Pete Tong has just come back from South Africa where he had amazing DJ experiences playing to 6,000 people in Capetown and another 12,000 in Johannesburg. This follows hot on the heels of his very successful time at the Winter Music Conference in Miami Beach, where the Warner-sponsored boat party for the Stateside launch of his Essential Selection compilations was one of the highlights of this year’s show.

After being docked for six hours, its passengers plied with free food, drink and diverse sets from Scott Henry, DJ Dan, Green Velvet and Juan Atkins, the boat took off for a two-hour sail down the Intracoastal Waterway. By the time Tong had taken the decks, stacks of vodka bottles could be seen behind the bar and things had become somewhat messy. Opening with Armand Van Helden’s new Gary Numan-sampled cruncher "Koochy," one of the conference’s smashes, Tong owned the admittedly loopy crowd and carried the seafarers home with a memorable set of Essential mixes. The Masters At Work event, which ran concurrently with the boat party, might’ve had more industry juice, but you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who had more fun that day than an Essential passenger.

The boat party and South Africa trip, though, were rare events for Tong. He’s constantly busy with A&R work for his ffrr imprint on London Records, which has enjoyed U.K. success with Van Helden, Goldie and Orbital, among other acts. Most of his time, however, is consumed by "Essential Selection" and "Essential Mix," his weekly Radio 1 shows on BBC, so Tong doesn’t play out as much as he’d like. ("Selection" airs live Friday’s at 6 p.m., while "Mix" is taped with a top guest DJ and it airs Sunday at 2 a.m.) Nonetheless, his professional presence is huge. On the air for nearly a decade, the 38-year-old Kent native has brought the sounds of the street to the public at large and has become considered the single most influential DJ in the beat-crazy U.K., where, unlike the U.S., dance music is a huge industry. If a new tune makes Tong’s show – especially "Essential Selection" – chances are it’ll be hitting dancefloors all over the U.K. that week.

[Of course, Tong’s widespread influence was probably the basis for newspaper accusations that he loaded his playlist with too many London/ffrr releases – an apparent conflict of interest for a commercial-free, State-sponsored program. The BBC later cleared Tong of any malfeasance.]

America’s introduction into Tong’s Essential Selection series is a double-CD release of DJ sets from Fatboy Slim and Paul Oakenfold – a good gamble since they’re the U.K.’s most recognizable jocks Stateside. CD2 from Volume One includes Oakenfold’s triple-stage launch into prog-trance

bliss land, while Slim’s decidedly less heady CD1 effort (give a tune or two) goes right for primal, party-startin’ satisfaction. After opening with a clever mix of Walter Wanderly’s Hammond organ workout "Summer Samba" into Van Helden’s hacksaw-house frenzy "Necessary Evil," Slim (aka Norman Cook) drops a frenzied big-beat bonanza of hits. Cuts from Josh Wink (Size 9’s classic deep houser "I’m Ready"), the Chemical Brothers (the epic brain tickler "Private Psychedelic Reel"), and the Fatboy himself ("Jack It Up" and "Everybody Loves a 303") set up a super, set-ending wind-down. Scanty Sandwich’s ecstatic "Because of You" downshifts into Underworld’s genre touchstone "Born Slippy," which then eases towards Groove Armada’s MOR-groover "At the River." Perfect.

In a dance market as diverse and advanced as the U.K., Tong occasionally gets slagged for being too mainstream. (OK, he plays ATB and Amber.) But looking at his Essential playlists over the last few years, most American dance-music aficionados would be lucky to have radio that’s so mainstream. Basement Jaxx, Underworld, Pete Heller, Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, Daft Punk, Paul Johnson, Armand Van Helden – anyone hear these acts recently on your local "dance" station? Probably not. Surely, that Tong is considered by some to reside in the cheesier environs of the U.K. dance scene is more a testament to the vitality of the European market than it is an indictment on Tong’s musical leanings. His sights finally set on America, Pete Tong recently connected with DJ Times to discuss his latest moves, the still-exploding U.K. dance scene, DJing and A&Ring and his immediate future.

DJ Times: Was the material that we heard on the boat typical of the type of set you’re playing these days?

Pete Tong: That was my funky, small set, what I really love to play. You’re going to play that to a smaller environment to get that across. That doesn’t tend to work as well when you’re playing to [a lot of people]. It’s a joy for me to play what I would call funky techno house when I would play to 300 to 500 people in a small room, low ceiling. A more galleried, spectacular room demands a different sound.

DJ Times: What do you play when you are in that type of room?

Tong: It would vary. Probably seven gigs out of 10 will be progressive-y, north of house, south of trance. But when you’re a big DJ and you’re paid a lot of money and you’re top of the bill on a Saturday night playing to 2,000 or 3,000 people in that environment, I’ll play a bigger room set.

DJ Times: How is that different from what you play on your radio show?

Tong: I came up through a time where you mixed different styles. In some ways it’s quite sad if a DJ’s starting today, wants to make his reputation. He has to be very niche and has to have a sound. Whilst I understand that, I think that’s quite limiting. I enjoy, partly because of my history and partly because I’m on the radio every week, bringing people the best dance music around, representing different sounds. Although house music dominates my show in its different strands, I can still play drum-n-bass, hip hop, R&B, if I wanted to, a slow record. I try and touch base with leaders in all the genres.

DJ Times: In your experience, how has the sound of dance music changed since you started in it in the late ’70s?

Tong: More soulful, that’s what dance music was in the day. Right at the end of the ’70s, early ’80s, preoccupied with playing old records, Rare Groove, old James Brown, soul and jazz records, jazz funk as it was called then. Ironically, a lot of the records that you hear sampled today in house and hip hop and everything were the records I was playing then. You had Sugar Hill Gang, early rap records, then it really kicked in, from labels like Sleeping Bag and Def Jam in the mid ’80s. I had already gotten a reputation, gotten myself into quite a good position on the radio in ’86, ’87 when the first house records started trickling through from Chicago. That was the beginning of dance music’s punk rock in England. Then you had the rave and acid house from there to late ’80s, house music in all its forms was dominated throughout the world, whether it be techno or garage, straight four beat.

DJ Times: How did your radio career get started?

Tong: My first proper job when I left school was a journalist for a music paper, Blues And Soul, which was the Mixmag of its day. It reported on the hottest records, but it also reported on what was the club scene at the time. I invented this column that was the big tip column, almost a gossip column for what was the dance scene of the day. There was a show on Radio 1 on a Monday night. They wanted to do a dance slot and they wanted me to contribute to it, come on as a 15-minute speech and recommend three tracks. That was a great experience, grandstand show, for two years. That was around the time of McLaren’s "Buffalo Girls" and things like that. So I got to play them first, which was quite good and it didn’t do my reputation any harm. So my very first experience at radio was at the very top, biggest station in the country. I was young then and quite arrogant. I said, "Give me my own show," and they said, "No, it don’t quite work like that – go off and get some experience." Trotted off and worked at other stations. I got hired by a smaller station and worked my way up the ranks. Ended up on the No. 2 station in the country, a London station called Capitol Radio. I hosted their dance show from ’87 to ’91 on a Saturday night. The Radio 1 show was the only place you could aspire to be bigger than Capitol, ’cause that’s the national station, plays across the whole U.K. and it’s not commercial – so it’s brilliant, you don’t stop for breaks or anything. When the guy who was doing the Radio 1 show retired, I was his best friend and his natural successor so they gave me his slot and I’ve been there ever since ’91.

DJ Times: How did the Essential Selection compilations come about?

Tong: Compilations in the U.K., unlike America, have always been big business. By the early ’90s it was about your biggest hits on the biggest branded albums and your biggest TV campaigns. The dance scene basically established a compilation business that went against all the ground rules that had been set before. It didn’t revolve around hits; it didn’t revolve around being on TV. It revolved around the reputation of the club and the reputation of the DJ. The price it takes for putting these things together were a fraction of the price of pop compilations. They started to do really, really well. The necessity of these albums came about because of the excessive bootlegging that was going on over the DJs sets through the rave era. Over the turn of the ’80s into the ’90s the big thing was bootleg tapes. Everyone wanted a copy of my show at The Astoria, or Danny Rampling at Shoom or Oakenfold at Spectrum. These tapes would change hands for big amounts of money, get copied up and sold in markets. No one was getting paid. The DJs, the musicians, the record companies weren’t getting paid. It had to stop. The compilation business grew off the back of that, legitimizing the illegal tape copying of DJs’ sets. I wasn’t entrepreneurial about it at that stage. After I was invited to do a Cream compilation I realized there was something to it. I did a deal with the Ministry [of Sound] that lasted three or four years. I paired up with Boy George and we did some of the biggest dance compilations that have ever been. Those were called The Annual. The ones over Christmas ’95 and ’96, sold like 800,000 copies, double albums. It blew the roof off the whole thing. At that point I thought, "What am I doing here? I’m working for the Ministry. Alright, they’re paying me very well, but they’re never going to give me a piece of their company, so I should be doing it for myself." One of the last real untapped brands that had any association with dance music was the name of my radio show so that’s how it started. From ’96, ’97, we started doing Essential albums. So much money, branding and awareness had grown around the Essential name that it seemed a natural progression to put records out on Essential Recordings.

DJ Times: How does Essential Recordings differ from London/ffrr?

Tong: Club-goers have more affinity with the word Essential than they would have with ffrr. Records that come out on Essential Recordings are usually "this is the reason we go out on the weekend records." These are the records that we were on the podium, with our shirts off, going mad. And ffrr is really the place where you’ll find artists with albums, who probably have some sort of blackness in them.

DJ Times: You’ve been with London Records even longer than you’ve had your show on Radio 1.

Tong: I got a bit of a profile always being on the radio. I’d been asked to join a record company before and I was a bit suspicious. But a friend convinced me to meet the people that were starting up London in ’83. It was just a handful of people. I was tea boy one minute, radio promotions and club promotions the next minute and before I knew it, I was signing records – all hands on deck.

DJ Times: So you didn’t start as A&R straight off?

Tong: They wanted me to sign records, it was just that I hadn’t done it before. The first record when I started getting involved was New Edition, when they were kids, "Candy Girl" and things like that. They were the first record we put out and it went to No. 1. I ended up signing Salt N’ Pepa, which was one of my big breakthrough acts ’cause I signed them for the world outside America. They sold millions of records.

DJ Times: What do you look for in the artists you sign?

Tong: My requirements have been refined a lot over the years. I think unique talent, driven people, the all-around package. Working with the artist takes up a lot of emotional stress, time, effort and an awful lot of money. You’ve got to make sure these people are the right people to spend the time with because you don’t get that many shots at it. You can lose two or three years of your life, working on the wrong one. When you really realize that is when you get one that works and you realize all these attributes that go into making something work. It’s not just the obvious thing of having a great tune – that’s taken for granted. But when you look around the business and see the people that really, really matter and have stuck around a while, they usually have something a bit extra. Ultimately, difficult artists are the best artists. They are the artists that tend to matter most. They are difficult because they feel passionate about what they are doing. People like that are the people you want to be working with. We’re pretty confrontational as a label. We don’t hide behind that. You want to get involved. We want success for the same reason they want success.

DJ Times: When did the ffrr imprint happen?

Tong: That was due to the club scene. The way dance music was being marketed in England was getting more sophisticated by ’86. Island Records formed a dedicated label called 4th & Broadway. The same staff that ran Island ran that label, but it was perceived a very sexy thing to budding musicians and artists that there was this completely dedicated task force for their scene. Then you had an independent label called Rhythm King, then Chrysalis launched a label called Cool Tempo. The perception was that it was a statement of intent and a sensible one. We lost out to a few deals to be honest because people signed to these other labels instead of us. We were cool, but we had everything under one roof. We had Fine Young Cannibals, Bananarama, Run-DMC, but it was all coming out on London. Our heroes were Island and Atlantic where everything sat under one roof. But once Island had done it, we thought it’s sensible to do the same thing. The ffrr logo was a symbol of quality that referred to a type of recording from the 1950s – you have mono and stereo. "Full frequency range recording" was a statement of quality and it was actually a little button that sat on top of the London logo historically anyway, so we thought that was a nice thing to pull off the logo, rather than call it Disco Dave Def Records or something.

DJ Times: How do you decide which DJs to use for the Essential Selections?

Tong: Respect and marketability. The Millennium one is a bit special because I wanted to have two heavyweights. It’s been repackaged [for America], but Norman’s mix is the same as the one we released here at Christmas. Paul’s is completely fresh for America and mine – that you download from the web – is different to the one we sold here at Christmas.

DJ Times: How many have you done altogether?

Tong: It’s on the website – www.essentialselection.com. I’ve got a feeling there’s about 15 or 16 albums on the bottom of that first page, but there’s about four more that I did through London called Essential Mix that aren’t on there that are out of print now. That was the first ones I did on my own label and there’s more DJs on them, we haven’t had that format in years. We’d put two DJs on one side and give them 35 minutes each. That’s gone now. You can’t really do that any more. People don’t really accept it.

DJ Times: You’re not featured on the first double album to be released domestically.

Tong: It’s the first TV-marketed, DJ-led album in America. That’s partly why I’m taking the backseat as a DJ on the first one. Fatboy Slim is obviously well-known there and Oakey DJs a lot there. So in terms of actually the average person on the street, I come third on the list in terms of being well-known – although I’m quite well-known to the industry and the media.

DJ Times: You don’t tend to DJ out as much as the others either.

Tong: Because of three reasons. My radio show ball-and-chain – I have to be here every week – the A&R job is a big responsibility and I’ve got kids. Having said all that, it’s something I’m doing more this year than I’ve ever done. It’s a necessary thing because it’s so global. You can’t really stand still in this business. I’ve achieved almost everything you can possibly achieve in England as a DJ. DJs are brands in themselves. The world’s getting smaller in terms of you can get from A to B quicker, bringing everybody together. You can go anywhere now and roughly get treated the same, mean the same, get a good production, a good sound, a good club. It’s obviously not exactly a painful job to do. It can bring a lot of pleasure. It’s probably one of the most really believable, exportable things that we have from England. Without wanting to sound too conceited, I think ultimately the most attractive thing England has has been this melting pot of different influences. The real club culture that everybody acknowledges, it’s come out of England despite so much of the music and the history and the roots coming from America and Central Europe. The club scene as we know it today, worldwide, is the English experience that’s been repeated everywhere. For the next couple of years, a lot of the English-based DJs can make a lot of themselves off the back of that. I don’t mean just in the money sense, but get quite a lot of fulfillment, do a lot of good work, spread their wings a bit. In the long term, I think that’s better for their standing in England as well. It’s quite enlightening when you can travel 12 hours on a plane, go somewhere, pull 12,000 people in a country you’ve never been before. What do you do about that? You can do more of it, or ignore it or just say, that’s a weird thing.

DJ Times: What mixer do you prefer to use?

Tong: Pioneer DJM-500. Technology-wise, whether it’s better or worse than the Vestax, I don’t know. But Vestax and Pioneer have really been dominant brands here, as opposed to that classic mixer [UREI 1620] that Richard Long put in all the systems in the Paradise Garage, Twilo and Sound Factory. I saw a picture of Larry Levan the other day and he’s got this love affair with this piece of kit in America that is an antique now. Someone’s got to put their hand up and go, "Hold on a minute." But English clubs are fitted out with it as well and it is a nice piece, but it’s a very particular thing and that’s not a bad thing. I DJed the Danceteria in 1982 when I was a kid and it was there. In Home in London, they still fitted one in there, even though no DJs use it. They use the other one. Whenever you see this particular mixer I’m talking about, there’s always more than one mixer. When Knuckles comes over or Morales or Danny Tenaglia, they’re people that are still in love with it. I’m used to the Pioneer. There’s a good couple in the Vestax series, run a close second.

DJ Times: Your name is actually in a dictionary of some sort?

Tong: Just rhyming slang. Back through acid house and rave days, someone in a fanzine once put in "it’s all gone Pete Tong" – i.e., "it’s all gone wrong." It’s really stuck over the years and it’s become one of those odd, quirky, notorious things. There isn’t really an official one. It’s the language that’s owned by the East End cab drivers in London. There is actually a Cockney rhyming slang dictionary and there’s a very popular one by Penguin and I’m in that.

DJ Times: Have you ever thought of producing music yourself?

Tong: It’s a line I’ve drawn not to cross. I think I do enough already. I never really felt the need. I was never really a musician. I tried to play the piano, tried to play the drums, couldn’t really do it. That’s not my thing. My thing is playing records and making calls on records. If I ever got involved in proper remixing, as opposed to what I do on a mix album or production or songwriting, it would totally crowd my other abilities. It’s just not a thing I naturally feel I need to do. Apart from that, there’s no time. I’m happy to be the A&R person. Occasionally, some of the time, my input might be incredibly major, hands-on and probably just what some people would get credit for doing a remix for, but it’s not my bag. I leave that to people who are good at doing that.

DJ Times: What made you want to be a DJ?

Tong: It was a sort of sixth sense when it came to music. As a child, I was always fascinated with music. I was always banging drums, strumming toy guitars, plunking on the piano. I was just attracted to music, my parents said, as soon as I could do anything [laughs]. I started learning piano, really didn’t get on with that. Then my dad bought me a drum kit at 13 and I would sit there drumming along to heavy metal records or trying to take off Keith Moon solos [laughs]. Then I got into a really naff school heavy metal band doing bad Black Sabbath covers. It just was going nowhere. Then at one of these school discos I sort of clocked the DJ there and watched what he did. It was the first DJ I’d ever seen and I just thought, "Oh, forget all this drumming nonsense. It’s too much of a racket. I’ll play other people’s records. They sound great." That’s when I was about 14.

DJ Times: I read that your first gig was at a wedding. What do you remember about that experience?

Tong: It’s true. These were antiquated days when it wasn’t easy to do this stuff, so it really started with two hi-fi turntables stuck through an amp and a bunch of records and being invited to do a cousin’s wedding, which we probably promptly ruined. But it was pioneering days, y’know? It was really stuck together with tape and done the most lo-fi way you can possibly do it. But it’s quite romantic looking back on it.

DJ Times: Did you do proper mobiles after that?

Tong: Yeah, for a couple years I did. When I left school at 17, I did 12 months. I had a van and loads of equipment and I went around doing that. That was my full-time job at that stage.

DJ Times: How did you move into club work?

Tong: I realized my entrepreneurial instincts really. I knew that there was a bigger game. I used to listen to the radio shows of the day talking about the scene, small as it was at the time. The heroes of the day were DJs like Chris Hill and Robby Vincent, who was the big radio DJ. Greg Edwards was the DJ on Capital Radio back in the 1970s. As small as the club scene was, these were the biggest people of the day and I realized that that was where I wanted to graduate. I learned fairly quickly that playing pop music at weddings wasn’t the way forward and I got into funk, soul, early jazz-funk, disco. It was Rare Groove, old jazz records, soul records. Some records crossed with the Northern Soul scene, but generally it was a different vibe. Later, I started running venues around the outside of London and I would book the big guys to play with me and that’s how people would find out about me. Because I gave them a good time and a good experience, I was sort of adopted by the A-list of the day. That’s how I got to do bigger events. That’s how I got into club work.

DJ Times: How did that progress?

Tong: I used to run with a crowd that was really trendy and was really into the scene. They were always three, four years older than me. They would bring me back records from London and they would tell me all about the legendary London clubs of the late ’70s. So I was very aware and I had a very cool crowd very early.

DJ Times: How did your tastes progress?

Tong: I was always excited by change. In the early ’80s when things were starting, then there was jazz, funk, soul, Rare Groove, James Brown records, things like that. Then in the mid-’80s, there was the whole rap explosion and I was into that, which was the new thing – Def Jam, Sleeping Bag. Then those early house records came out in late 1986 – don’t forget I was running a record label at the time as well. I used to come to New York quite a lot for London Records work, just before we formed ffrr. I think it was Timmy Regisford, a legendary New York DJ now, who was an intern at WBLS. He was one of the people I just clicked with. He was one of my big early friends when I used to come here, him and Craig Kallman, who’s now a senior guy at Atlantic and who started Big Beat Records. But Timmy and Merlin Bob from ’BLS, those two turned me on to the first house records. I think they were into DJ International or Trax. I went back to England, tracked them down and got right into it from there. I was kind of in the right place at the right time.

DJ Times: And then?

Tong: House was the first revolution and the second revolution was those early trips to Ibiza. I went to Ibiza for the first time in 1986 with a guy named Nicky Holloway and was pretty excited. But the trip to Ibiza that was much reported was when Nicky went to Ibiza with Paul Oakenfold, Danny Rampling and a guy named Johnny Walker and came back totally inspired after, sort of, the first E experience, their first experience of seeing Alfredo play at Amnesia. They then tried to re-create that vibe back in London. Danny was Nicky’s roadie and I used to see him all the time, but when he got back from that trip he split and did his own thing at Shoom. Paul Oakenfold went off and did Heaven and Spectrum. Nicky did this gig for three years at the Astoria, which is where I was. We changed the name every year. It was Sin one year, Made on Earth the next year and Trip another year. London changed from being this elitist clubbing scene in the mid-’80s, where they would imitate New York like Studio 54 with the velvet rope. It was all about keeping everyone out and only letting in the trendiest people wearing the right clothes. What changed with the opening of clubs like Shoom, Spectrum and Trip was that anybody could come. It didn’t matter what you looked like. Everybody was welcome from the suburbs. It turned everything on its head because suddenly it was about togetherness instead of elitism.

DJ Times: How do you put together your Saturday "Essential Mix" show with the guest DJs?

Tong: The theme of the program is obviously the world’s best DJs. In the early days, we’d get whomever we were booking to come to the studio. But with the advent of technology and the competitiveness between the DJs and the ambition to make something much more than just a two-hour radio slot and turn it into more of a real production and DJs having studios at home and the advent of having Pro Tools and all those things, we get tapes delivered by the participants. I mean, it’s not really about skills anymore like, "Oh my God, did he really mix it? Did his computer do it?" It’s not about that any more. It’s about a choice of music and the way it’s put together. The people who upped the ante in the early days were people like Oakie, who with his musical partners, would make something that you couldn’t buy. So they’d overdub on top of the mixing. People like Future Sound of London did some groundbreaking stuff for us. And we’ve had classic shows like Daft Punk, which is a real collectible one. Basement Jaxx is a real collectible one. Some of Ashley Beedle’s, where he’s done reggae, are collectible. Freddy Fresh has done some of the most amazing ones where he’s incorporating everything.

DJ Times: I found the whole list of shows and playlist on the BBC website. It’s a pretty stout list of talent over the years.

Tong: Yeah, we’ve got about 300 in our catalog and eventually I’m hoping there will be a digital place you can go to on the web and call them down on demand once the rights are sorted out.

DJ Times: What’s your mission with the Friday’s "Essential Selection" show?

Tong: The Friday show is, first and foremost, culturally, a welcome to the weekend for the nation’s clubgoers and starting the weekend. In some ways, it’s a windup to the weekend, so you’re exciting everyone about the weekend. Another function is to obviously give them as much information possible without boring them to tears, in terms of too much speech, in terms of all the headlines of what’s going on in the weekend. Another aspect is to get as many faces of the scene to call in. DJs, traditionally, don’t talk anymore, so it’s nice to hear your favorite DJ’s voice on the radio. I encourage as many faces as possible, no matter where they are in the world, to call me up and tell me what they’re doing. And then the mission is to play the best music that’s sort of rocking the scene at the moment and actually introduce the new things that we’ve found in the seven days since the last show.

DJ Times: How do you perceive American dance culture now?

Tong: I think in the last few years it’s gotten to the state now where it’s 100-percent genuine. You couldn’t stop it if you tried. It’s really, really happening in the way it always should have happened, which is that there’s a proper club culture in the States now. It’s about the lifestyle of going out, enjoying the music, participating with the DJ, buying the records, wearing the clothes. Slowly, but surely, the lifestyle element is clicking. There were pockets of it. Obviously, going way back – Paradise Garage days and things like that – there was always that scene, which we pay massive homage to and massive respect to, but it never became a national phenomenon. It was unique to New York, Chicago and Detroit. Paradise Garage was a real music place and you had Zanzibar with Tony Humphries and Danceteria with Mark Kamins, The Loft, and all these legendary places, but broadly speaking was American/New York house culture. The hardcore clientele was the brilliant, flamboyant gay community. For whatever reason, it never became a national phenomenon. I think the giants of the American record business had such a downer on disco after Saturday Night Fever that it was never encouraged on any level of media. So it became, it became…

DJ Times: Lampooned.

Tong: Yeah, and it’s taken this long really until a 17-year-old kid found it again and got into techno or trance. I think this is the true alternative in America because you can’t just turn it on the radio and hear it. You have to know something special to be part of it and that makes it subversive and that makes it exciting again.

DJ Times: What does it say about the U.K. dance culture that you’re considered somewhat mainstream? Most American dance fans would be thrilled to have your show in their market.

Tong: In the U.K., it’s a constantly moving cycle and, you’re right, it’s very overground now. But there is still new music coming through that’s not in the mainstream and my job is to never stop in one place. I might move so slowly that you can’t see me move, but I’m never still. The recent cycle that I’ve been through is to bring more and more dance music onto Radio 1. So now you’ve got Judge Jules, Dave Pearce, Danny Rampling, "Essential Mix" show and dance music is 50- to 60-percent of the playlist on Radio 1. So that is a level of exposure that’s higher than any time in the last 20 years. And I’m now looking at utilizing my platform that I have there to slowly, but surely, shift a little and focus on the darker corners of the scene and start to bring them forward. That’s my philosophy. Me now playing the same records as all these other guys is not really necessary any more. But you have to be clever in broadcasting. I can’t just turn up one day and say, "Right, everything before this day is now shit [laughs], and I’m going to play all these different records from the minority." The audience would turn off in a second, but I’m consciously focusing on some of the better things that are coming.

DJ Times: What are you into now?

Tong: The techno scene is fascinating at the moment because it’s gotten very musical again with much more diversity. I’m uncomfortable mentioning genre names because one day they’re this and by the time your magazine comes out they’re something else, but there’s a lot of interesting music. Every other week now, the No.1 record in England is a dance record. Something gradually gets bigger. It’s harder to be seen to be different. Funny enough now, I feel more confident in the last two or three months than I have for the last two or three years about me personally making a change again. Because we’ve done that now. We know trance is big and so on. We have DJs on Radio 1 who can cover that. I’m now looking for where I go next. Now is actually an exciting time.

DJ Times: What do you make of the conflict-of-interest flap about your being an A&R guy and playing too many of your label’s songs on the BBC, a commercial-free, state-run station?

Tong: [Sigh] It’s something I’m aware of and I have to be careful of and its ebbs and flows with different motivations. Sometimes it comes from enemies, who are jealous, and sometimes I’m sure that its genuine concern. I mean, I’ve been doing it a long time and I’m just conscious that I can’t abuse the system, because you’re in such a public place, you know? I’m here at the top of the tree. I’ve got the biggest radio audience for a dance show in the country. If I go out on a limb and start playing some record and I’m the only person playing it and it’s one of mine and none of my contemporaries or peers are down with it, then it’s going to stick out like a beacon. But I don’t have a problem playing Armand Van Helden’s "Koochy," which is on my label, because it’s a brilliant record and everybody else is playing it. I’ve got my little rules. Obviously, if it’s something that we’ve recorded from scratch at the label, I make sure that some important people in the scene have it before me and are playing it before me. If it’s something that I’m trying to sign, to be honest, I play it anyway. And that has a reverse effect. One thing you’ll never hear me say is, "I will play your record if you sign to me." That’s when I would be corrupt.

DJ Times: And that would get out also.

Tong: I would get out straight away and I’d be finished, so that would never happen. But me playing a record before signing it when I’m trying to sign it, to be honest, that just alerts the competition. It ups the price, but it’s something I have to live with.

DJ Times: What do you look to accomplish by bringing your "Essential Mixes" to America?

Tong: I don’t have any illusions; I just have ambition. I think syndication of radio has been a difficult thing because it’s very labor-intensive and it’s very slow and there’s not a lot of money in it. In America, they want you to do something for nothing. They want you to cume a number of shows per number of heads and get a certain level audience and then try to get advertisers. So it’s been slow, but the web has changed all that now. And the BBC is open to exploiting the properties that we give to them on a worldwide basis. We’ve just done a deal to get the Essential Mix on about 150 college stations through Bridge Media, which is a start. And we get about 30-percent of the hits on both the Radio 1 web site and my own site – essentialselection.com, where my show goes through when it’s live – from North America, so the interest has gone way past the expatriate vote. You can see now the demand for some DJ, whether it’s Paul Oakenfold, Sasha & Digweed or Carl Cox or Dave Seaman, Darren Emerson. Their datebooks could be filled with dates from America. So where there’s that sort of love and that sort of level of interest, you can only be optimistic about the future. I don’t really have a concrete plan. I’m not going to sit in an ivory tower and say that we’re going to take over America. I just think that we can certainly have a lot of fun here.

DJ Times: So did you have fun on the boat party in Miami?

Tong: Yeah, it was brilliant. It was really good. I enjoy surprising people. When you’re around that long, people are respectful for what you’ve done in the past, but being the biggest guy has an ugly side to it. People are looking to knock you down or assume you can’t do something. So I sort of enjoy people coming up and saying, "God, I didn’t realize you could play like that!" Or, "I didn’t know you could play that kind of set!" So it’s still a bit of a buzz. That’s the game.