I Don’t Take Requests is the entertaining and emotional memoir by DJ Fat Tony. I know of him mainly through Instagram. He loves a good meme and crops up in posts from lots of people I follow in music and fashion circles. I had no idea he’s been through so much though – he was a drug addict for over 20 years.
Opening sentence: I’m pretty sure I’d already shat myself that night.
Yep, so that pretty graphic opening sentence tells you straight off the bat that DJ Fat Tony is not holding back when it comes to telling his story. The line refers to when he was in the height of his drug addiction. Now in recovery, this something he is looking back on and talking about in detail to show the grim reality of what can look like such a glam and hedonistic life to those on the outside looking in.
Celeb circles
I Don’t Take Requests is such a fascinating read as Tony has always been at the right place at the right time. He started working in shops on the King’s Road in the 1980s when he was a teenager, he’s been friends with Boy George since back then and has such an array of celeb stories – he just crossed paths with the rich and famous through the years. Helped, of course, by his career as a DJ at all the best club nights.
From Freddie Mercury giving him his first line of cocaine in Heaven nightclub to starting a DJ duo ‘Fat Moss’ with Kate Moss, his stories are so captivating.
To this day, Siouxsie Sioux is the only person to have ever had the balls to slap me right across the face.
The darker side
It was wild reading about some of the things that Tony got up to. He knows he was often awful, hard work and self-centred, a ‘nightmare’ in his own words – but he was an addict at the time and just didn’t care what people thought of his behaviour. If anything, he went out of his way to live up to the extreme version of his personality that he thought people wanted / expected.
It’s a dangerous game where you make people feel sorry for you instead of taking responsibility for yourself.
As well as his drug addiction, Tony talks about other elements of his life that he was dealing with too. From his HIV diagnosis in the 1990s to a heart-breaking incident in his childhood, he’s been through so much.
Coming through the other side
His natural tone is cheeky, cutting and self-deprecating and that come through here loud and clear. He has learned so much due to what he’s been through and is using I Don’t Take Requests as a place to share his insights:
I’d had thirty years of destruction, and just survival, and there’s a big difference between surviving and living. Once you learn that, everything changes.
While there were definitely low moments for him, hearing how his whole outlook on life has now changed, how his love of music in many ways saved his life (on Tony’s rec, listening to MacArthur Park as I write this) and how he got onto his road to recovery is hugely inspiring. A great, honest and insightful memoir.
- Get your copy of I Don’t Take Requests here;
- Published by Coronet May 2022;
- 265 pages;
- My rating:
Books on the 7:47 
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