Robert Ferguson (born 16 November 1979), known professionally as Fergie, is a Northern Irish DJ and electronic music artist from Larne. He has been an internationally touring DJ and a music producer for over 20 years. He presented a radio show on BBC Radio 1 for over four years while recording 13 Essential Mixes for the station. He was featured in the DJ Mag Top 100 DJs poll seven years in a row and currently holds the record for the highest new entry since the poll began, achieved when he was voted 8th in 2000.
Fergie played his first DJ set at the age of 14, standing on an upturned milk crate. He met Tony De Vit who invited him to England and would become Fergie's mentor. His career escalated in the 1990s when he played mainly hard house in his DJ sets at club nights such as Trade, Godskitchen, Sundissential, Golden, and Passion (where he had DJ residencies). He achieved UK Singles Chart success in the early 2000s with releases such as his remix of "Meet Her at the Love Parade". Throughout the 2000s his DJ sets became more house and techno orientated. He DJed in Ibiza every summer at nightclubs such as Amnesia, Privilege and Space. He released multiple DJ mixes including two via the Ministry of Sound record label and magazine covermounted CDs for Mixmag and DJ Mag. He also wrote a regular column for Mixmag. He founded the Excentric Muzik record label in 2007. He has released his debut artist album "Dynamite & Laserbeams" on the label in 2010.
He currently resides in Las Vegas and has been a resident DJ at the Hakkasan Nightclub at the MGM Grand and at the Omnia nightclub of Caesars Palace since they both opened. He also has a DJ residency in Las Vegas at Wet Republic. He is working under the name Fergie (DJ).
Early life
Fergie's first ever visit to a nightclub came at the age of 13 when Michael Collins, a northern soul radio DJ friend of his father, jokingly offered to take him to The Arena (later known as The Met) in Armagh and his parents agreed to it. The DJ on the night was Robbie Nelson (who would later go on to form Agnelli & Nelson) and to enter the club he had to be sneaked in through a fire escape. Recalling the events in 2007 Fergie said, "It was there and then that I wanted to be a DJ. I bugged my Dad's mate in the car on the way back asking him what the music was and what they played." This was his first taste of dance music, and shortly after that, he purchased a pair of turntables.
Fergie would spend his time in the Sounds Good Music record shop in Larne (owned by Mark Dobbin and run with his brother Gleave) instead of attending school. He struggled with his education as, unknown at the time, he was dyslexic. A teacher once made him stand at the front of the classroom whilst warning the rest of the class that if they didn't concentrate on their studies Fergie was the kind of delinquent that they would become. He left school permanently aged 13; after being in a car accident, he took time off to recover and never returned. Instead, his mother, Alice, schooled him at the family home with a focus on skills required for a career in dance music. Around this time, he attended a Hellraiser rave at Ulster Hall in Belfast with Carl Cox performing. It was the experience of this rave which led to the name of his 2010 debut artist album Dynamite & Laserbeams.
Still aged 13, whilst spending afternoons playing for the Northern Ireland national under-16 football team, he began working at The House Nightclub (at the Kilwaughter House Hotel) near Larne. Fergie was too young to enter the club as a customer and so, instead, Mark Dobbin, the promoter of the club, employed him. He gave Fergie a red boiler suit to wear and paid him to collect empty glasses, brush the floor and clean the toilets. It was here Fergie would see the likes of Danny Rampling and Paul Oakenfold perform. As a perk of the job, he was allowed to practise on the club's DJ equipment (with the aid of an upturned milk crate to stand on to reach it). This led to him playing his first DJ gig when he was age 14, a warm-up set at the venue. To get him into other venues, his brother Ken and Robbie Nelson would smuggle him in under a bundle of coats.