Pacha Chief Spurns Simon Cowell’s Superstar DJ Search
Leading Ibiza club promoter Danny Whittle was ‘sick in his own mouth’ when he heard of TV impresario Simon Cowell’s plans for a ‘superstar DJ’ X Factor style talent show, he revealed this week, and vowed that Pacha will have nothing to do with the concept.
“How likely is it Pacha would get involved? We wouldn’t, it has nothing we would want,” said Danny.
“What impact will the show have on club culture generally? None at all,” he predicted,“Certainly not the side of club culture that actually matters.”
Handling Pacha’s bookings since the late 90s, Danny helped David Guetta and more recently the likes of Swedish House Mafia and Luciano become bona fide international stars off the back on weekly residencies at Pacha though predicted established DJs will have little to fear from Cowell’s contestants.
“They will just create some shit DJ who will probably make a fortune playing in shit clubs,” he suggested.
Danny Whittle on Ibiza-voice (2004 interview): WHAT IS IT DANNY WHITTLE DOES EXACTLY? - Brand Director? Musical Director? Content Director?”) click for more
Details of the show emerged via a press release Simon Cowell released in which he promised it will ‘capture the incredible rise of the DJ phenomena’ and discover ‘the world’s greatest DJs’
“DJs are the new rock stars,” the multi-millionaire TV presenter declared, “It feels like the right time to make this show“.
Tim Deluxe: Stepping off the Hamster’s Wheel (extended interview)
Click on the picture to access Tim's new label Get Human
“It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what happened, but I’d say internally there were issues I hadn’t dealt with on a personal level. This then began manifesting in a negative way and resulted in me drinking more and not really enjoying what I was doing professionally. For sure it was hard to take a break, but in the end I needed to for my own sanity.”
Headlining Ministry of Sound’s main room aged 17 and releasing one of the biggest club records of 1997 soon after (speed garage anthem RIP Groove (with Double 99 co-producer Omar Amidora), Tim Deluxe epitomised overnight success.
Following up with a string of high profile (and highly lucrative), gigs, releases and remixes (including hits for Black Grape, Robert Miles, Mighty Dub Katz and Ultra Nate) he raised his game still further in 2001 with radio hit We All Love Sax and 12 months later “’It Just Won’t Do’, a worldwide club and chart hit that cemented his superstar DJ status.
Picking up weekly residencies at Pacha Ibiza soon afterwards and travelling non-stop, he appeared to be living the dream, though chatting about the period in an interview with Trax Source two years ago, said life soon became ‘like a hamster’s wheel’. (Trax Source: http://bit.ly/gPOeen )
Also confessing to collapsing on stage (‘it’s not fun or professional’ he recalled) he’s similarly candid talking to Skrufff today.
“I needed time for myself,” says Tim. “There I was having worked obsessively from 1995 to 2008 without really taking proper time out and it was scary,” he admits.
“I was earning serious money and ‘living the life’ in most people’s eyes but in reality I was ready to walk away. And though it took a lot of courage to do so, once I’d done it, it felt amazing.”
“This was the moment when I decided I needed to look inside myself so I stopped drinking and smoking. I changed my diet to a vegetarian one and took up long distance running.”
“Running has helped me massively, physically and spiritually. I completed my first marathons last year and will be running the Tokyo marathon and the Berlin marathon again next year. There’s nothing like 26.2 miles to find out about yourself. I’ve learned a lot about myself on those runs.”
10 Years of Skrufff: Hans Peter Kuenzler Interviews Jonty Skrufff
Live at the Roxy, Prague, Czech Republic, 2007
As well as writing a bestselling Michael Jackson biography and another book about Michael Jackson fans, Hans Peter Kuenzler is a leading London ‘stringer’ or foreign correspondent/ music journalist, writing about music and the arts for print media and radio in Switzerland, Germany, UK and other countries.
Hans asked Jonty Skrufff a typically imaginative and indeed tough bunch of questions recently for a feature he was doing about dream jobs.
Hans Peter (click for more)
http://www.hanspeterkuenzler.com
Hans Peter Kuenzler: Was being a DJ a dream job for you before you started?
Jonty Skrufff; “Actually, no I’d never considered it and was totally happy being a clubber/ journalist until a sequence of serendipitous events transformed my life in the summer of 2004 (involving, variously, Exit festival, Serbian podium dancing girls, Ibiza, statuesque models, Judge Jules, London’s (then) hipster club du jour Golf Sale, the much missed Alex Silverfish (RIP) and S Express’ Mark Moore.) Not necessarily in that order.”
1st night nerves at London's 333 Club
Hans Peter Kuenzler: Did it become a dream job once you had become one?
Jonty Skrufff; “From the very first moment, yes, I was totally, irrevocably hooked. It was at London’s 333 on a Sunday night, Alex Silverfish was DJing, with a shaking hand I picked up the stylus (in those days DJs still played vinyl) and put it at the beginning Of Justice’s Never Be Alone (still then an obscure Gigolo release). The opening chords rang out, the crowd roared and that was it. I ROCKED it. OH MY GOD!”
Hans Peter Kuenzler: Why did you change from being a journalist to being a DJ?
Jonty Skrufff; “I refer to my last answer; OH MY GOD! Though actually I remain a journalist- the two roles have a fantastic synergy.”
Live at Buddah Club, Mauritius (February 2011)
