Tony is the fourth MC and crate digger, and has the sometimes difficult/unenviable job of getting the Monks to actually do stuff. He plays the guitar and sometimes the drums. He works as a primary teacher, is a keen surfer and snowboarder, and plays lots of other sports as well. He also writes his own music.

The Fatmonks started in 2001 as something to do when the surf was bad and the mountain was closed. Dougal, Jono, Adrian, Alex and I had all met as teenagers at Eastview Baptist church and to kill the time on our Sunday afternoons, we thought we would have a go at creating our own version of the underground hip-hop we were listening to. Cheap gear, whack ideas, and not really knowing what we were doing meant that our initial attempts were pretty embarrassing. But we didn't care. We were having fun.

We started making progress in 2002 when Adrian, Jono and I moved into a big old house in Howick and started to develop a budget home studio. Dougal's experimentations on Fruity Loops were starting to produce some quality constructions and our collection of old jazz records was growing. As we uncovered more samples and constructed better beats, we actually started to actually finish some songs. We played our first gig, dressed in bright orange Beastie Boy-style safety suits at a friend's party. We probably sucked but we kinda felt like rappers.

More songs and more gigs – not big gigs, just parties – followed and I guess we started to improve what we were doing. We started experimenting with drum ‘n bass and had one of our pieces, make it to the regional finals of the Thirst competition. We were stoked to get our own track on vinyl, as well as get our first radio play on George fm and play in a real venue. Dougal was quickly becoming a pretty mean producer and we were becoming much more confident in our use of samples. We finished a DJ Shadow-esque instrumental named Hi-Fi and dropped it into bfm, who actually played it. Finally our first radio hit!

Inspired, we kept on writing and creating. In 2003, we moved into a new flat, with better facilities for our lab. As a side project, we began building scoop speakers (check photos) for our growing sound system. We purchased some more equipment and began putting on our own parties and annoying the neighbours (an event that was to become a common theme in the fatmonks history). However, changes were afoot. Adrian felt the call of London and travel, leaving the monks without a DJ. Alex moved in the flat and Jono got married.

Enter Max, a friend from South Auckland break dance crew, the Faith City Rockers. Max had been a friend for years and had supported the band for a while and was keen to help out on some jams and gigs. Now that we had a decent set list and a mean DJ, we decided to bring the band out from the downstairs of our flat and begin our plans to take over the world!! For a joke, we applied for some NZ on Air funding and won! Apparently people liked us.

2005 has seen the arrival of the all new professional era monks – kind of. NZ hip hop legend, Manuel Bundy showed some interest in what we were up to and gave us a hook up with Gareth from Sugarlicks Records. Right now we are in the Sugarlicks studio working on our album! Crazy huh? Watch out for our first single Jimmy Smith Style coming soon. In the meantime, check out the photos of the latest addition to the fatmonks soundsystem – the Big Munter. A dual horn 250 watt subwoofer!