FELLOWSHIP BIOGRAPHY
Fellowship is the artist name for Darren Hickey, the owner of the highly respected defunked label. During the past 10 years, Darren has released well in excess of over 100 singles, covering a multitude of musical genres ranging from Drum & Bass through to Deep House and Techno.
From a very early age, Darren always showed a keen interest in music, with a particular fondness for artists such as Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield and Michael Jackson. But it was during the early Eighties, with the explosion of the Electro scene, that Darrens’ love for music really became evident. Unforgettable tracks such as “Al-Naafiysh”, “Planet Rock”, “Rockit” and Flash’s classic “The Message”, were to have a dramatic effect on him, and it was at this moment that he decided to pursue this passion further. Darren became heavily involved in the breakdancing and graffiti scene and also took his first steps into the realms of music production by purchasing his first drum machine. This led to the acquisition of two turntables and a mixer at the age of 14, where he found himself buying a wide variety of music ranging from the likes of Eric B & Rakim, Public Enemy and Boogie Down Productions, right through to the smooth soul sounds of Loose Ends, S.O.S. Band and Chuck Stanley.
In 1986/87, the arrival of the Chicago house sound was to absolutely blow Darrens mind and take his passion for music to the next level. With the awe-inspiring sounds of Marshall Jefferson’s “Move Your Body”, Larry Heard’s “Can U Feel It” and Frankie Knuckles’ “Your Love”, he discovered a genre that today evokes his fondest memories. For it was around this time that Darren first discovered the illegal warehouse raves, where DJ’s such as Fabio and Grooverider would regularly drop classic tracks such as “Tears” by Frankie Knuckles (featuring the sublime vocal talents of Darrens’ favourite singer Robert Owens). Other unforgettable moments include “Let The Music (Use You)” by the Nightwriters, Arnold Jarvis’ “Take Some Time Out” and the fantastic “Searching Hard” by Da Posse. Songs that have helped to create and define the house music of today.
In 1989, Darren purchased his first sampler, sequencer and 4-track recorder enabling him to begin learning the basics of song production. Two years later, he was able to release his first record, a 4-track EP called “The Audio Analysis EP” by Rise Productions on his own label of the same name. For the next few years, Darren continued to release singles of varying styles under different pseudonyms including ‘Da Bass Invaderz, Danny Ramez, and of course Rise Productions. In 1993 he began to work with various DJ’s based in the same area, leading to a variety of artist names such as the ‘Balouga Boys’ – producing progressive house tracks for labels including Cowboy Records and DMC’s Stress Records. Also, together with Alan Jinx Chamberlain (manager of the legendary Marshall Jefferson) Darren produced deep U.S. garage tracks under the guises of Hard Motion, Soulful Behaviour and the truth.
It was in 1994 when Darren helped fellow producer Daz A.K.A. Undercover Agent, start his Drum & Bass label – Splash Recordings, a collaboration that was to spark the creation of Juice Records in 1995. The two had known each other before, firstly way back at school in 1984, when they both expressed a keen interest in breakdancing, then later in 1989 when they attended the same graphic design college and decided to start ‘piecing’ together. They also formed a collaboration in the studio under the pseudonym of M.T.S. with various releases on Juice such as “Baad Boy Sound”, “Inspiration”, and “The Instigator”. However, their most successful collaboration to date is “Dub Plate Circles”, which featured on the Samuel L. Jackson movie “187”.
In 1995, Darren decided to start his own ‘xpressive’ label, enabling him to release the more soulful sound of Drum & Bass that he loved to produce. “Celebrate Life” / “Brighter Day” was to be the first release under the guise of ‘Fellowship’, with 5 more singles to follow including “Shake It” and “Self Imposed Exile”, and under the artist name of ‘Subject To Reason’ he released “Xpressions” and “Can’t Go Wrong”. It was also at this time that Darren teamed up with a vocalist called Joe Roberts, and together they produced a sublime track called “Homeland” under the name of Wayward Mind. The track caused quite a stir on the underground, featuring in the sets of many top-flight DJ’s such as Pete Tong and Danny Rampling, resulting in homeland receiving the ‘Single of the Month’ award in many magazines such as Mixmag, Muzik, and DJ to name but a few. They then produced a follow up single entitled “Feet Don’t Fail Me Now”, which was licensed to Smile records in the U.S in late 1997, but subsequently never saw a UK release.
After the xpressive label shut down in 1998 due to distribution circumstances, Darren decided to aim his tracks at labels like Fabio’s Creative Source, and in August of that year he had his first release on the label in the form of “Mombasa” / “Quartz”. More Fellowship releases followed such as “Muthafunker” / “Interchange” on Audio Couture, “Delusions” / “Resistance” on the U.S. based Phuturistic Bluez label and the second Creative Source outing entitled “The Jam” / “Abyss”.
Darren then had a release on moving shadow called “Visions” which featured on the ‘Professor Tsungs in Trouble’ LP, and Fabio’s much acclaimed “Liquid Funk” album was to showcase Fellowship’s next single “Divided Soul”. A month later saw a 12” on Renegade Recordings entitled “Multitude of Sins” / “Intuition” and in May 2000, Darren had two tracks on Pivotal’s “21st Century Grooves” LP in the shape of “Desperate Measures” and “Breakin’ Bones”. Then came the unforgettable Maxwell vs Fellowship “Gravity” remixes and finally towards the end of the year we saw “Sidewinder” released on the “Listen Up” compilation album on Hardleaders.
2000 was also the year when Darren decided to start up the defunked label in order to continue to push forward the more musical sound of Drum & Bass. With singles from Solid State, Fellowship, Carlito and DJ Addiction, and Razor, the label certainly got off to a promising start, and was very well received in the music press.
2001 proved to be a busy year for Darren, but an unproductive one in terms of his Fellowship work. This was due to him buying a new house, which needed a lot of work done before the studio could be set up again. He did however manage to work on a few projects including a remix of “Dark Flower Remedy” which appeared on the “Playaz For Real” LP on True Playaz. Darren then spent almost 3 months totally upgrading the studio, followed by an intense amount of sampling in order to start work on his debut artist album, planned for release in 2003.
The last Fellowship release on defunked entitled “We Can Make It” was available as Part 1 of the “Soulful Behaviour LP”. This project was defunked’s debut album featuring six exclusive tracks from Carlito & DJ Addiction, John B, Blue Sonix, Nos from Hidden Agenda, Carlito and of course Fellowship himself. The album is also available on CD mixed by DJ Addiction and features eight extra tracks from the label’s back catalogue.
Hollywood based dance music label :/run Recordings have recently licensed the Soulful Behaviour LP for North America. Featuring a second unmixed CD with 3 bonus tracks from defunked’s more recent signings, Greg Packer and Mathematics, the album is scheduled for release in October. The launch date coincided with a U.S. defunked tour featuring DJ Addiction and Mathematics.
Fellowship’s next release on defunked is entitled “So Real” and will be available as part of the new “Mind, Body & Soul LP”. The album will be released on vinyl in 3 double-pack phases. The first will be available in March and will feature tracks from Carlito, Total Science, Mathematics and Nos. The second phase, out in April, features Fellowship, Aquasky, Blue Sonix and Dice, and the final phase has tracks by Calibre, Carlito, Funk ‘N’ Flex and Kaleb, and is scheduled for release in May. The album will also be available on CD, mixed by DJ Flight, featuring the same 12 tracks as above, as well as a bonus track by Fellowship. The CD is scheduled to coincide with the release of the final double-pack phase in May.