“We
watch plastic go round ” - Seb Fontaine
a Dj profile
With a series of best-selling ‘Prototype'
mix CDs under his belt, a Saturday night
show on Radio 1, a name as the first
to be resident at both Cream and Ministry
of Sound, an ongoing monthly New York
gig as well as his own club night in
London, Seb Fontaine clearly belongs
among the elite of international Djs.
But elitism is not in Seb Fontaine's
vocabulary. With a series of best-selling ‘Prototype'
mix CDs under his belt, a Saturday night
show on Radio 1, a name as the first
to be resident at both Cream and Ministry
of Sound, an ongoing monthly New York
gig as well as his own club night in
London, Seb Fontaine clearly belongs
among the elite of international Djs.
But elitism is not in Seb Fontaine's
vocabulary. In fact, you could argue
that the reason the 31 year old Londoner
has come so far (apart from excellent
taste in music and deft spinning skills,
of course) is by nature of his affability,
modesty and sense of perspective. "We
watch plastic go round," is how
he describes the DJ's job. "Alright,
it's slightly more than that, but I just
feel that if you separate yourself from
clubbers - if you become so much more
important than they are - how can you
understand what they want and how can
you be part of it?" It's a rhetorical
question: Seb has been a part of it for
fifteen years now. His career choice
may not seem surprising when you allow
that he was conceived on the island of
Ibiza, to a French restauranteur and
a sojourning English woman. But the boy
they christened Jean Sebastian Fontaine
claims that "I never decided to
be a DJ." Born and raised in west
London, his heroes were Chelsea Football
Club (his son's middle name is Stamford)
and the bands of the 2-Tone label. To
this day, he claims that "If I could
swap being a DJ now to be in Madness,
I would."
That opportunity never arose. Instead, a teenage Seb talked his way into a
gig at Hammersmith Town Hall on the lie that he'd already DJ'd "loads
of times," after which he landed a regular slot at Crazy Larry's on the
Kings Road where, like many of his peers, he played old soul and funk alongside
new American hip-hop. From there it was onto The Fridge in Brixton, and The
Wag in Soho, along with the occasional warehouse party where "If the promoter
hadn't run away with a couple of strippers before you finished your set, you
were lucky."
As the British rave scene exploded toward
the end of the 80s, Seb was at all the
clubs, but tucked away in the back rooms,
still playing rap.
His epiphany? "Walking into the
main room one day and hearing A Guy
Called Gerald's ‘Voodoo Ray'
and thinking, ‘What the hell
is this record? It's unbelievable.'" He
also noted the difference in audience. "UK
hip-hop went through a moody stage
at one point. You'd be DJing and instead
of people dancing it would be crews
of guys hugging the walls. And I would
just spend more and more time in the
house room where there'd be girls dancing
on the speakers and semi-naked people
swinging from the chandeliers. And
I was thinking this is where I want
to be, I want to be here." Given
how many DJs were undergoing a similar
conversion, Seb's progress into the
house rooms was gradual: gigs at Subterania
with Jeremy Healey and Norman Jay,
a residency at The Cross, guest slots
where he could get them. And finally,
alongside DJing and promoting partner
Craig Richards, his own Saturday night
at the Hanover Grand in central London
under the club name Malibu Stacey.
At which point it all came together.
Seb and Craig found themselves with
the hottest night in town. And it lasted
almost four years.
Malibu Stacey was relentlessly glamorous,
refreshingly exuberant, and Fontaine
played appropriately optimistic house
music to match. Yet while the night put
his name on the map, it also typecast
him. "For a long time I got tarred
with this ‘glam house' brush. It's
just what everyone was doing. It was
Trannies and feather boas. It took a
long time to shake that moniker." He
did so the only way he knew how, by working
his way out of it. A residency at Ministry
of Sound's ‘Frisky' night certainly
helped; then, when Paul Oakenfold abdicated
his spot at rival night Cream up in Liverpool,
Fontaine's name was put forward as replacement.
The offer was too good to turn down,
and Seb became the first DJ to claim
both ‘super clubs' as home turf.
Not surprisingly, other opportunities
quickly sprung forth.
Seb took a radio
gig on Britain's dance station Kiss FM,
began playing Ibiza, burned up and down
the British motorways on weekend nights,
and moved into mix CDs. He's done a couple
of best-sellers for Cream, but came into
his own with the ‘Prototype' series
released by Global Underground, which
gave him his own ‘resident' CD
status rather than ‘guesting' for
other brands. Over four increasingly
popular ‘Prototype' releases, Seb
built a global audience by balancing
the appealingly commercial vocal with
the resolutely underground instrumental.
Still, by the time of the fourth double
mix, "I ended up thinking, how many
Prototypes can you do before you have
the finished article?" Similarly,
he was becoming frustrated by dance music's
household acceptance. "Clubbing
was getting so big and so popular and
so brand-led we were in the danger of
being on the back of cornflake packets," he
says. For a while, "It just felt
like you were expected to play the standard
ten tunes everywhere you went. And if
you didn't, the DJ after you would play
them and would be the hero while you
were the villain."
Fortunately, circumstances allowed Seb
to reposition himself. Radio 1 hired
him away from Kiss, initially to fill
in for other Djs and for road trips,
and then for a prestigious Saturday night
slot from 7 pm-9 pm. (The show attracts
almost a million UK listeners, is syndicated
in five countries, and is available all
week on the Radio 1 web site.) He quit
Cream at the end of last year, which
has allowed him to engage in more international
travel, and that in turn has widened
his musical perspective and opened his
ears.
Seb now has a monthly New York gig with
Subliminal Sessions, while he has returned
to The Cross in London to launch his
own monthly night Type. "It holds
all the ethics that I hold important
about dance music at the moment," he
enthuses. "It's a club that holds
1000 people. And it's all split up. Low
ceiling, great sound." Guests have
included Timo Maas, Slam, Circulation,
the key figures in what Fontaine calls "A
new sound coming through, like electro
and house married, really dark sounding
but very exciting too. Clubbing is meant
to be fun. It doesn't need to be a sell-out
but there needs to be some energy."
A similar mindset governs his radio show,
for which Seb understands how fortunate
he is to be with the BBC. "You're
essentially federal employees, and basically
you're given a white paper that says
Play Good Music. We have no commercials,
we have no sponsors, we're not dictated
to. You're not told where you should
be putting anything other than the fact
you're chosen for your ability and told
to do what you do. Being with the BBC
is a fantastic opportunity to put forward
where you think music should be going."
While involved in the occasion club
cut as either Cequenza (for the "bigger
sounding tracks") or Sizzlak (for
the "funky house music"), Seb
has shied away from remixing opportunities,
both to avoid becoming jaded by overexposure
and because he's a family man. He and
his wife/agent Vanessa are expecting
their second child in July 2002, which
will mean even less sleep than usual
for several more months. "Sometimes
I feel like I'm walking a tightrope," Seb
admits, "but it seems to work." It
does. And if you want to know why it
works, just listen to him talk. This
is a man who knows his music, appreciates
his job, but best of all, understands
his audience. "For every person
who says ‘clubbing was better five
years ago,' there's someone new coming
into it who will remember last Saturday
like we remember 1990," says Seb. "Everyone
has their time and place. Everyone has
their moment - a year or two when everything
is the most exciting thing in the world.
And that's cool. As a DJ, you've got
to try to help people have their moment
all the time."
