INTERVIEW with Gerald Debono- Founder of Fesh Music Agency
Date and place of birth
21st December 1978 – St.Julians , Malta
Hobbies
Anything music related…but I am very keen of fine dining and traveling
Relaxed night in watching a DVD or out clubbing with a few friends?
Till a couple of years ago I would be all out for the night out clubbing..but in the last few years I have been appreciating much more the few precious time that I have to be relaxed and not out working . In Malta I can’t really go out and just have fun as every place I go to being Party or club I end up talking about work with the owner/staff/etc… But on the other hand I would go for a night clubbing abroad anytime :)
What attracted you into forming Fresh Music Agency and organizing events?
The idea of forming the DJ Agency came from Trevor Camilleri (Trevor C – who is now my partner in Fresh events) , DJ Ruby, & Duncan F back in 1998…At the time the idea was to just to promote House & Trance music in a scene that was dominated by Techno music. But with a lot of hard work from all the team it grew up to be the biggest and most respected Artist Agency in Malta an getting an International recognition. In the past we have launched the career of Dr.Kucho ! to an international level and recently we have been working with the Andrea Doria from Italy. We constantly get requests from International DJ’s to joining our agency but in the last years we have decided to work more on the events rather than the agency and we have been refusing any request.
The idea of organizing events always attracted me and I started off from selling tickets at the Axis student parties back in 1996 (now Cyclone) to co-organising them and then my ambition took me off to bigger events. I started to help out with the events organized by the biggest promoters in the last 90’s (Exit, Lovesexy & Lovegroove promotion) and when I realized that I was getting them a big percentage of people to their events I thought that I might start doing my own events. At the time me and Trevor C (who was already an established promoter and had booked DJ’s such as Seb Fontaine to Malta) thought of joining forces and we did our first event together as Fresh Music Agency on the 7th July 2000 with Paul Oakenfold @ Liquid club and then we never looked back and made it a point to start producing events for local clubbers that could not go abroad clubbing to witness the World top DJ’s & setups so the Masterclass Sessions were born and the rest is history.
Can you mention any strange requests asked by any artist?
I had some funny ones in the food rider of Faithless but when they were here they actually didn’t know that they had so many things listed on their rider. Nowadays the riders are pretty much standard but Paul Oakenfold’s private jet must have been the most unusual one….
What Fresh events can we expect to see in the future?
For 2007 we are planning on moving on from our usual Masterclass Sessions – As we have one planned for next 30th March with David Guetta and then another one on the 20th September.
On the 26th May we are planning a new concept with Local DJ’s at the Eden Arena which is going to be very interesting , whilst the main event of the year is going to be held on the 15th August in an open air venue with some interesting surprises while we will be co-organizing 2 events at Numero Uno on the 29th June and 31st August.
Which Dj/Act enjoyed performing in Malta the most?
Well this is a difficult one as luckily enough we built such a good reputation with artists abroad as they all enjoy playing here a lot….But I must say that I had excellent feedback from Faithless, Tiesto, David Guetta and Armin Van Buuren recently.
What’s the most embarrassing situation you got yourself into?
Must be when I was checking in Boy George in a hotel and he was trying to convince the guy at reception to join him in the room
Where do you see yourself 10 years down the line?
Hopefully in 10 years time I would have found someone that I can trust to run the day to day business of Fresh Music Agency and I would be running things from the back seat and over viewing things .
What’s your greatest ambition?
I have been doing this job for the past 9 years and I have been able to do and meet people that I only dreamt of in my wildest dreams when I was 16 years old, so I must admit that even if I had to stop organizing events tomorrow I will be more than happy. But anyone who has been in the business knows that once it becomes a part of you cant really stop, but definitely in the next years I will be looking forward to hold a couple of interesting concerts with artists that will target a young audience than the ones we currently have being held in Malta
