family, although my parents started me at piano at the age of 8…as parents do.
Matt: My granddad was an organist in a church, and my mum used to play. I grew up playing piano, trumpet and drums. Music was my main interest at school, and my parents were really supportive of me. When I was 15, my dad bought me my set of turntables. Before that he got me a little four track and a synth to have in my bedroom when I was about 13.
Aston: It took my parents about 7 years of me making music to convince them I was doing, or trying to do the right thing…