We chatted to superstar DJ TERRY FARLEY ahead of the MUCKY WEEKENDER FESTIVAL....
Ahead of the Mucky Weekender Festival which takes place in September, we caught up with superstar DJ and all round legend TERRY FARLEY to chat about the early days of House music, how he got into music in the first place, inspirations and his favourite place in the world to play. For all of this and more, read on….
You’re playing at this year’s Mucky Weekender which takes place in September, how did this come about? were you invited to play or did you have to apply to Barry Ashworth directly?
I’ve known Barry since the late 80’s when he was part of that Natural Life / Monkey Drum / Roundshaw crew - very Balearic and hedonistic - he got me on the firm for the wonderful Shindig festival so it seemed natural to follow him into the Mucky dark side!
What was your musical background and from what age was music so important to you?
I came into music via my mum’s Love of Tamla Motown and the music of the streets of Notting Dale which was early reggae. Buying records became a life long obsession for me from a very early age.
Who were your musical heroes/inspiration growing up?
During my teenage years, it was London DJs such as Mark Roman / George power at Crackers in Soho , Alan Sullivan was a soul funk / disco DJ in Slough and Sean French over at Americas club in Southall. For artists, it was Big Youth, Dillinger and Sylvester.
What house DJs inspired you in the early days?
Danny Rampling at Shoom and Mark Moore. The Watson Brothers and Jazzy M on the London pirate station LWRV.
You’ve played all over the World, it must be hard to pick a favourite club or destination. Were there any favourite clubs abroad or at home?
No it’s very easy, Japan - I adore that country and its culture & cuisine and beautiful people. Playing at ‘Yellow’ in Tokyo was a real honour. Early DC10 in Ibiza was wonderful, a really amazing pilgrimage that our crew took every year!
DJ’s like to chat about the best years for house music - could you pick an era if you had to?
Chicago 86’ -87’ is very hard to beat, there were so many classics all being made by teenagers on equipment they had barely mastered which gave a real punk attitude of rawness and innovation. New York in the early - mid 90’s saw House music polished by DJs & engineers who are now on top of their game.
As Farley & Heller, you’ve released a lot of tracks over the years and even more remixes. There are several that spring to mind that have since become anthems. Roach Motel ‘Movin’ on’ and ‘Transatlantic’, ‘Ultra Flava’ and your remix of Sunscreem’s ‘Perfect Motion’ have all become house classics. Did you know at the time that you were making something truly special?
It took New York DJs like Junior Vasquez , Frankie Knuckles etc to make our music popular with a wider audience, this pushed us to make mixes with big New York rooms in mind . We had a lovely studio with a beautiful warm desk and a great engineer (Gary Wilkinson) and Pete was at the top of his genius game……Great times.
Would you agree that it’s harder to earn money making tracks these days?
Yes LOL - tracks seem to be simply a way of getting DJ gigs nowadays.
What drove the various guises such as Roach Motel, Fire Island etc.?
Fire island was our musical New York style piano driven house while Roach Motel was the harder, dubbier and tech tracks.
Were there any rivalries between London clubs and northern ones?
Not really, we loved playing, (still do) up north - Basics , Shindig in Newcastle , Arena in Boro so many top clubs back in the day in the north!
Getting through a music festival can be tough at times, tell me your top 3 festival survival tips?
Get a hotel.
Don’t take acid.
Get in, have fun and get out alive.
We’d like to thank the good people at CrashThe90’s for collaborating with us on this interview and Terry Farley for sparing his time to answer our questions. We wish him all the very best for Mucky Weekender and other future gigs he has booked, keep up to date with his DJ exploits at the following sites.