Two and a half decades later he is still making compelling records. But, by design, his platinum-album days are behind him. Nowadays his work engages with the warp and weft of middle age: parenthood, growing older, the death of a parent. <\/p>\n
![\"Richard](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/HWA7FSGU5ZARVEYMGR4JJWTDRA.jpg\")
Richard Fearless at his studio in London in 2019. Photograph: Kevin Lake\/Future Publishing via Getty <\/p>\n
He approaches it almost as much as therapy as a job. In the wake of his father\u2019s death it was a huge relief to be able to go into the studio he operates in east London and write loud, throbbing music. Losing himself in these moments, Fearless felt unburdened \u2013 not happy, exactly, but free. It was same feeling he had in the 1990s when he was getting into rave music.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of that for me is what I found in rave culture. The unity. Music\u2019s not lost that for me. There are certain moments when it feels it\u2019s bigger than yourself. I can still remember the moments I experienced that \u2013 going from being an indie kid, going to my first raves. You have that feeling of euphoria.\u201d<\/p>\n
Death in Vegas first played what is now the Button Factory in early 2000. Fearless, in the first flush of his burgeoning stardom, was touring Death in Vegas\u2019s hit second album, The Contino Sessions. <\/p>\n
Named after the London studio where he recorded it, the LP was mind-blowingly zeitgeisty \u2013 the essence of Y2K chic. The song Aisha featured grungy guest vocals from Iggy Pop. Then there was Dirge, a haunting mash-up of shoegaze and trip-hop, with an irresistible riff and banshee-like singing courtesy of Dot Allison, of the great lost 1990s indie-dance trio One Dove. Think My Bloody Valentine spliced with Portishead, given added cool by Allison\u2019s vocals and Fearless\u2019s persona of drop-dead cool DJ.<\/p>\n
The record was huge. Too huge, in fact, for Fearless, who over time realised he didn\u2019t want to be a rock star and had better things to do than arrange for famous singers to guest on his albums. In 2004 he finally pulled the plug on his career, parting ways with his label and his manager and moving to New York to study photography. <\/p>\n
Death in Vegas did eventually return, but it was as something radically different: an artier electronic project that looked to the underground rather than the mainstream.<\/p>\n
\u201cI made conscious choices to leave a major. To go without management for a long time. I do now have a manager. I wouldn\u2019t have done the last three Death in Vegas records if I\u2019d stuck to a major. It would have been a real battle.\u201d<\/p>\n
I thought, you know what \u2026 I\u2019m done with all of this. I need to get out<\/p>\n
\u2014 \u00a0Fearless on his decision to take a break from music<\/p>\n
Fearless was born Richard Maguire in 1972. His father was an engineer from Divis Drive, off the Falls Road in nationalist west Belfast. His mother was a Protestant from Scotland. The couple met in Belfast in the 1970s \u2013 but, with the Troubles raging, their mixed marriage brought unwelcome attention. And so his father accepted a job offer in Zambia.<\/p>\n
His parents separated when they moved back to the UK, by which time their son was enrolled in a Catholic private school near Reading. It was around this time that his father built the house in Donegal, incorporating elements of an older cottage, and moved there on retiring. <\/p>\n
Fearless honours that Irish heritage on one of the most haunting moments on Death Mask: nine minutes of fuzzed-out ambient catharsis titled R\u00f3is\u00edn Dub(h). It reminds him of his father and of his grief. They are important feelings that he wants to hold on to for as long as possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cOut of all the songs on the album, that was one where I tried to tap into that overwhelming sense of grief. It\u2019s a weird one; it\u2019s hard talking about it. What I found with grief, it\u2019s overbearing. It comes to a point where those moments between reflection of grief become further and further apart. When they do happen, you start to cherish them. At that moment you\u2019re concentrating purely on that person and on what they meant to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
He is far happier following his muse than chasing the charts. He never regretted turning away from that poppier incarnation of Death in Vegas. At the time, he had felt he had allowed music to derail him from his true calling in visual art \u2013 which is what he studied in New York. Today he combines both passions, not only composing and producing Death Mask but also designing its striking cover art.<\/p>\n
\u201cI needed to push myself in other directions. I knew what I didn\u2019t want. I didn\u2019t want to carry on with Death in Vegas if it became, \u2018Who\u2019s going to be the next singers? We\u2019ve had a bit of chart success \u2013 how can we take it to the next level?\u2019 That doesn\u2019t interest me in the slightest.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to those artistic frustrations, the major catalyst behind the move to New York was an abortive collaboration with Oasis. Britpop\u2019s lairiest had tapped him to produce what would be their sixth album, Don\u2019t Believe the Truth. He has no ill feelings towards the Gallaghers, but the subject is still a sensitive one.<\/p>\n
Oasis did use some of the ideas they had worked on together, though in radically different form. None of Fearless\u2019s contributions made the final record: the few examples of their collaborations you can find on the internet sound like Liam Gallagher guesting on Death in Vegas \u2013 which was never going to fly with the band. A few weeks later he was on a plane to New York.<\/p>\n
\u201cI definitely learned I didn\u2019t want to be a producer. It\u2019s a tricky one, that, because it\u2019s quite a complex kind of story. I\u2019ve never gone into it. There\u2019s been various things floating around for years. I don\u2019t want to [go into it], because it\u2019s hurtful to a few people. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a really great experience. There\u2019s a lot that I loved. I enjoyed my time with the band. All of the band members, Liam, Noel \u2013 hysterical to work with. It was a great five weeks of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
He pauses to gather his thoughts. \u201cIt\u2019s weird … That ending, for the reasons it ended … That was very crucial to my decision to move to New York, plus at the time I had a couple of friends … Things were getting heavy. I lost a couple of friends. I thought, you know what … I\u2019m done with all of this. I need to get out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fearless regrets not being able to attend the reunion shows by Creation Records\u2019 other big 1990s band, the Irish shoegaze innovators My Bloody Valentine, whom he holds in the highest esteem.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve fortunately seen My Bloody Valentine a few times over the years. I don\u2019t have a big interest in seeing my heroes. I don\u2019t want to see Pet Sounds performed and it not be the same [as on record]. It is such a high godlike thing. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere are very few bands that I\u2019ve seen [without] having those illusions shattered at some level. My Bloody Valentine, maybe Neil Young and Crazy Horse \u2013 that was a spiritual performance. <\/p>\n
\u201cAfter that I can\u2019t think of any other time I haven\u2019t been slightly disappointed. Maybe Iggy. He can still hold his own. Oasis? Nah, wouldn\u2019t be my thing. I couldn\u2019t get that excited about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He doesn\u2019t regret any of his decisions. The Death in Vegas that plays in Dublin will be very different from the one that graced the Button Factory 26 years ago, no longer a hit machine but a vehicle for Fearless\u2019s belief in the need to keep moving forward. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou can do things on your own terms. It means saying no to a lot of things,\u201d he says. \u201cThere are moments I\u2019d rather be broke, have a bit of a struggle, than take the pay cheque and tour the Contino album for two years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fearless smiles before logging off, going back to his routine of dental appointments and school runs \u2013 and to the comforting knowledge that there is a future beyond pop stardom.<\/p>\n
Death in Vegas play Mandela Hall, Belfast, on Saturday, May 2nd, as part of Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival<\/a>; and the Button Factory<\/a>, Dublin, on Sunday, May 3rd, and Monday, May 4th<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richard Fearless\u2019s childhood was a globetrotting affair. Born in Zambia, the electronic producer and DJ grew up near…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,130279,60,655,134770],"class_list":{"0":"post-418298","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-iggy-pop","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-oasis","13":"tag-the-jesus-and-mary-chain"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}