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Nic Fanciulli Interview

Author: Terry Goldfain
Monday, December 5, 2005
As a journalist I really don't have more than a couple of tricks up my sleeve. If you've read a few of my interviews you'll know that I always begin the article one of two ways. Firstly, there's the controversial quote: "I hate email interviews, they're the worst thing ever," reveals Nic Fanciulli. Alternatively, there's the more traditional route of summarizing the artists career in your introduction with slightly reformatted press release material. For example, 'At 24, Nic Fanciulli is a young, fresh DJ, producer and remixer, currently the hottest rising house talent in the UK.'
So how about we take a different approach this time and give you some facts you're not likely to read in a bio. Starting off with correct pronunciation of his surname: Nic...Fan...Chew...Lee. And to the surprise of many, his co-production aliases Buick Project and Skylark aren't due to him being car obsessed. Skylark came from the bar of the same name in San Francisco where he went to see Halo and Hipp-E play and Fanciulli has never owned a Buick. And last misconception, he hasn't just appeared from out of the blue to become the latest darling of the dance media. Instead, his current standing is the culmination of a number of years of hard work.

"Everything is really good at the moment," confirms Fanciulli with the barest hint of disbelief in his voice. Not disbelief that things are going well, but you get the feeling that he's continually pinching himself to make sure he's not dreaming. "Andy Chatterley and I have been working together for about eight years. We used to produce under the name Skylark (notable production work including a remix of Deep Dish's Flashdance) but as our sound developed we settled on Buick Project as a more representative name. We both have different areas of music we focus on based on what we're into and what we're doing. When we're writing more rocky stuff for the Buick album, Andy's more into that area of music while I'm more into the dance side of stuff. I can tell what records work on the floor and can writer them a lot better. We've both got our own bits we bring to the mix. In the eight years we've known each other we haven't had one argument. It's quite funny. It's a fucking perfect marriage because we both work very hard and are very regimented. Ive got my DJing and he's got his band and we manage to come together in the middle.

While Fanciulli's gig with James Zabiela at Room680 will be amazing, the jewel in the crown of this particular tour will be Sydney when they are joined by Sasha, and Fanciulli leaves no doubt as to his admiration of the man. "I play with James (Zabiela) quite a bit anyway around the world and in the UK. We're quite good friends. But Sasha I've only met a couple of times in transit at airports. He's one of my heroes from when I was growing up. I know he's playing a lot of our records which is obviously fucking amazing."

With Melbourne's stable of production stars including the likes of Andy Page, Luke Chable, Phil K and Ivan Gough, like many touring artists I thought that Fanciulli would jump at the opportunity to work on some collaborations while in Australia, particularly with a weeks break between gigs. However, his focus is firmly placed on completing the Buick Project album. "I think I'll start collaborating after the album is finished," he reveals. "I know it's a good dilemma to have, but in the back of my mind I keep thinking 'what if I write a record with someone else and it does really well and takes away from what we've been working our arses off for the last seven years'- We've only decided to do the album in the last year and a half, but it's taken the last seven years to get to the point where we can."

While as yet there is not an album deal set in concrete, this is not something that concerns Fanciulli. "We've got our own label that Andy and I run called Saved & Deleted. We might put it out on that or assess other options. We're fortunate to be in that position<
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