Ibiza Workers: 7 DJs tell us how they spent their summers before they were famous

Some of today's best DJs have served their time as Ibiza workers. We rounded up some of their memories to entertain – and possibly to inspire...

Employment History: PR for Café Mambo / Remembering the Summer of: 2005

My best friend Ruth and I went to Ibiza for a weekend after graduating in 2005. We got back to the UK after an amazing trip and thought, 'what are we doing?' So we turned around and jumped on a flight back to Ibiza. I managed to fluke a job PRing for Café Mambo in San An, while Ruth got a job at Savannahs next door.

One Monday, we set off to do some flyering before Circo Loco. On the way there, we were taking a short cut across some scrubland when a couple of guys on a motorbike zoomed past and grabbed Ruth's handbag. We were left with two choices, stay home and be miserable in our apartment, or find a way to get to DC10. Obviously we decided to go to DC10.

We blagged a lift there and afterwards went to a villa party in the mountains. Mid-morning, we realised we were due back at work. Unable to afford a taxi, we decided to walk, but the walk took literally the entire day; hour after hour trudging the roads in the blistering heat without any water. Needless to say we missed work and looked and felt like we'd crossed the rave desert and back by the time we got home. Ouch in more ways than one.

Employment History: Co-promoter for F*** Me I'm Famous / Remembering The Summer of: 2000

My story is not much of a comedy, but it's one that always surprises people whenever I tell it.

So, my first season in Ibiza was back in 2000. I went there with Dyed Soundorom as he'd been hired to work with David Guetta promoting F*** Me I'm Famous during one of its very early seasons – maybe the first or second. Dyed had agreed on the basis that Dan Ghenacia could play there. And I also joined Dyed promoting the parties around the island. Back then, David was playing way more traditional house, which is why that connection doesn't seem as strange as it would be nowadays, as the music we play now is so far removed from his world.

Dyed worked really closely with David; he's a really good guy actually, and even though I hate the music he plays these days, I don't think he deserves to be hated himself. Funnily enough, 2000 was also the year I first experienced DC10, so it was an amazing summer. But, yeah, back in 2000, Apollonia were involved with F*** Me I'm Famous. 15 years ago was a completely different time!

Employment History: Gigging DJ / Remembering The Summer of: 2010

In 2010, I decided to spend the whole summer in Ibiza to enjoy the sunshine and parties with my friends. My music was going well and I played lots of different shows to help make ends meet. I was relatively unknown at the time and the best paid gigs for me were in the crazy West End of San Antonio!

Towards the end of the summer, I had become quite popular on the island. One evening, while at The Zoo Project, one of my friends who worked there asked me if I would play in what was the Animal Hospital and, upon agreeing and setting up, she disappeared and I realised that there was no one there and I found myself playing records on my own.

Just as I was about to play a 15-minute track and take a break, she returned and had grouped together Jamie Jones, Dyed Soundorom, Seth Troxler and lots of other cool DJs, along with the guy who is my now booking agent! That was the first time I played music in front of the crew and needless to say, it was an amazing experience for me and a perfect way to close out the summer.

Employment History: PR Manager at Café Mambo & Savannah / Remembering the Summer of: 2003

Me and my two best mates decided to buy a one way flight to Ibiza. All of our mates thought we'd be home in two weeks: sunburnt, broken and eating our words, but we ended up lasting three months.

I remember our first flat; we had a pretty unsavoury drug dealer as a neighbour who liked to come round and steal kitchen utensils from one of my hapless mates. This same friend woke me up abruptly one morning to tell me that said neighbour was at our door, asking to borrow his driving licence so he could drive to Morocco. As you'd imagine, I told him it was probably a bad idea. He disappeared soon after that thankfully.

Ibiza was essentially an extension of university, but with lots of rave and sunshine. We survived mainly on a baguette and bottle of water a day. Money was tight, but we were having the time of our lives. Some of my friends went from job to job, but I was lucky to work for the Mambo guys for the whole time I was there.

After one month, I had my vinyl flown out and we started putting on our own workers party, which culminated in me DJing with Louie Vega and Kenny Dope in a 60-capacity venue at the back of Savannah. It was a pretty memorable experience.

Employment History: Flyering for Privilege / Remembering the Summer of: 2005

I worked in Ibiza solely to earn money to buy vinyl so that I could record mix CDs and hand them out to promoters on the island. Eventually, after three seasons, Privilege gave me the chance to play a warm-up set, but someone broke into my house and stole my entire record collection, my turntables and my mixer – they took everything.

However, a lot of famous DJs heard the story; the first time M.A.N.D.Y. played at Cocoon they handed me their entire back catalogue! My friends also held a party to raise money and I went back to Phonica Records in London with a list to try and buy new copies of the records I lost.

The problem was I had so much old-skool stuff and I couldn't remember the names of some of the tracks that'd been stolen. Take 'Quetzal' by Los Hermanos on Underground Resistance, for example; it's one of my favourite songs, but the vinyl is long gone. At the time, we held a lot of parties in our house and I guess someone knew exactly what kind of music they were looking for. The robbery was devastating, but in the end I was offered a job at Phonica in London, which was a dream job!

Employment History: Driver for Miss Moneypenny's / Remembering the Summer of: 2003

I did four seasons in Ibiza, but it was the first three in the trenches of San Antonio that were the craziest. It was a day-by-day existence, with huge ups, big downs – sleep and money were rare luxuries. Two euros for dinner, five lads in one bedroom, ten people at once in a Ford Ka – seriously, it happened!

Labour in San Antonio was plentiful, but jobs on the right side of legal were scarce. I used my skills to climb the ranks of Miss Moneypenny's from poster boy to driver, although I was skilled at neither. Postering is a simple profession, although I still managed to cover the streets of San Antonio in June with posters that read July.

As a driver I was equally weak. Once, when I was supposed to be driving to the airport to collect Lee Cabrera, I realised that I was not in a moving car, nor even on dry land. I was actually swimming off Bora Bora beach, nearer to the buoys than my car. I eventually picked up Mr. Cabrera, nearly two hours late, with wet shorts and no top. A season in Ibiza is four months of stories, most you can't print, and some you can't repeat.

Employment History: Unofficial Poster Boy for Manumission / Remembering the Summer of: 2004

Before heading out to Ibiza, I saved for a year, doing twelve hour shifts at an engineering job. Then I pretended I'd hurt my shoulder and left on medical grounds! I spent the following year blagging my way around Ibiza, eating nothing but Bombay Badboy Pot Noodles and drinking Dan'Up yogurt, before eventually making it up onto the next rung of the ladder, which meant Haribo for desert.

The girl I was seeing at the time was turning 21, so I needed to do something special. I ended up blagging Steve Lawler, Clive Henry and Jamie Jones to play at this pool party we'd arranged on the outskirts of San Antonio. The day was amazing; there were about 250 people there, all dressed like idiots – the DJs included. Richy Ahmed was there, before he started wearing expensive fourth-hand vintage shirts. Clive brought loads of mates with him, including Alex Arnout, whose wig was a tenth of the size it is nowadays! Back then, LSD was a big part of my summer; it was pretty much the only thing on the menu that day, along with loads of Haribo. The party went on from 11am until 11pm, then the police arrived. They were actually pretty sound; came in, had a drink, then left!