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Biography

Pete Gooding is one of the few British dance producers whose music is as likely to appear in a set by Laurent Garnier, Tom Middleton, and Dubfire, as it is by David Guetta, Pete Tong, or Groove Armada. Similarly, as a DJ, you’ll find him at the Big Chill or Roskilde, as well as regular gigs at Matter, Ministry Of Sound, or at We Love at Space Ibiza.

London-based Gooding has spent the past decade conjuring up a quiet storm. Sure, he’s had another worldwide chart, radio, and club hit with collaborator James Doman (‘Runnin’), a project that is about to yield yet more crossover potential with ‘Pacific State’ and ‘Hyperactive’, and remixes for Groove Armada - Love Sweet Sound Cheryl Cole & Will I Am - 3 Words [Polydor], but his own remixes of Ultraviolet’s ‘Kites’ for Big Life (currently getting hammered by Sasha), and Humate’s ‘Choose Life’ for Yoshitoshi have fed the underground’s unabated hunger for his work, as well as picking up plays on Radio 1.

Away from his big room sounds, in the past 12 months Pete’s work with Chris Coco, Alex Tepper, Afterlife’s Steve Miller, and Phil Dockerty, has redefined the cutting edge sounds that soundtrack the outer limits of 21st century electronica. With Tepper his Warp-style forays into the territory recently mapped out by Flying Lotus and dubstep’s current protagonists, is but a continuation of Pete’s experimental manoeuvres that have soundtracked sunsets (and sunrises) past and present.

On a club level, this year he’s played alongside Moby, Trentemoller, Soulwax, Deadmau5, Ewan Pearson, Miss Kitten, and more, rocking floors with his mix of deep house, techno, and alt dance. One minute headlining well-known floors such as Cream and Gatecrasher, the next playing under the radar parties in Shoreditch, Croatia, or Sweden, at the request of promoters whose crowds expect that little bit more from their weekend entertainment.

This summer he was heralded alongside Jose Padilla and Alfredo as being one of a select few who represent and convey the true meaning of downtempo dance music, following the rich legacy he built at Ibiza’s Café Mambo. As No Logo (with Afterlife’s Steve Miller) he continues to release tracks that are guaranteed highlights on the more discerning chillout compilations. Keep an eye out this autumn for his own mix of No Logo’s ‘Party Animal’ track.

His hugely successful radio show, ‘The Global Network’, neatly combines his entire musical loves. Featuring all elements of his musical palette, plus guest mixes from the likes of DJ Hell, Marc Romboy, Gabriel Ananda, and Steve Lawler, the show is now broadcast on over 40 stations worldwide. 
Quite where it all began depends on where you first discovered Pete or his music. Gooding has long been synonymous with Ibiza. But if you've ever set foot on La Isla Blanca, or heard him at his countless UK and international gigs, you'll know his musical clout extends far beyond chillout or obscure ambient electronica - his repertoire includes tracks that take you from beach to sunset to block-rocking main room without missing a beat. His appearances at Cafe Mambo have extended beyond his residency that lasted 10 summers. As Mambo grew from a handful of tables on the beach front to a luxury terrace complete with ice-cold water spritzers to cool the crowd, so did its reputation as the prime position for a perfect sunset vibe, long since eclipsing Cafe Del Mar thanks to Pete's chilled beats that gave way to a writhing mass of clubbers the second the sun dropped behind the ocean.


2002 saw him scoop Best Ibiza DJ at the prestigious Pacha Awards. Pete Tong's Essential Selection confirmed Gooding's role as Ibizan institution (alongside vodka-limons) by adopting Mambo as its spiritual home, and made Gooding a fixture on Radio One's various summer broadcasts, where he also played on shows for the likes of Danny Rampling and Seb Fontaine. But there's much more to Pete than Mambo: "Chillout is such a small element of what I do, so it seems weird that people sometimes associate me with that. I play cutting edge electronic dance music, and that's what I want to put out on the label, and what you'll hear in my DJ sets".

Pete fell instantly in love with house music aged 12 after being given a cassette of The House Sound Of Chicago Volume 1 by his sister. He subsequently started to drag his midi hi-fi into her room where she had the same system, and his first foray into mixing involved playing one record on each deck. A holiday to Ibiza at 15 cemented the relationship, and Pete invested in his first decks and a mixer. "From then on I was addicted to buying vinyl every single week!" In 1992, desperate to give his tunes a public airing, Pete took a job as a mobile DJ in a tiny wine bar near where he lived. "I'd drive 20 miles to Coventry to hire the sound system, drive back to the bar to set it up, play for six hours in this place that only held about 40 people, then pack the system away and drive back to Coventry, It used to cost me £10 more than I got paid, but I didn't care because I was so excited about playing records I loved to my friends". Clubbing around his home town of Birmingham at The Hummingbird and Shelley's in Stoke, and then onto Renaissance in Mansfield, the scene of Sasha's groundbreaking sets, Pete found his inspiration to get serious about his involvement with clubland. A humble glass collector at his local Solihull club, he started his own night with DJ Phil Docherty (who later formed Futureshock), booking all the biggest DJs from around the world (Erick Morillo, Dave Seaman, and Graeme Park) and playing himself. He then launched a night at Birmingham's biggest bar, Rafael's, and began playing out at the likes of Moneypenny's and The Steering Wheel. A day job at record shop Global Grooves led to Pete opening his own record store, Vinyl Matters, and expanding his contacts to land even more gigs across the UK.

In 1996, 3 years after he started DJing, he landed his aforementioned Mambo residency through old school friend Steve Lawler, and the following year released his first award-winning Cafe Mambo compilation. He's since released seven more of them through Neo, Sony, React, Defected and all have received rave reviews. In 1998, Pete met Renaissance promoter Geoff Oakes, and puts his next set of bookings down to the crafty exploitation of years of trainspotting. "Every week when Jeff came in I'd play a tune that I knew would make him come over. The first time he said "I've only ever heard Sasha and Digweed play this, what's your name?" Then Frankie Knuckles was with Geoff at Mambo, and quizzed Jeff about who I was. The following week Danny Rampling did the same and asked for one of my mix tapes & Soon after, Oakes was listening to a tape around the pool. 
It was one of Pete's mix tapes - a mate of his who worked for Renaissance had slipped it on and Oakes offered him a residency that he still holds today. In fact, you'd be hard pushed to find a club in Ibiza that Pete hasn't played at as a resident: he's done Privilege (where in 2000, Pete played Renaissance Live alongside Moloko, Kylie, Leftfield and Moby) and Amnesia for Renaissance, he was Cream's resident in Ibiza and Mallorca, and at Dave Seaman's 4:4 night, and Steve Lawler's Harlem Nights at Space. "I'd say I've been abroad virtually every weekend for the last nine years, and have played in over 55 countries" says Pete. “It’s the music that has taken me across the world, and now I’m producing and engineering my own material it’s given me even greater freedom. As a DJ I play many different styles, so it’s only fitting that the music I make follows the same path, I never want to get bogged down in one genre, where’s the fun in that?”.

Discography

Beyonce : Video Phone (Doman & Gooding remix) Columbia (2009)
Tinie Tempah: Biker Babes (Doman & Gooding remix)Virgin (2009)
Cheryl Cole & Will I Am 3 Words (Doman & Gooding remix)Polydor (2009)
Pete Gooding & Tyrell D: Get Loaded(2009)
Pete Gooding & Tyrell D: It Goes Boom(2009)
Hideo Kobayashi : Made In Japan (Pete Gooding remix) - New World (2009)
Rampa & Nomi : Inside (Pete Gooding remix) - Rebirth (2009)
No Logo: Party Animal (Pete Gooding remix) - Subatomic (2009)
Ultraviolet: Kites (Pete Gooding remix) - Big Life (2009)
Humate: Choose Life (Pete Gooding remix) - Yoshitoshi (2009)
Doman & Gooding vs Mark Ardent: Hyperactive - Heaven Recordings (2009)
Doman & Gooding: Runnin - Positiva (2009)
Doman & Gooding: Pacific State - Heaven Recordings (2009)
No Logo: The Game - Subatomic (2009)
Stephen Lopkin: Big Jock (Phil Dockerty & Pete Gooding remix) - Urbantorque (2009)
Doman & Gooding: Dig This - Heaven Recordings (2008)
No Logo: Dark Star - Urbantorque (2008)
No Logo: Mindset - Subatomic (2008)
Hool & Bruckheimer: In The Beginning (Gooding, Sol & Moss remix) - Toolroom (2008)
No Logo: Party Animal - Subatomic (2007)
Drax & Gooding: Zulu - Freefall Recordings (2007)
Soundstream: Fade To Grey (Drax & Gooding remix) - Freefall Recordings (2006)
No Logo: This City never Sleeps - Subatomic (2006)
No Logo: F.H.T - Subatomic (2006)
No Logo: Easy - Subatomic (2006)
No Logo: No Place To Go - Subtomic (2006)
Morpheous: So Special (Drax & Gooding remix) - Wooded (2006)
Drax & Gooding: Fidget - Freefall Recordings (2006)
Drax & Gooding: Just Cos I'm High - Freefall Recordings (2006)
No Logo: Is Anybody Out There - Subatomic (2005)
De'Lacy: Hideaway (Pete Gooding remix) - Slip 'n' Slide (2005)
No Logo: Bacalao - Subatomic (2005)
Pete Gooding: Dance Electric - Audio Therapy (2005)
Drax & Gooding: A.B.C - Harlem (2005)
James Bright & Pete Gooding: Chilly Squid - Subatomic (2004)
Drax & Gooding: Harder - Harlem (2004)
Hip Service: Badaboom Badabing (Drax & Gooding remix) - Audio Therapy (2004)
Chicane: Locking Down (Drax & Gooding remix) - Warner (2003)
Pete Gooding: Words - Fuju (2003)
Ortz: We Don't Talk (Drax & Gooding remix) - Additive (2002)
Drax & Gooding: Straight To The Floor - Renaissance (2002)
Drax & Gooding: I Love You - Renaissance (2002)
Transetters: The Saga (Drax & Gooding remix) - Hooj Choons (2002)
Drax & Gooding: Guam - Renaissance (2001)
Drax & Gooding: Twister - Renaissance (2001)
Chupacabra: Black lines - N Genda (2001)