King of clubs

SINGAPORE - His mother had given her blessings, his visa and air ticket were sorted, and his bags were almost packed.

It was 1997 and all Mr Cher Ng, then 26, had to do was board the plane to England to see if he could cut it as a deck meister on the European clubbing circuit.

Several gigs had already been lined up and he was sanguine about his prospects.

After all, he was a resident deejay at Singapore's hottest nightspot Zouk, had a CD released by an international dance label and even went on a UK tour spinning at some of the hippest clubs.

But something held the young man back. It was the proverbial fork in the road.

"I just wanted to be the best and often that means going against common sense," he says. "But I'd also been toying for some time with the idea of setting up my own event company, organising big dance parties."

After a little soul-searching, he decided to stay put. He went on to organise the first ZoukOut as well as some of the biggest dance parties in the region. He also founded Zouk in Kuala Lumpur.

His latest project is Trec - which stands for Taste, Relish, Experience, Celebrate - KL's biggest entertainment and dining development overlooking the Royal Selangor Golf Club.

His partners in the RM323.6 million (S$127.7 million) project are Mr Douglas Cheng, one of the city's most successful businessmen and property developers, and Berjaya Assets, a subsidiary of the Malaysian conglomerate Berjaya Group.

"Not bad for a polytechnic dropout, huh?" says Mr Ng, now 43, with a laugh. "If I had taken the other path, I would be a very different Cher today."

The younger of two sons, his is a classic rags-to-riches story.

His father, he lets on with great reluctance and a big grimace, did not work, preferring to spend most of his time at the turf club.

"That's why I'm totally against gambling," declares Mr Ng, whose parents split up when he was 10.

His mother raised her two children on her $400-a-month pay as a cook in a childcare centre.

"We didn't know where the next meal was coming from. I've had to break my piggy bank for money to buy noodles," says the nightclub operator who grew up in a rental flat in Clementi.

He attended Pei Tong Primary School and Fairfield Methodist School (Secondary). He was 15 when he started working on weekends as a roadie, loading and unloading equipment for a mobile disco outfit. He got the gig after attending a classmate's birthday party in a posh home.

"He hired a mobile disco, and there were these two guys spinning records behind a console. I liked what they did, so I went up to them and told them I wanted to learn what they did."

One of the deejays told him there was a part-time course he could take. "I told him I had no money, and he said I could do the course by working part-time as a roadie."

He did just that, earning between $50 and $80 a night as a general dogsbody for a mobile disco outfit on weekends. "I'd end quite late, at 3am, so I'd go to Denny's, have a Coke float and wait for the first bus to take me home," he recalls.

After his O levels, he entered Singapore Polytechnic to study electrical and electronic engineering. "I dropped out after six months. It was very hard for me to sit and listen to lectures on diodes and electrodes because it was just not what I wanted to do," he says.

"I have to thank my mother. She was upset but she respected my decision. My father, ironically, made a lot of noise."

He cut his teeth on the deejay circuit working for a couple of companies and spinning at various clubs before he was signed up by The Music Force. One of the best-known mobile disco operators then, the company boasted deejay personalities such as Moe Alkaff and Nigel Mosbergen.

"I was 18 and joining them was a big break because they were doing all the best clubs in Singapore then - Rumours, Chinoiserie, The Library and Warehouse."

At the Music Force, he scored his first residency with the now-defunct Warehouse, next to Riverview Hotel. That was where he met an eccentric man who was to have a great influence on his life.

"Every Saturday, this chap with the distinctive glasses and funky dressing would come, bringing with him a big box of records of weird music with no vocals."

The man was Mr Lincoln Cheng, who later went on to found Zouk.

"He made friends with us, and persuaded us to play his music for one hour from 1am. The moment his music came on, people like Najip Ali, Ritz Lim and Gerald Kong would just take to the floor and do their stuff," he says, referring to the dance choreographer and two hairstylists who were, and still are, well-known fixtures on the clubbing circuit.

The young deejay had finished national service in the early 1990s when Mr Cheng offered him a job at his new club Zouk, converted from a conserved Singapore River warehouse. Those were heady days, Mr Ng says.

"I've never seen a man who puts passion above business, but Lincoln is like that.

"The first thing when you open a multi-million-dollar club is to make it work, but for Lincoln, it was about pushing his philosophy and brand of music. It was like Steve Jobs trying to sell his computer in the 1970s," Mr Ng says.

Used to mainstream pop and dance music, clubbers were initially resistant to the heady trance music Mr Cheng advocated. "His perseverance and belief were so strong that he kept going even though he was losing money for the first couple of years," Mr Ng says.

Today, Zouk - which has been in the headlines recently over its extended lease at Jiak Kim Street - is well-known worldwide and attracts 10,000 partygoers, both local and international, every month.

Mr Ng stayed with Zouk for nearly eight years. Highlights during his stay there include the opening of Velvet Underground and the introduction of the wildly popular weekly Mambo Jambo night when retro music is played.

At Zouk, the deejay became so adroit at his craft that he started mixing his own tracks.

Together with two other friends, he would get into a studio and jam, experimenting with music software and programmed tracks.

They recorded a track which they passed to visiting deejays. It was picked up by dance label React Music, which signed him on to release a CD of dance music.

"It got noticed and propelled my career. I did a UK tour," says Mr Ng, who spun at clubs in several English cities including Brighton, Leeds and London.

In 1997, he decided it was time to leave Zouk.

That was when he arrived at the crossroads - go to Europe to further his deejaying career or stay in Singapore to start a new career related to his love for music and the nightlife.

He chose the latter, and set up a booking agency for international deejays such as Paul van Dyk and Armand van Helden to play in regional clubs.

"I started with small shows which caught on, and later went into bigger productions. I was a one-man show. I designed the fliers, booked the venues, negotiated with agencies and even manned the door," Mr Ng says.

Raves - or mammoth dance parties - were starting to become popular and he was soon organising clubbing events for up to 10,000 people in Kuala Lumpur and other Asian cities.

He helped to organise the first ZoukOut - a large outdoor dance festival which attracted nearly 10,000 people - on Sentosa in 2000.

A man who likes to take stock of his life regularly, he asked himself after a couple of years what he should do next. "Opening a dance club seemed like a natural progression," says Mr Ng who decided to base himself in Kuala Lumpur.

Coincidentally, he bumped into Mr Cheng who was keen on the idea of a mega club in Kuala Lumpur. And that was how Zouk KL - which cost RM16 million to set up - was born.

Mr Ng, who has a 20 per cent share, became its executive director. After a shaky start, the 32,000 sq ft club is now ranked No. 52 in the Top 100 Clubs by cult clubbing magazine DJ Mag. It has an annual revenue of RM32 million.

The lease for Zouk KL is expiring at the end of this year. For the last couple of years, Mr Ng has been busy scouting for a new location.

That was when a friend told him about a 1.6ha piece of vacant land next to a prestigious golf club.

It was too big for a club, but when he found out that an adjacent 1.2ha plot was also available, the idea for Trec took root.

"Seven acres right in the heart of the city, away from residential homes and mosques and directly across the upcoming Tun Razak Exchange. Why not build an entertainment hub?," says Mr Ng, who is driving the project.

Trec will be divided into five entertainment zones which will cater to different concepts, from cafes to wine bars to restaurants and al fresco dining.

One of the zones will house the new 60,000 sq ft Zouk KL, which at RM38 million will be the most expensive club ever built in Malaysia.

"As the project driver, I conceptualise the project, get the designers and architects, oversee the development and also take care of leasing, marketing and property management," he says.

It is a big job leap for someone who started out spinning records on a turntable. But he is holding his own and is especially good with strategy and numbers in the lifestyle industry.

"One look at a place, and I can tell you the volume of business we need to generate, how much the crowds need to spend. It's all in my head."

Life, he says, is good. Married to a housewife with whom he has a young daughter, he has invested well in properties in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.

"From a roadie to this, I can't ask for more," he says.

Regrets he has none.

"But sometimes, I wish I had gone further in my studies. It would have helped me to communicate better and convey my thoughts more clearly.

"But then again, it's a chicken-and-egg situation. If I had, I probably wouldn't be where I am today."

kimhoh@sph.com.sg

Shy deejay "I was quite shy, which seems odd for a deejay. When I started out, I did all the technical stuff, while my partner did all the mic work. I'd only pick up the mic once in a while." MR CHER NG on his early years Taking stock "I'm thankful I have this ability to tell myself to step back and assess the situation and plan for the next move. I've been doing that all my life. Maybe I'm a thinker, haha. I think a lot." MR NG on planning his life

This article was first published on August 26, 2014.
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