Pete Tong has been talking about hearing loss and the steps he’s had to take to ensure he can still DJ in his mid 60s: he has to wear a hearing aid these days.
In an interview with the Guardian, the Radio 1 stalwart – he’s presented a show on the station since 1991 – admitted: “I think there probably is a stigma – thinking that you must be old if you need a hearing aid. But then I’m not 20 anymore.”
About a decade ago, the DJ was diagnosed with hearing loss in his right ear. “I’d been in and around music since I was 15, so I guess I wasn’t surprised. I just started to become conscious of it.”
Tong started wearing earplugs, but they made him feel “quite cut off, because it totally changes the experience. You hear the music really beautifully, and you feel the bass, but you don’t really hear the crowd in the same way. (But) I psyched myself into: that’s my new environment, and it’s healthier for my hearing.”
The DJ has become an ambassador for Boots Hearingcare, to convince those who have grown up with him – those in their 40s and 50s who have spent their whole adult going to clubs and gigs – to take audiological tests and to use precautions like earplugs.
In the interview, Tong reveals he’s currently writing a book, which should be a fascinating read when it finally comes out.
He’s been a tastemaker at the cutting edge of British music for over forty years now – he was a soul DJ during the days of the 80s pirates (he span for Radio Invicta), but quickly signed up for the acid house revolution of 1988/89. Rave was “good for a while”, he says, “but then it got out of hand with the illegal nature, and it became more tabloid headlines, drugs, sensationalism.”
By 1991, he was at Radio One, where he’s been ever since. And as well as this he’s worked for London Records – he founded ffrr, which was the label’s dance subsidiary and signed Salt N’ Pepa, Orbital and Utah Saints amongst many others.
Somehow, through all this, he’s managed to avoid the hedonistic excesses that too many '90s DJs succumbed to: “I always had these things that keep you sane, keep you together,” he says, referring to his first marriage and his kids. “I never really burned out – I think just by luck as much as judgment.”
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