‘There was a catalogue of errors – but once we opened, we were on fire': how we made Fabric nightclub

The Guardian

02-12-2024

I was introduced to Keith Reilly [Fabric co-owner] by the landlord of a restaurant I was working with: 'This guy wants to do a project in our basement. He's got some money, but you should go to the bank to get the rest.' We had lunch and sketched down so many plans for a nightclub that we ran out of paper and scrawled all over the tablecloth, which I kept. I admired Keith's mad genius vision. He needed me to be his 'reality-maker', as he called it.
It was the superclub era of Gatecrasher, Cream and Ministry of Sound. Fabric wasn't meant to be a disruptor, but we wanted to create the perfect underground club. We chose a former cold storage unit next to Smithfield meat market in London as the site – and next door to that restaurant with its basement – because it was in a non-residential area of London's Zone 1, with transport links and a pro-late licence council. It was complicated and rigorous, though.
Our first contractor went bust, which swallowed up a gigantic amount of money. The build had to be stopped and refinanced. There were structural challenges: we took out the pillars that supported the roof to create our dancefloors and open spaces, but went through three engineers before we could pull it off. The opening was delayed by three weeks because the power wasn't working. And just before opening night, the contractors painted the floor with epoxy resin, which takes days to dry. It was so sticky that we put down matting to create walkways. Later, we pulled it up and the floor came with it. There was a catalogue of errors behind the scenes, but from the minute we opened, we were on fire.
In our first year, we got voted the best in the world by one magazine – but right as that went to print, Keith and designer Dave Parry ripped the sound system out and replaced it with a new one they liked more, by Martin Audio. It was a bit embarrassing for that relationship with the first soundsystem company, but we had a relentless determination to have the best. We've still got that system now, so it was worth it.
We just celebrated our 25th anniversary, which feels amazing. I'm so proud of what we've all achieved together.
I moved to London in 1987 to study at Central St Martin's, during the Thatcher and acid house era. There was a post-punk sense of anarchy in the air. I threw parties at the Park Royal Studios, where I met Keith and his brother. The latter owned a pub called The Cross in King's Cross. They asked me and Terry Francis to DJ there, where we mixed up genres during a time of very linear parties. We played American and British housey techno with no vocals and trippy sounds, which became tech house. When Keith said he was opening Fabric, he asked Terry and me to be the resident DJs.
We didn't just play the first hour, we also closed every night, after the headliners. I followed DJs such as Derrick Carter, Richie Hawtin and Jeff Mills, which made me a more versatile and sensitive DJ. Our sound became the sound of Fabric: whatever happened in the middle, we brought it back to that vision.
The ethos of Fabric was to bring the underground to a bigger audience, with really great sound systems. I always felt part of something bigger rather than it being my own success. I was honing a craft by being there every week – and I could take risks, like play a set of deep, dubby Basic Channel techno, and take it to a point where you're almost pissing people off. Bravery came from the fact that I knew I was always going to be back next week.
When we opened, 24-hour licensing hadn't started yet. Since most people would be drinking in some dreary Farringdon pub nearby, waiting for us to open, room one was always full for my warmup set by 11.30pm, and then you had people till 7 or 8am – the bitter end. No one had mobile phones, so you didn't know what was going on outside, either. Never mind all that, you'd hear about it on Monday morning. That commitment created an incredible, locked-in atmosphere.
We knew we had a busy night when the queue went all the way back to Farringdon station. Having walk-ups, not advance tickets, was key: music-lovers come in all shapes and sizes. Shift workers and drinkers came at 11pm and left at 3am, and then more flamboyant punters came at 4am and soldiered on into Sunday. It made for an amazing mix: you'd have baggy tees and jeans on the dancefloor and Vivienne Westwood-clad dancers up on the balcony. Actors, musicians and the occasional footballer would also come. Howie B brought Bono down once – one of the biggest shocks for him was that when the three of us were in the booth, no one recognised him. In this dark room, he was completely free.
Today, staying in is the greatest enemy to going out because staying in has never been better. You can dial up anything, from food delivery to a live set from 2010, so dance music is in a different place. Because of social media and global travel, a nightclub in London is now competing with a nightclub in Ibiza.
At the time, we didn't imagine dance music would turn into this global monster. The numbers are different, but there's an integrity and seriousness about what we do at Fabric. It's an alternative. That resonates with me.