DJ Fat Tony: “I had one tooth left in my head - I wasn’t sane”

25:38DJ Fat Tony:House music came along and changed everything. We jumped ahead a little bit because when you went to, I mean, you was with Rusty Egan and Steve Strait. Oh, to Ibiza, yeah. So that was pre-house. That was pre-house. So it was just pure disco. Euro disco. Euro trash, pure disco. Okay. And that was really early on in like 83, 84, right? So you're about 16 when you're working at Playground. Yes, I was 16. So I've got this image there. So 14 to 16, you're just running around. King's Road. Yeah, everywhere. going everywhere you can, meeting everybody, giving away cigarettes, buying all your gear from.

26:15DJ Fat Tony:Yeah. The most annoying person on the planet. Well, people liked you though. Yeah. Because they found me funny. Yeah. I would say what people were scared to what they were thinking. I'd be like, Oh, look at you, you know, and people wanted you around because things would never be dull if you were there. Yeah, of course. And you still didn't like yourself. No, because I, I, I, I was creating a monster as such in the sense of, you know, a persona of like, okay, I find the bitches. they're going to love me. If I'm the loudest, they're going to love me. Do you know what I mean? I do. When did you first take drugs?

26:46Uh, 16. Oh, so a bit later then. Yeah. Around the time that you first got into playground. Yeah.

26:51DJ Fat Tony:So it literally was the playground. Right. So, you know, I'd had, I, I'd, I'd had a line of something that someone else gave me, which is quite well documented, but he didn't give me it. His friends did. And, uh, and I thought I'm never doing that again. It was, it was viral. I did a loan account. I didn't like it. didn't like the way it made me feel uh i thought i'm never telling that again then i had a friend who is no longer with us called paul and me paul and richard were part of a click little gang that we we made and from the king's road we all worked in the king's road and uh i was i walked into my job at with rusty at the playground because i i went to rusty and said they were open steve strange when rusty were opening this new big club at the lyceum and they were the pr woman called carol hayes an amazing woman that kind of looked pr'd so much back then she was like oh rusty and steve are doing this blah blah and so i i already had the insider information and i said to rusty oh just for your information i'm opening a new club on saturday night and you know i was a 16 year old kid that worked in the great gear market behind him on the store and he was like well what do you mean i went yeah i'm opening a new club on saturday nights and he was like so are we and i was like oh are you totally knew it oh the worst the worst so he said why don't you come and work for us on the door and so i went off i trotted to do the door was that nice did you enjoy that i loved it i let everyone in for nothing i had my job was to like do i used to sign the back of invites like and give them to people and be on the door so i just let them in everyone so i used to let about 150 people in every week for nothing and um which i signed the back fat tony yeah so it was all about tony got it and then every week i used to say to rusty oh he'd be like how was it tonight and i'd be like not good he's like what do you mean i'd be like people are leaving saying they hate the music like so many people and this poor dj who called was called ian duras and he was like at the time he was like DCM champion, DMC champion it was like that pioneering scratching and everything had come into play music was changing the way we clubbed was changing and I'd say everyone hates him, they're all leaving it was him and Colin Faber, and Colin Faber was like one of the first house DJs so Rusty was like so every week I would go on about it and then he was like well you know, you slag it off every week you can't do any better And I was like, oh, I can watch.

29:26DJ Fat Tony:So the following week, I turned up with four 12-inch singles in a carrier bag. And I got all my friends to come for my first gig. And I played both sides of each thing probably three times each. And no mixing, just needle to record. And within a week or so, I'd manipulated. I'd manipulated a job there. I'd manipulated my own night with a friend of mine called Stephen Leonard at the Wag Club. Right. So I started doing that. On Wardour Street. On Wardour Street, which was the centre of the universe at that point in time. It was the place that you had to go. And, you know, so at 17, 18, I was running the Wag.

30:08But this is the bit I don't get. The bit from the four records in the carrier bag to being this fixture of Clubland, when, by your own admission, you didn't even mix. No. What did you bring to the party?

30:22DJ Fat Tony:Good choice in music. Was that it? Always. And where did that come from? What were you being exposed to that other people weren't? I grew up listening to music. So we've missed this then. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when my brother, his bedroom was the other side in our house, and he had a sound system that he built. Right. And he was into lovers rock. My little younger brother was singing. My dad had the best stereo in the world equipment, like Marantz this and that. Always, always, always had the top of the range thing. His stack stereo was, you know, the best that you could get. We were the first person ever on our estate to have a satellite dish that was the size of Wembley Stadium that tracked satellites.

31:08DJ Fat Tony:And you could hear it going, ah. It was so annoying. But we had to have it. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. So my dad's Marantz, he used to always go on it. yeah the amps morance and i'd be like okay but we weren't allowed to touch it but every every sunday morning he would wake up and he'd play his music what was his music so his music was very eclectic so it started off with like gene pitney roy orbison jim reeves then it would go into like new electro really yeah and then as it as the 80s came into play it would be things like Human League, like Dare album, and all of these really amazing tracks and music.

31:48DJ Fat Tony:And I think that as his stereo and his speakers got bigger, his music taste and electric music got bigger as well. He'd become very eclectic. So on a Sunday, because I lived at home still, I didn't need to live anywhere else. It was like by the King's Road. So growing up on that estate, he'd like literally, we'd wake up and we'd have music constantly in the house. so when they went out my brothers would play their speakers out on out on the roof and the whole street would have to listen to it so you weren't bullshitting then when when you told rusty egan that you could do a job oh yeah yeah i i you know i always i always had that feeling of music i could read i you know i've never listened to music i've always felt music and i think that the only time that i listen to music when it become a necessity and a ways and means to get money to do in the height of addiction.

32:40Right, yeah. But there's still a little bit of a mystery as to how you became so wanted so quickly. I think that... Because, I mean, you're flying to New York months later, is it?

32:52DJ Fat Tony:I think you'll find that when you've got the biggest pop stars in the world as your best mates at that point in time, that becomes a really good bargaining tool. So this is people like Boy George. Yeah, you know, George has run the biggest... ...being part of your crew. 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, they were becoming the biggest people on the planet. And of course, very quickly when you suddenly become that DJ and they all come to the party constantly and there was like private members clubs like Fred's and all of these really amazing places opening up and you make yourself the face of it by being out every night of the week.

33:31DJ Fat Tony:And you've got to remember, right? London wasn't like it is today. Clubbing culture was five streets. And if you went beyond those five streets, you weren't a part of the in crowd. So we had Wardour Street, we had Greek Street. And then it started to open up. Covent Garden came into play. We always had Covent Garden. And then it kind of went, the West End suddenly wasn't the West End anymore. Café de Paris was there. Café de Paris was there. I used to do Wednesday nights at Café de Paris. And it was the centre of the universe.

34:07Technically, how good were you?

34:12DJ Fat Tony:I was shit. Like, literally, I was shit because, you know, it wasn't about how I played it, it was when I played it. I used to just, people would be like, oh my God, Tony's playing this, Tony's playing that. Because I played music that no one else had heard in the club at that point. Café de Paris on a Wednesday night. Albert from Paris used to play like cha-cha music and Latin music. And then I would go on at 1 o 'clock, 1 a.m. and play 1 till 3. And I would play early house electro. And where were you hearing that? I was hearing that in Great Gear Market. Got it. Okay. I was in the center of, you know, I was working behind the record store where everyone got their records from.

34:55DJ Fat Tony:So I literally would hear all of that stuff constantly. Also, at that point in time, I was going out clubbing every night of the week. so I knew exactly what and finding out what you were listening to by what, talking to the DJs? Yeah, I got up and asked them, what's this? We didn't have Shazam then No, of course not and then you're buying records Yeah, totally and also, you know, I very quickly became because of who and what I hang around with people gave me their records people wanted me to play their tracks so Paul Oakenfold Paul Oakenfold used to be an A &R man and he used to bring me the tracks every Friday and Saturday in brown envelopes and he used to give me like 10 tracks and I'd be like thanks and of course I'd be like oh god he's really annoying and there were certain times where I just couldn't be bothered to carry them and I'd throw them in the bin and it was like that was how facetious and what a little brat I was but you knew a banger when you heard a banger oh 100 % could you put it into words or could you just feel it in your bones well as soon as I would play them in the club and I'd be like oh this is incredible look at that you know i'm very gifted in fact that i could i had a nightclub to play tracks in that's the night ah so yeah i thought you'd just done something there but you didn't so that was the first nice thing you'd said about yourself was i was very gifted but actually you're just describing luck of being in the nightclub yeah not not acknowledging that you had something a bit special there no i don't think that i acknowledged that i was i had something special at all for a long time because I was always I have I always suffered with imposter syndrome because I was always someone's friend I'd fly around the world and I'd still be someone's friend and when you got people write suddenly they start writing about you in magazines and papers and it's like friend of DJ and it was like that for a while I'd suddenly started getting in loads of press suddenly started being like doing stuff and it was always like, oh, do you think you and George can do this or do you think you and Kate or all of that stuff that came into play.

37:02That was later with Kate Moss.

37:03DJ Fat Tony:Oh yeah, Kate came a lot later. Naomi and Kate I both met at the Wag Club originally. Do you know? So we're now, I mean, before we get there we're sort of in the mid to late 80s and you're now being flown regularly to New York at the Palladium. Ibiza appears on your itinerary for the first time I've been to Ibiza about five times by that point but never as a DJ oh that's a lie actually, what am I on about I went to Ibiza with Rusty to DJ and we did a party called from London No Sleep Till London, hence why at that point in time I was hanging out with and I was hanging out with the Beastie Boys, No Sleep Till Brooklyn and I'd met them and so we did this party called No Sleep Till London and literally at Coup and I didn't even play that night I disappeared I'd met some Spanish boy and off I went on the back of a moped came back four days later and then stayed stayed in Ibiza for six months with Steve me and Steve Strange just stayed in Ibiza no money nothing just stayed and partied yes every night So the drug intake by now was moving up.

38:20DJ Fat Tony:It was, yes, but it wasn't to the extent it was never a problem. Okay. I think alcohol was the biggest problem at this point in time because I couldn't handle my drink. Right. So I get drunk really easily. And then, of course, I become that funny drunk. It was never the problematic drunk because I was never going to be that person because I'd seen it in my dad and all my family and I thought, that is not who I'm going to be. Do you know what I mean? It was kind of proving a point that I could have fun on alcohol. But you were still becoming dependent, I think. Oh, 100%. So you couldn't party without a drink.

38:54DJ Fat Tony:No, of course not. And, you know, I was on holiday. Yeah, for six months. Yeah, one of those ones. For six months. Yeah, living in someone's house. And me and Steve, I remember we had a car and neither of us could drive. So I would get off with boys that could drive, and so did Steve. And we'd have them for three days until they had had enough of us. And they would get off. the amount of times I'd been left in the back of a car because Steve had had an argument and the guys would go and just walk up and leave us sitting in a car that neither of us could drive and what were the what were the kind of down moments like during that period so when you know when you sobered up and stuff were you were you happy in a sense or were you just waiting to start again well you know it kind of really was like because clubbing culture back then was so different to with club and culture now it wasn't about the weekend right back then it was monday wednesday wednesday we had something to do every night of the week yeah uh and that was really was yeah again pre pre uh internet it was literally everything was like so you went out and you found this platform you created these platforms suddenly magazines like id and all of these magazines were coming to play so you you saw what everyone was doing via the face you saw what everyone was doing via ID and other magazines.

40:13DJ Fat Tony:And suddenly, you know, the interest in fashion and everything else that went with it, music and fashion then suddenly combined yet again in a big way. And the house music arrived at the same time as well. Yeah, on the back of Electro. You couldn't have been better placed then. No, at that point in time, I really was so blessed because I'd already met Larry Levan. I'd already met all of these amazing DJs in New York. by hanging around with ads from the Beastie Boys and those guys, Adam, and just been hanging out with them and just being that person and being flying over to New York because everyone wanted to be in London.

40:57Everyone wanted to be in New York.

41:00DJ Fat Tony:It was very much that nylon situation, but everyone in New York wanted to live in London. And it was just like... So you're bridging that gap as well. And then you bring the New York Sound to, so Jungle would be one of the first with Colin Favour. Literally, Colin Favour. And that was one of the first house nights in London. It was. On a Monday. Yeah, on a Monday night. And it was at Busby's, which is gone now, Tottenham Court Road, underneath the Astoria. And on every Monday night, it was the first house club in that respect, especially on the gay scene. China just took London by storm. And then along come the limelight.

41:37DJ Fat Tony:and that kind of just thing and then with the wag we started incorporating house music so then i would bring in i just started i was running the wag on a saturday night for 12 years i was bringing in like tim simon from bond the bass mark mark moore from s express nana cherry and wild bunch and all of those guys that were like originally doing hip-hop stroke soul music suddenly house music started seeping in we moved into the era of soulful house and ecstasy ecstasy yeah well that kind of like yeah that kind of come a little tiny about a bit later yeah a little bit later first came over 88 89 first came over in a french shoulder pads right uh yeah mdma capsules uh and he used to bring that over from new york and suddenly there was this really big wave of it and it was never being produced here we used to always rely on mdma coming in were you financially well off or were you still chaotic you were i was financially well becoming minted by now yeah you're getting paid appearance fees you're getting i was on a retainer share of the game from the club yeah yeah okay i was on like three and a half grand alone a week on back in like 1980 in 1999 89 and you weren't at this point you weren't spunking it all on drugs No.

42:59DJ Fat Tony:That came a bit later. That came a little bit later, yeah. By this point, I was into designer clothes. So I was spunking an awful lot of my wages on looking good and feeling good. Are there moments here? Because, I mean, the sense of disbelief that you are living the life that you're living. And then there's the stories about you telling Madonna to fuck off, which, again, probably came a little bit later. That came further down the career. It's my career highlight. But you, I mean, you're conscious of, are you pinching yourself at times or not? Yeah, there was all these moments of like, okay, why am I doing this?

43:35DJ Fat Tony:Why suddenly, you know, and it was always, I always believed, there's a part of me that always believed that it's because of the people I knew. It wasn't about what I could do, it was about who I could bring. And I think that in itself, that hasn't changed much to a lot of DJs. It's always been about bringing a crowd. and people wanted those A-listers in their clubs. And you could bring the A-listers, but you could also bring the music. And when do you think you started acknowledging that you're actually very good at this and it's not about who you know? Oh, when I started playing at Trade. Okay.

44:08DJ Fat Tony:When I started playing at Turnmills. At Turnmills. And that really was the game changer because suddenly I got this gig at the club. Don't get me wrong, the Limelight was the club. I was the musical director at the Limelight. I was running the Wag Club, was the club. So I'd always shifted from club to club. And suddenly there was this new after hours place that was, you know, because everything was shut at 3 a.m. And the WAC club was the first club in the UK to get 6 a.m. license. And so that changed everything. So suddenly we were like up all night and then we wanted to carry on. And, of course, by then the drug intake had changed and become more prominent in my life.

44:54Partly because of the hours, I suppose. Yeah, of course.

44:56DJ Fat Tony:That was a good enough excuse. I would open after-hours clubs for that excuse. And you've got also AIDS is big in your life. Big. It was like literally I lost a partner. Tom. Yeah, Tom Hammond. And, you know, it wasn't only about Tom. It was like at that point in time, all of our social network and our peers were all dying. Yeah. And no one ever talked about it. They all went off and died. No one ever. It was always a whispering of so-and-so's not well. And we kind of just shrugged our shoulders. And suddenly it became a little bit like COVID in the sense of you'd think that you had it because you had a cold.

45:40Yeah, of course.

45:41DJ Fat Tony:Or suddenly you'd been so run down that you just felt ill. and then you go off to Ells Court with Trot to the anonymous same day testing centres that because they were in Ells Court because Ells Court at that point in time was the gay mecca all the gay clubs were there the Cologne wasn't it yeah and basically and the shops as well yeah all the shops everything it was like you know and all the gay hotels and everything was there and so you'd go there and you'd walk into these like little boutique shops like at the back of a shop and you'd be prick tested on your thumb and it was never a pleasant thing and then you'd go back, they said same day but you'd have to go back two days later sometimes and they'd say no you're okay and off you try again So I mentioned that, just to get the context in which everything started falling apart for you Yeah, from 95 to 2005 So in 94 you're on top of the world Literally I was living in Old Compton Street, I was at the top of my game I got to a point where my circle of friends had widened even more and I was living the dream I was literally living the dream and then of course what happens is in 1995 I got my record deal I moved into Queen Square bought the house and of course very quickly you let someone like me loose with their own house and so much money every day coming in.

47:20DJ Fat Tony:There was no one ever there to say to me to stop. So your appetites became prodigious. Yeah, totally. And I become, I believe my own hype. I become that hype man and wingman all at once. And I mean that you've written in extraordinary detail about this period. I suppose most infamously, there is the time where you sort of removed your own teeth. Yeah, it wasn't a time. It was over a course of a year. I kind of just, but, you know, I used to always, I still do. I bite my nails and I always, always had my hands in my mouth. And, you know, what happens is as new drugs come into play and, you know, you're up all night and you're dehydrated and your gums become dehydrated, you sit and dig at them.

48:07DJ Fat Tony:And what happened was where I'd been drinking certain like Coca-Cola and all like my teeth were rotting from the inside and I used to dig at them. Then I got into taking drugs in a different way, smoking. And I got this thing called Meth Mouth, which came a little bit later. Because my friend from New York used to bring a different drug to London. And I got very quickly addicted to that. That was the crowning glory of that was, OK, this is the nail in the coffin that I really don't need. because at that point in time, I got so addicted and I'd lost all sense of reality. But the money was still coming in.

48:50Why did you choose to write about this in such excruciating detail?

48:56DJ Fat Tony:Because I didn't want to glamorise my life. It needed to be said. And I think that the whole idea of that, when we sat and rewrote, I don't take requests, which took just over two years to write because it was never true at first. the book that we set out to write wasn't the book that came out because I kept saying no that's not true enough that's you know when you sit down to do something and you think that you're going to write a truthful documentation of the times you want everyone to be on that ride with you and you want everyone to think that oh yeah he did this I'd said over the years in comments like oh Freddie Mercury gave me my first line of cocaine or I'd spent over a million pounds.

49:41DJ Fat Tony:All of those cliche catch lines were parts of conversations. But suddenly they become your title. And suddenly it was everywhere. All of a sudden it was like the man that spent over it. And it looked like I was boasting. And it was never a boast. There was no boasting in any of it. But what it does become is a war story. And war stories, for a while there, set me free. And then they suddenly don't work anymore. Because they're camouflaged. 100%. And the authentic you is still hiding somewhere underneath it. The real, yeah, the authentic me didn't know where I was. I was in some, very like 10 % of me wanted to be real.

50:19DJ Fat Tony:And so writing that book and the process of writing that book, because my truth is how I see it. It's not necessarily the truth. And as you write that process and you go through that process and you interview other people that were there at the time, they will tell you the same story, but they were a hero in it. You were. and it was a remarkable learning experience and suddenly as that stuff one thing about me I have a very good memory I can repeat conversations I had 20 years ago 30 years ago there was a big blackout gap but that's come back a lot and I think that writing that book and getting honest in that book was the game changer well the game changer was recovery which came before the book and it wouldn't have been the book without the recovery what was the I mean, the cliche is that you have to have reached absolute rock bottom before you can start climbing up.

51:11DJ Fat Tony:I mean, I was at rock bottom for a good 10 years and it become a way of life. And, you know, I was that person that you walk by on the street. I was that person lying in a doorway. Some of the photographs are harrowing. Yeah, they are. And I think it's really important to keep showing that stuff because that person isn't me. That person was a version of me that I will never go back to. and I can sit here and I will say hand on heart I will never go back to that it's not a lot of addicts will say oh you're only one step away from like using or you're never always looking over your shoulder I know hand on heart that I'm coming up to 20 years sober and being clean and for me that is never going to be an option because my life is so incredible because of the things I don't do and not the things I do I would never change that gosh Because all of that stuff that I went through was misery and pain.

52:08DJ Fat Tony:And there was happiness at times, forced happiness. Today, I have real happiness in the sense of it's not forced rhubarb. You can't hear it growing. You can see it growing. You know, for me, it's like, you know, so that outweighs any form of romantism around addiction.

52:33DJ Fat Tony:Tell me about the first time you played Sober. It was a nightmare. Go on. So I literally did this when I went to rehab. I wrote, of course, Tony Bean. Tony had to write rehab diaries and get them published in a gay magazine called QX at the time. Got the cover. I'm back. I'm back, everyone. And, you know, literally, I did it so that I knew I couldn't go back. Right. And, okay, everyone's going to know I'm sober. and also it was a badge of honour for all the wrong reasons. So going back into that whole, I'm going to do a gig, my first gig, I built it up so big that there was no way on earth I was ever going to play because everyone was there.

53:15DJ Fat Tony:I had this anticipation and I thought, I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't be in this environment. And I'd set myself up to fail. And I think the reason I set myself up to fail at that point in time was because, yet again, I allowed the ego, which comes from fear, to override everything. And I just thought, okay, I'll just stand here and smile and then leave. Do you know what I mean? It was like, you know, it took me a good year and a half to two years to actually even function properly in that environment. Why? Because the damage it had done to my nervous system and everything else, even to this day, when I stand in a DJ box and I'm tired or I'm not like normal people.

53:57DJ Fat Tony:My neuro paths in my brain are wired. So when I start DJing, I go. My jaw will swing because it's that association. So even today. Like a muscle memory. 100 % that. And I have to learn to counteract that by using the tip of my tongue. I don't always do that. Sometimes people will go, oh, my God, he's off his nut. And it went on for a long time. And you're not. No. No, I know you're not. Yeah, no, literally. But you know what? It's kind of like. but you look like you are I do look like I am because that's what your face does when you're DJing that's exactly it and you know what so be it for people who don't know what was the moment that made you the God given moment that changed everything and I say God given I use that word loosely but it was it was it was you know I said this the other day and you know it's about being in the right moment at the right time but I was in the right time at the right moment you know that's the way it was and I'd been out for three days, four days in fact and I broke into my partner's then partner's house, stole his jeans while he went out and a few other things like a credit card and stuff and off I trotted into the night and I went to, I was at the cross DJing, I was going to DJ at the cross and I was sitting rocking backwards and forwards in the green room and he came in and my friend Edna at the time, this guy, come up and went, so and so's here and I was like I can't deal with this because he'd been barred from that club for like a year and a half for like fighting me in the DJ box and I was like please don't let him come in here because I was sitting there wearing his jeans do you know what I mean spending his money and I was please don't let him come in here and in he comes and I just sat there and I thought I can't deal with this and at that point I think I was at I was obviously at the most vulnerable and lowest point in my life if you can call it a life because it was literally I was emaciated and I sat there I had one tooth left in my head I'd pulled the rest out as we said with meth mouth and pliers and bits of stick and whatever else I'd just sit digging at my gums because I thought I had animals living in my mouth I wasn't sane and he came in and I just thought I can't do this tonight and he put his hand on my shoulder and I looked at him and he and it always it still does try it makes it makes me cry because it was that moment and he literally i looked at him and he went what happened to you and i let's say i'm welling up now because it was that moment that was that was the wrong question that wasn't what he was meant to say he was meant to say right you you know you got my fucking trousers back yeah and it wasn't and it was like i couldn't answer the question i burst out crying and it always affects me because it still has that it was that moment that changed my life forever and I remember leaving with him and on the Monday, this was the Friday on the Monday I went to see my doctor and I said I need help and he went I've waited four years for you to say this and I was like why didn't you say anything he said because I had to wait for you to say it and I literally within a week I was getting going to a drug drop in centre I knew I knew who who to call and who to speak to because after years all my friends had gone off and got clean and I would tell people they were dead people go oh you seem so so okay no he's he's dead they weren't dead they were in recovery so for me they were dead to you yeah they were no use to me they had nothing in their pockets that I wanted do you know me so it was like really was that so I knew who to call I knew who to like say listen I'm doing this now and my friend Bruce at the time was like you know he tried so many ways to get me to meetings and he just started himself and i remember him saying to me oh you've got to come to this meeting there's so many good-looking guys there and you get to hold their hands and i was like oh i'm up for that off i trotted and um i've never found that meeting never found those good-looking men they were a myth um to this day But, you know, yeah, it was the game changer.

58:09DJ Fat Tony:And off I went to rehab. And I went to rehab six months, five and a half months in Bournemouth. And I always joke and always say, like, support of ever going back to Bournemouth that keeps me clean. And I went there and then I came forward to London, you know. And that is why the new book has the subtitle A User's Guide to Overcoming Insanity, because that is where you were. Yeah. And I think, you know, for like 15 years of my recovery, I put down drinking drugs and I didn't do the work. And I. What does that mean? So basically, you know, when we we we we're addicted to any any substance or anything, whether it be drama, whether it be shopping or food or dopamine hit.

58:53DJ Fat Tony:Yeah. Yeah, totally. But you're addicted. Yeah. And and, you know, the thing about is, is whatever we use, we use in an addictive way. so if I have sushi on a Monday and it's fucking great I'll have it Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday until I've got a rash from raw fish and then I think oh what's that about, do you know what I mean and then I realise I've had it every day it's the way it works for me and what happened was from, so I got to I released I don't take requests like 15 years into recovery and I got honest, I'd never been honest to that point so I would do step work I would work the programme I made myself very quickly become the face of recovery in the sense of my inner circle of friends.

59:38DJ Fat Tony:So anyone's kids that needed help or anyone... Come to you. Go to see Tony. I opened a rehab in Thailand with my friend. I did so many things on that level because it became my platform. I become the voice of it. And what I'd done in that point was I never ever understood the word anonymity because I used to think, I've worked really hard on myself I want the world to know and what I've been doing was just giving away every bit of my soul again and not saving anything for myself and I found myself very quickly several times in that early recovery bankrupt again physically, mentally and emotionally Because you're still craving approval?

1:00:22Yeah, 100 %

1:00:24DJ Fat Tony:I've become the comedian I've become the stand up people came to my meetings because they knew here we go again right back to the early days of DJing the celebrities were going to come I knew, everyone knew so if I took over a meeting like a cuckoo that I was I'd go to that meeting twice and within a month I'd be running it and people would come the meeting would go from 20 people to 150 within weeks and that was the danger because I was bringing in the wrong people and it became the Tony show and it became the Tony show I suddenly become Jonathan Ross stroke Graham Norton stroke you know all of the great late what changed that then while writing the book or after it came oh no that changed what just the last book I mean yeah but whilst writing don't take requests I stepped back from it I started trauma therapy and what I realized in trauma therapy was that I'd got to this point where I just I was stagnant I was living in stagnant water I was a fish swimming in stagnant water my so called recovery as I called it I was clean, I was sober what else do I need to do?

1:01:37DJ Fat Tony:I hadn't done the work myself suddenly those learnt behaviours of the past that I'd learnt as coping mechanisms the lying, the cheating sex addiction all took over, everything was rife I was like and I found myself in the most unloving relationship. So you weren't using, but you were still living a toxic life. You were abusing life. Yeah, I was abusing life. I literally got into this position again in my life where I was in so many unhappy relationships. Because the addiction isn't about the substance. No. It's about the addict. It's about the addict. Everybody's different. And that's why this book is so important, Recover Me, because it's about me, meaning you.

1:02:20DJ Fat Tony:Yeah. it's not about the fat tony show it's not about so what it is is it's a i'm using my stories from some of the some of them are from the first book and also the way i treat people is the way i treat myself and and throughout this new book the way i treat people changes the way i treat myself because i treat myself with respect so therefore i treat everyone with respect and it's a been look my head's just it's a remarkable story because that that learned behavior of the past no longer serves me the lying to myself oh people asking me are you okay and i'm like oh yeah i'm great no i'm not struggling a bit and you know the the toxic relationships of me getting foot rot in a relationship because i'm wallowing in self-pity because i allowed that relationship to become that point so i could act out on my behaviors so i so my sex addiction went through the roof again because my behaviors because i was so unhappy my weight went through the roof I came out my last relationship before obviously when I'm in now the biggest mess in the world and I had to go and get after writing don't take requests I thought oh my god game over I'm exposed because I made it so truthful and you know it really was like okay I'm going to do this you're going to either hate me or love me hopefully you will hate me because then I don't have to be loved and I don't have to show any more to anyone.

1:03:47And it was a game changer

1:03:49DJ Fat Tony:because people didn't hate me. They loved me. So subconsciously, you're almost daring the world. 100%. And they didn't. You've got it. Because I lay awake every night after handing that book in, wanting that book back. Wow. Crying. Seriously, waking up crying, thinking you've ruined your life. People are going to know what you are. You've gone back to that destruction. and I'd seen the honesty as destruction and as destructive right and I and I remember ringing Hannah my my edit like my uh publisher and said I'm really sorry but I need to get the book back you can't have it back and I was like I don't want people I said my life's all right I don't want to ruin it she was like Tony I don't think you understand that this book's going to change people's lives and i was like yeah but it's going to change my life which is more importantly um and it's not going to be great and i remember that that turning point of like when suddenly it was getting great reviews and i was like yeah what do they want and all of that stuff because i still didn't believe in myself i still didn't believe that i was worthy of telling that story so so this is the story of how you become someone who does believe in him yeah 100 i'm married to one person i'm no longer hating who i am and what i do i love who i am i love what i do it's healing 100 and you know it's really bizarre because i just did the audiobook and doing the audio i'd forgotten what i put in my own book i've forgotten bits of it because i i kind of just plowed on and it was like you know to deal with that stuff and actually look at that stuff and my part in it and then break it down so what i've done with this one is i've brought my trauma therapist in tara day and she does the sub chapters so everything i tell you in the book which is kind of like there were days in doing audio and i would sit i'd go home and i said stabby i've done it again he'd be like what and i went why have i told the world this stuff they don't need to know this stuff i remember seeing in the in the like we are now and the editor was outside the other glass behind the glass and i'd i must have said the word cock 22 times in two hours and i was sitting there i was thinking this poor boy doesn't want to hear this and i remember going to him the next day and saying i'm really sorry about the book it does change and like feeling that shame and i thought why are you feeling shame about something that you've worked on so hard on and and it was because he i couldn't see his face yeah i was doing his thinking for him yeah again and it had gone back to that point because i felt uncomfortable so the learned behavior had gone back to that point and then really quickly he the next morning i went in and and i said it does the book gets that yeah and these mates were all joking they were like oh he loves the word anyway and um and then we went into the booth and i put the cans on and i was sitting there thinking today's gonna be a good day because i could you know with my dyslexia i can only read for a certain amount.

1:06:56DJ Fat Tony:Yeah, it's tiring. Yeah, and then he went, okay, if we could go back and start at rimming. And I was like, oh my God, Tony, you've done it again. It was like one of those moments of like, why have you done this book? And of course, you know, it's very odd with this one because I got the proof copies to send to people and I never sent them to anyone. Because again? Because of, you know, yet again, because there's stuff in there the way I talk about myself, the way I treat myself in past context is not how I am today. I understand. Final question. Has there been a moment in the last year or two, or maybe slightly longer than that, where you have sat there and almost to your own surprise thought, I'm all right?

1:07:51DJ Fat Tony:Yeah, there's been lots of them. I have those moments all the time now. And I literally just think, you know what? It can be the most, I could be eating scampi and chips at Dungeon S with my mum. I'm just thinking, life doesn't get better than this. I'm in a really like, you know, my wedding day. What, my mum walking me down the aisle. Like, that's a pinch me moment that I never dreamt that I could be in that position of loving someone the way I love my husband. Because of the way he makes me love myself. and the way my mum, for all of these years, I misread things and did things, and the fact that I'm in this position where I am really all right with who I am.

1:08:36DJ Fat Tony:I wake up in the mornings, I don't feel old. People ask me when I turn 60, what's it like to be 60? And I'm like, I couldn't tell you. I'm not 60, I'm 33. And I really mean it when I say it. You know, there's no age gap. There's a 30-year age gap between me and my husband. There is no age gap. I don't ever think oh my god, sometimes when I say things about people, he's like, who's that? and I'm like, and he does the same to me but it works both ways, he'll mention someone and I'm like, who the hell is that? and he'll be like, oh my god babe, do you not know? and I'm like, no, that's a two way street, do you know what I mean?

1:09:12DJ Fat Tony:it's not like, oh, you silly old fool, you don't know who so and so is because I do, but it's, you know it's, yeah, I had those moments all the time and you know i i'm forever working i'm forever when i say working i'm not only working within my career i'm working on myself in the sense that i have to keep bettering i can't go backwards in any way shape or form and you know uh it's how i treat myself it's how i treat other people so if i i'm a morning person i wake up and i'm out with my dog straight away and i i i am blessed i am so blessed there is no luck does not come into any part of my life i am so blessed for where i am in life at the the the age that i am the the the opinionated age that i am from other people because i'm not that age i don't feel that age and it's not like some silly old queen talking i do not ever think, oh my god, you're 60.

1:10:15DJ Fat Tony:Do you know what I mean? It's like, doesn't come into it. I remember this morning at coffee with one of my friends in the dog club, because we have a little dog club, and we go to the coffee shop. She said to me this morning, have you applied for your thingy yet, your bus pass? And I was just like, glad. A, why would I need a bus pass so I don't go on the bloody bus? But B, it's like, no, I'm in a position where I can afford to pay for things. I don't need to live off the government in that respect. So you can keep your bus paths. You can keep all of those things. Because I am the most greatest thing of all is I'm a paying member of society in every respect of the world.

1:11:00DJ Fat Tony:I look and make sure that I am respectful of what I do. And I think for the first time in your life you think you deserve this happiness. I really do, yeah. I know I do. I don't think that I deserve it. I know I deserve it. Because it's been a lifetime of getting it. Yeah. And I'm never going to let it go. You know, literally. And we've just been looking at houses. We're about to look, you know, I'm about to leave my beloved Pimlico, but I'm not going to leave it. I'm still going to keep that house. But we're getting a house. We're looking at a house in Margate. And we're moving to Margate three days, four days a week.

1:11:38Lovely.

1:11:39DJ Fat Tony:As our marital home. And suddenly it's not I anymore. Yeah. Because I live in Pimlico, right? We don't. And we is so much more important than I. Do you know what I'm saying? And it's like, so I am happy to keep my little flat in Pimlico for the time being, until we takes over properly. Recover Me, a user's guide to overcoming insanity by Fat Tony with Tara Day is out now. Tony, thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me on.