The Chronic Cowboys, aka Donald Leary, Rufus White and Trevor O’Neil, are a long way from their childhood career aspirations but once you’ve heard this triple-threat DJ partnership cause a stampede onto the dancefloor you’ll swear they made the right choice.
Formed in the early Naughties in a tiny pub in Ibiza, the original Cowboys were Donald and Rufus, a couple of cold-weather refugees using their mixing skills to scrape rent. Despite hailing from opposite sides of a fiercely contested border, Yorkshire-born, Northern Soul fan Rufus and Glaswegian techno fiend Donald discovered a common theme in their contrasting backgrounds. “We love the possibilities of dance music,” says Rufus. “It brought us to Ibiza and gave us a life neither of us imagined. Now, every time we step into the DJ booth, we can take the crowd some place they’ve never dreamed of going.”
