George FitzGerald’s great-grandfather was born in Co. Mayo before emigrating to Britain. Last month, the British DJ and producer released Fading Love, a 10-track debut album recorded and produced in London and George’s adopted home, Berlin. A well-known DJ who has played big club and festival stages, FitzGerald held a residency at Radio 1 for two years. The new album explores a variety of “more tactile” areas of electronic music, working with unexpected collaborators, and as the title suggests, Fading Love also documents the disintegration of a romance.
What are you up to right now?
I’m in London recovering from my album launch party on the weekend. I DJ’d all night for six hours so was a sweaty mess by the end.
What’s been the best decade of your life so far and why?
Probably the last 10 years, although I found my early 20s to be quite a struggle. It took me a while to find something I really wanted to do with my life. Before then everything is more or less laid out for you, so long as you don’t question it.
What song sends a shiver down your spine?
Smashing Pumpkins, Thirty-Three.
What is your favourite place in Ireland?
The Twisted Pepper in Dublin.
What makes you angry?
Bad manners.
What book influenced you most?
Woyzeck by Georg Büchner. It’s play about a normal man being turned into a monster by the cruelty of those around him. Something a lot of politicians should be forced to read.
What was the worst moment of your life?
My mother being diagnosed with cancer when I was very young.
Which local star in any field should the world outside Ireland know about?
The Crackbird fried chicken restaurant in Dublin makes me weak at the knees. I’d do gigs there just to eat at that place. They should start a franchise.
Fitzgerald's hero Ronnie O'SullivanWho are your heroes?
Ronnie O’Sullivan. Eric Cantona. Billy Corgan.
If you could change one thing in your life, what would it be?
Man City and Chelsea to be banned from the Premier League.
Can you recommend an interesting website?
Discogs.com, a veritable black-hole for the record collector.
What is the best lesson life has taught you?
Things are rarely as they should be, only as they must be.
What is your favourite film and why?
Cool Hand Luke. Paul Newman is cool in that film in a way you rarely see today.
What do you believe in?
Compassion.
What trait do others criticise you for?
I try to say yes to everyone then end up pleasing nobody. Flip flopping. It’s terrible.
What is your ultimate guilty pleasure?
Doner kebabs in Berlin.
Where do you live and what are the best and worst things about that place?
Berlin. The best is the freedoms. The worst is the bureaucracy.
On what occasion is it OK to lie?
Probably never but I do it all the time.
What do you consider the greatest work of art?
Impossible to say, but the greatest work of art I’ve consumed is Wagner’s Prelude to Tristan and Isolde. I say that as someone who has never been a massive fan of classical music, and especially opera. Hearing it for the first time blew my mind.
Who is the love of your life?
I wrote a whole album about that so I don’t need to have it down here as well!
George Fitzgerald’s debut album Fading Love is out now on Domino’s sister label Double Six. He plays Parklife 2015 festival at Heaton Park, Manchester on June 6.
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