Biography
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Born
27 June 1984 (age 39)
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Born In
Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, New York, New York, United States
Moon Boots and Pete Dougherty are technically the same person, but in many ways, the two couldn’t be more different. The former is a globe-trotting extrovert whose genre-hopping (but always funky) DJ sets reliably fill dancefloors around the world. The latter is a relatively shy dude with a studio tan who has been geeking out on synths since he was a teenager.
Born in Brooklyn, Pete spent his adolescence in the suburbs. Early formative musical memories include MFSB’s “Love Is The Message” at block parties and years jamming to Daft Punk in the barn with a blacklight on. Pete moved to Chicago after college. The city transformed Pete and after a few years playing in the band Hey Champ, Moon Boots was born with series of releases for French Express. Quickly leveling up his craft, Pete signed with Anjunadeep and moved back to Brooklyn.
When Moon Boots hits the booth, he’s got one mission: to give you the best night of your life. Whether playing at iconic clubs like Chicago’s Smart Bar — where he cut his teeth watching legends like Frankie Knuckles and Derrick Carter — or the world’s biggest festival stages, he gives people a release they’ll remember long after the party’s over.
Born in Brooklyn, Moon Boots’ (birth name: Pete Dougherty) musical obsession started not long after he could walk. His early love of piano lead to a passion for keyboards and synthesizers. Teenage nights lost in the work of Daft Punk, A Tribe Called Quest and Herbie Hancock followed. Then came college years at Princeton University, where he shelved an Engineering degree to dive into the musical abyss.
Knowing what he was meant to do, he moved to the house music epicenter of Chicago, where he tirelessly passed out demos to local DJs and scoured the web for like-minded people with whom he could share and expand on his sound. He played in a synth-pop trio whose demo caught the attention of Lupe Fiasco, and after a stint touring alongside the hip-hop icon, Dougherty went back to DJing with a renewed focus.
The stars aligned when he had a chance encounter with Perseus, founder of an adventurous new label, French Express. A fellow junkie and fan of French House and R&B-infused dance music, Perseus became a friend and mentor, the Splinter to Boots' Donatello. The label eventually disbanded but Boots has stayed true to his mission of making dance tracks that can’t be confined to one style. Pete blends the music he loves – jazz, house, funk and soul – into songs that last longer than their runtime. Songs not just for DJs, but for everyone.
His debut album, First Landing, arrived in 2017, and was followed two years later by Bimini Road. Emphasizing melody while blending elements of house, disco, soul and R&B, both records were widely embraced. A third album is on the horizon, as is a tantalising revamped live show.
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