TommyD ()

I began my life as a musician, at the famous Elliott Comprehensive school (past pupils include The XX, Hot Chip, Buriel, Rat Skabies and Pierce Bronsnan!). The styles of music were always wildly varied, from a rock band on a Monday, Reggae on Wednesday and Pop/dance hits on Friday. This fuelled my musical bug and after leaving school, I worked as an assistant in a commercial studio and as a salesman selling musical and studio equipment. From all this I garnered a basic knowledge of the technical side of music production and arrangement. At the age of eighteen, I started DJing at a local club in South West London and quickly made a name for myself. My career as a DJ spanned 13 years, playing in some of the greatest clubs in the world. I was a resident at Ministry of Sound and a regular at Cream and Back to Basics in the UK, Danceteria, Twilo and DV8 in the US, as well as tours of South America, Europe and the Far East. As a musician, I was greatly influenced by DJing. It was only a matter of time before I started making the records I wanted to play. In 1988, the dawn of House music and the modern club scene, I set up my own record label, producing underground 12-inch club records. The label was successful, with many of the releases getting into the top five of the Music Week and American Billboard club charts. Around this time, I was asked to remix other artist’s records, for club and radio. DJing also led me to work with musician/DJ, Jeremy Healy, and together we formed a production duo under the name of the ‘Ezee Posse’. Ezee Posse had a top 10 hit in the UK with ‘Everything Starts with an E’, and top 10 album in 1991. Around the same time and while DJing in a local club in South London. I became friends with two bothers, who one night, handed me a cassette of songs. One song in particular jumped out at me and I quickly knocked up a demo, in about 3 hours, in my bedroom studio, using only an Akai S1000 and an Atari running Cubase. I played it to the brothers the following week and we agreed that all it needed was a live bass line, a guitar riff and a vocal. We rented RedBus studios for the day. Phil Spalding played bass. Rob played guitar, we re-vocaled with a couple of takes and threw down the mix. All very quick. The song was ‘I’m Too Sexy’ and the boys, along with Rob, called themselves ‘Right Said Fred’. ‘I’m Too Sexy’, went on to be a top 10 hit in 9 countries, including straight in at No1 in the U.S Billboard chart a feat, up to that point, only the Beatles had achieved. I went onto produce, program and perform their debut album “Up” and follow up singles “Don’t talk Just Kiss” and “Deeply Dippy”. RSF sold 20 million units in 12 months, a staggering amount, unthinkable in these Internet times. Sexy is now the 18th most requested song of all time. The phrase is now completely ingrained into modern life, lending itself to T-shirts, Mugs, greeting cards, even a type of Sushi roll!