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It all started in a coffee shop. This week in the MY FIRST GIG feature: Amsterdam-based Fausto Tallone a.k.a, DJ/producer Fausto. "You have no idea what's coming."
“My very first gig took place at coffee shop Jeremy on the Kinkerstraat in Amsterdam. I grew up in Amsterdam, so I would sometimes visit that shop, even though I was only seventeen. One day I heard they wanted to invite DJs to perform. Being bold, I immediately said, ‘Oh, I can do that too’. It was 1987, so we were still playing vinyl. I borrowed some records from a friend and got started.”
The A and B sides
“There wasn’t much house music back then. I mainly mixed Chicago and Detroit underground tracks and Belgian electronic music. Or hip-hop and disco. I had about thirty records or so and played both the A and B sides. I was a bit nervous and tense beforehand because of all the people watching me closely. That was quite scary. After two or three successful mixes, the tension naturally disappeared. I undoubtedly made a few mistakes, but nothing that I remember now. It’s been more than thirty years.” (laughs)
Multiple styles
“I got the hang of it and was allowed to play in the shop once a month. Meanwhile, I also started participating in DJ competitions. For instance, in 1990, I placed third in a contest at Discotheek de Richter in Amsterdam. At that time, I played electronic music with disco and new wave undertones. I combined multiple styles and I still do that.”
Trance In Your Mind
“My first paid gig was in 1991 at the Statenhal in The Hague. The event was called Trance In Your Mind and the headliner was Michel de Hey. I was living in The Hague with my then-girlfriend. I went out a lot and got talking with the event’s owner. When he heard I also played, I was immediately put on the lineup. That’s how it went back then.”
Grooveyard
“I was definitely keeping busy because I also had a weekly radio show on Radio 100 called Grooveyard. DJ Dano initially presented the show. But because hardcore music exploded, Dano had no time left for Grooveyard, and I took over the show with DJ Phanthomas and Eva. Eva was my sidekick and provided party info. Additionally, Radio 100 was the first pirate radio station to play dance music every week, so it was old school to the bone.”
Six-hour party
“When the event arrived, I was quite nervous. You have all sorts of expectations about how it will be, but you really have no idea what’s coming. However, once I was behind the turntables, the tension immediately disappeared. The party was to last six hours. The guy who played before me was more into downtempo tunes, so I just started with my prepared set. At that time, there weren’t really genres; you just played the music people danced to. And some of my friends from The Hague and Amsterdam were present.”
Interaction
“The set went well. I don’t remember any oddities. I had practiced it so many times that it almost couldn’t go wrong.” (laughs) “The first two mixes were the most exciting. By the way, there’s nothing wrong with healthy tension, I still feel it. If you don’t feel any tension anymore, it becomes too routine. Nowadays, I prepare a general folder with interesting tracks and the day before my gig, I make a small selection of records I definitely want to play. The rest goes with the flow and depends on the interaction with the audience. Sometimes it annoys me that some DJs always do their own thing, even if the crowd isn’t into it. Bit of a big ego, in my opinion. In the hardhouse scene, I’m known as a DJ who fully goes with the audience. I’ve even mingled with the crowd at times. I like that kind of craziness. It’s a party, right?”
Hardhouse
“Hardhouse came into my life when I worked at the record store Attalos in Amsterdam. One evening, a group of English people entered the store. Their organization, Pendragon, organized parties in Brixton in London. We got talking and they soon asked if I would come and play for them. I was over the moon: I got to play abroad! So, I took a stack of hardhouse and hard trance records to the gig, and they were thrilled. They were so enthusiastic that they asked me to become a resident. From that moment on, I regularly traveled back and forth to England. That’s still a beautiful memory!”
Producing
“I started producing when I visited a DJ friend at home and saw all that equipment. I immediately knew: ‘I want this too’. I then started working with an Amiga computer. Later I switched to Cubase. Nowadays, I do everything with Logic Pro X. Since then, I’ve run several record labels, including XSIF Records, later renamed Excessive Records, and International Hard Dance Sessions as IHDS.”
“What I want to convey to upcoming DJs is this: Be passionate and stay on your own path. First, develop the basics of your own style and only then go out of the box. Develop that real feeling of being a DJ. Try to start with vinyl. If you can mix with that, you can mix on any platform, and beatmatching will naturally improve. Follow your path, your passion, your feeling, and your instinct, and you will get there.”
This interview with Fausto is originally published on This Is Our House in March 2019.
Who is Fausto?
DJ Fausto has been in the game for thirty years now and whereas some people would lose inspiration or enthusiasm, he is still pursuing to stay at the top position that he has earned over the past three decades. If you take a look at the immense list of events that Fausto has performed at, you will know that he has taken quite a long road up to the point where he finds himself nowadays.
Headlining a.o. Trance Energy (closing set at Main Stage), DefQon1 (main stage Holland and Australia), Qlimax, Sensation Black, Impulz, In Qontrol, Q-Base, Ground Zero, Decibel, Mystery Land, Miami Winter Conference, Full Moon Party (Thailand), Monday Cruise Bar (Sweden), Hard House Academy (UK), a residency at Pendragon (UK), Loveparade (Germany), it’s just a small part of Fausto’s impressive resumé.
In fact, he is one of the very few artists who can refer to eight different performances at the infamous Dance Valley Festival, including several closing sets at different stages. Fausto is also probably the only DJ who can say that he has played all major events within The Netherlands.
A never fading hunger for pleasing almost every possible crowd still drives Fausto to be on top of things. This resulted in starting his own label Excessive Records in 2005, which is still going strong as we speak. Several own productions were releases on Excessive and became instant hits, such as Fausto vs BRK3 – XSV01‘, ‘Fausto vs Phil York – Dire Staits’, ‘Fausto – Get Low’, ‘Fausto and Tommy Pulse – Melancholika’, ‘Fausto – Lupara’, ‘Fausto – Raise Up‘ and ‘Fausto and Tommy Pulse – Pirates’. Fausto’s remixes have also been granted a class A status; remixing for the biggest names of harddance Fausto has built up an impressive discography which contains remix duties for a.o. Phil York, Organ Donors, Tommy Pulse and Warmduscher and many more!
Over the years the sound of DJ Fausto has become so immensely diverse, that you just can’t really pigeonhole his style. A crossover between harddance, hardtrance, techno, trance and electro combined with his never fading charisma has become his personal trade mark. When Q-Dance invited Fausto (back in 2009) to become the host of a weekly show on their radio channel, there was only one title that would fulfil the show’s contents: Fausto’s Crossover. Every episode is filled with the best and newest tunes played by Fausto and is aired every Thursday night around eighths.
The future looks as bright as the past, maybe even brighter. Expanding his Excessive Records label, producing a brand new album, mixing new IHDS compilations, headlining some of the biggest events throughout the world.
