DJ Nigel Benn

Going The Distance With…. Nigel Benn

I have two loves in my life, House music and boxing. I adore them both with equal measure to such an extent, that my idea of heaven evolves around the spectacle of two fully grown men beating seven balls of shit out of each other, as I get stuck into a chicken Korma, washed down with a six pack of Stella Artois, whilst listening to some serious Deep House at full volume. Believe me, there’s nothing like it (apart from a jackpot lottery win or a night with Cindy Crawford). I admit it, I’m a Neanderthal primitive in every sense and proud of it. Why? Because it’s the bollocks. So on this understanding, imagine my joy on finding out that I was to interview none other than Nigel Benn, the ‘Dark Destroyer’ himself. I tell you, I nearly came. Your can keep your Danny Rampling’s, Paul Oakenfold’s and you Jeremy Healy’s because Nigel Benn is as near to an idol as I’ve got and I was going to meet him. Cool!

I was to meet the Dark Destroyer at Garlands Night Club in Liverpool. He was playing a rare set outside of London, which also happened to be the first date of the ‘Love To Be’ national tour. So off to Liverpool I went. I was due to meet him for a ‘one to one’ interview after he had played his set, so I knew that it would have to be quite late on, about 2am in fact. I timed my arrival for around 1.30am, so that I could catch some of his set and see how he compared to other ‘celebrity’. DJ’s doing the rounds at the moment.

As I walked into Garlands. I was greeted by the sight of a club packed to capacity, with everyone inside going absolutely mental. I can’t remember what tunes Nigel was dropping in, but I can tell you that he was mixing them like a seasoned pro. I was surprised because, let’s be honest, there’s a lot of so called ‘professional’ DJ’s at the moment whose mixing, it has to be said, is a complete bag of shite. Round one to Nigel Benn I think.

I caught my first glimpse of Nigel as he stood behind the decks doing his stuff. The DJ box was under siege by people trying to get his attention and shake his hand. There was also a large female contingent hanging around and the majority seemed to want a bit more than a handshake. I hadn’t realised that having your head smacked from pillar to post made you this attractive to the opposite sex. I found myself with the sudden urge to kick off, however, the two brick shit houses to my left, changed my mind. After all this was Liverpool, and I could try out my new method of pulling at a later date. A much later date, in fact it was a stupid idea. Who in their right mind would interrupt the set of the W.B.C. Super Middle-Weight Champion Of The World. Er, not me mate.

It was 2am and Nigel was due to come off. Only he didn’t, he wanted to go on until 2.30am, which is great if you’re a punter, but a nightmare if you’re a knackered writer with over an hours drive in front of you in order to get to the sanctuary of your bed. C’est le ve.

2.30 arrived and this was it, me and Nigel Benn one on one. The gloves were off and er, so was his shirt. As he left the decks flanked by two minders, I noticed that he was now sporting a huge star shaped tattoo on his back, which must have hurt him more than Chris Eubank’s punches ever did. He was making his way towards me, but then made a sharp right and disappeared into a side room. At this point something strange happened. As all the clubbers began to leave, a bus full of journalists and photographers began to appear. Excuse me, but wasn’t this supposed to be an exclusive interview? You have, er like, just me and Nige. Obviously not.

By the time I was ushered into Nigel’s presence, I was part of a gaggle of writers (all of whom seemed to have better dictaphones than me), who were all competing to be the nearest to the champ. After much squabbling and standing on toes, I got a prime position right in front of Nigel and thrust my dictaphone towards his mouth. In fact it was little too close to his mouth and he gave me one of those, ‘watch it’ glares. I shat myself.

“Nigel, can you tell me how you got into DJ’ing?”, some voice asked from behind my shoulder, taking the words right out of my mouth.

“I’ve always been into dance music”, came Nigel’s reply, “I’d been into hardcore and gone to raves and as the music started to mellow out, I started to mess about on the decks, which I’ve had for four or five years now…basically, it’s a way out of boxing. Two more fights and I’m out. No more fuckers throwing punches at me (laughing), you know”.

Nigel Benn is softly spoken, which is in contrast to his hard man image and when it comes to answering questions, he’s obviously become a ‘dab hand’ at this media lark. He’s no stranger to press conferences, unfortunately I was and it has become a full on battle just to get a question out, before some hack from the student press asked a load of bollocks. For example:

“Nigel, what do you think to Liverpool then?”, asks a blonde girl to my left, completely star struck and looking gormless.

“I’ve been waiting to come to Liverpool for five years now, five years. I walked into the hotel and the first thing that came out of this fuckers mouth, that really annoyed me was, ‘no one’s allowed into the rooms after eleven o’clock’. I’ve wanted to come here for five years and he says that, not ‘welcome Mr Benn, nice to see you, have a nice stay’”.

This was all well and good, but I was after all, there to chat about Nigel’s DJ’ing not hotel hospitality. Unfortunately things were to get worse before they got any better.

“What do you expect, it’s a Love To Be Tour”, came a voice from the back. I looked round to see a co-promoter of Love To Be, trying to get the interview back on track, and make light of Nigel’s diatribe against his hotel.

“I don’t care mate, I don’t care”, was Nigel’s terse reply. He seemed to be getting riled, but surely this was my imagination, the promoter continued to try and defuse the situation. He seemed to want to get things moving along and in all fairness, didn’t warrant the tongue lashing he was about to receive.

“What are you talking about? What are you talking about?” Nigel Benn snapped out.

Fucking hell! I could not believe what was happening. Nigel Benn was launching into a verbal tirade against a promoter that had just paid him a small fortune, for what seemed to be no apparent reason. For a few desperate seconds, I thought it was going to go off. Worse still, it looked like I would be caught in the middle. My mother told me that there would be days like this. Quite understandably (and sensibly), the promoter left the room.

After a few seconds respite, someone suggested to Nigel that it was unfair to be use his celebrity status in order to receive bookings as a DJ, didn’t he feel that he was keeping work from other more deserving people?

“No way, I got where I am today the hard way. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth and it’s been hard getting to a position where I can now cross over from boxing to something else. What I will say to other DJ’s is that if you think it’s unfair, why don’t you swap jobs and try out boxing. Let’s see if they can be as successful using their names in that. Let’s see if they can become a two time world champion”.

As you the reader are no doubt now aware, this had been a difficult interview. It’s difficult to create any kind of rapport when you’re stood amidst a dozen people all trying to do the same. The time had come for me to show my hand. “Which DJ’s have influenced you the most?”, I asked.

“I used to go down to The Ministry (Of Sound) a lot. I was hearing people like Roger Sanchez and Masters At Work. Just hearing what they came out with influenced me in that direction”.

Other questions were asked, but in all honesty, they are not suitable for an underground dance website. If your disappointed, then spare a thought for me. I went to meet someone I had admired and respected for years. I had every intention of extending every courtesy towards Nigel Benn, but in all fairness, I don’t think Nigel was the villain of the peace. He posed for photographs with everyone at the end, and yes, it was early morning when things started to wind down, so he was no doubt tired and in need of rest and perhaps, if he should read this, my comments may seen unfair, to him. However, I can only report on what happened. When you’re told you’re to receive an exclusive interview and end up at a press conference with other areas of the media present, can anyone really expect you to paint a portrait that is 100% flattering.