DJ Fat Tony on Sobriety & Ego

On The Mend

High Performance

Healing, Resilience, Education, Relapse, Growth, Society & Culture, Self-improvement, Health & Fitness, Redemption, Trauma, Vulnerability, Alcoholism, Mentalhealth, Hope, Addiction, Mental Health, Menshealth, Recovery, Identity, Sobriety, Personal Journals

4.9 • 566 Ratings

🗓️ 31 July 2023

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, Matt welcomes the DJ and author Fat Tony to the studio.

Tony has had an incredible career, spanning nearly four decades, he has had his say in paving the way for the UK’s current music scene.

He held a weekly show in New York, at The Palladium for Streve Rubell – during the height of Paradise Garage – AND is a regular at

Ministry of Sound and Glitterbox. As official DJ to the Beckhams and Versace – he is also one of the fashion scene’s go to performers.

Now 16 years sober, Tony discovered drugs when he was 18, and would convince himself that he couldn’t DJ unless he was high. He would sometimes go four or five nights straight without sleeping. He became so psychotic from his cocaine addiction that he believed creatures lived inside his gums. He also lost his teeth and became homeless.

In this episode we look back at Tony’s extraordinary life and career, how he faced his demons and what recovery means to him.

**Please be advised that this episode contains strong language and some content which listeners may find disturbing. If you are affected by anything you hear in the episode - there are links below to some organisations which may be able to help you.

NHS Drug Addition Helpline

Talk To Frank

Alcoholic Anonymous

Samaritans

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Want to know who's coming up next?
0:01.6	Hit follow wherever you get your podcast and recovery and how people get through hard times.
0:38.1	My guest today is the DJ writer and Instagram curator,
0:42.0	Fat Tony.
0:43.4	Tony has had an incredible career.
0:45.2	You know, it's spanning, I reckon about four decades now.
0:48.1	He was there at the very, very beginning of the dance scene in the UK.
0:51.2	And he was kind of responsible really for kind of how big that became you know he's a
0:55.9	massive massive face in dance music Tony is now 16 years clean and sober which is absolutely
1:02.0	remarkable I mean you're going to hear his story and when the kind of typical person thinks of
1:06.4	a drug addict you know Tony was that you know it was of, it was as far down as you could go,
1:12.6	he had no teeth, it weighed nothing and was a complete utter, what people would call a lost cause,
1:18.5	but he did it, you know, he went there, he put the work in and became the man that we love today.
1:26.2	I love chatting with him.
1:31.7	He's one of those people that I felt like I could chat to every day and laugh my ass off and also get incredibly inspired by.
1:35.0	Here is DJ Fat Tony.
1:43.4	Hello Tony. How are you? I'm good. Are you good, mate? You look great. I'm actually really good, yeah. You've had a bit of a morning. It was one of those mornings that it was just literally pouring with rain. So that kind of sums it up my morning. Right. And it's either everything's always really good. And then the day that I have something really bad, everything goes wrong. It's one of those. Yeah, it's all good. How good are you at kind of going, okay, don't let that ruin the whole day? It would have normally ruined the whole month. Yeah. But now it's kind of just a momentaryal thing. For me, now I kind of just laugh it afterwards you know it's like
2:17.7	went to the vets this morning didn't have the paperwork so I had to go all the way back in the rain with the puppy and it was just like one of those things and then I went into my dressing room and the dresser room and the one of the clothes rounds collapsed in the middle and I was like oh my god and then that was it
2:33.9	and then I spoke to a friend on the phone
2:35.4	and it just took the power out of it
2:36.7	you know I turn it around really quick these days. Yeah. Yeah, I don't allow it to completely dominate me anymore. I used to. Yeah, me too. Me too. I kind of, I have little strategies and things that I can do to kind of sort my shit out. I mean, sometimes I'm a fucking moody prick though for a while. And I don't notice it.
2:54.9	You know, little strategies and things that I can do to kind of sort my shit out. I mean, sometimes I'm a fucking moody prick though for a while.
	...

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