A big fat slap on the back is due for one of our favourite organisations today, as Chew The Fat! celebrate reaching 10 with a big party at The End tonight. (12/10)

Having just completed a summer of hosting Fat! tents at what seemed like every festival going, plus a residency in a room of their own at We Love Space in Ibiza each Sunday, things couldn’t be busier for the organisation that grew from a night in a bar into a dance music powerhouse.

We grabbed Paul as he returned from Ibiza last week: “The closing party rocked. Tayo was our special guest and smashed it with a bunch of dirty, crunky, jackin’ house records and Jem ‘Fanciuilli’ Haynes worked the room to the max. It was a wicked climax to an amazing season for us.”

The Fat! DJ agency boasts an exciting roster of 16 exclusive artists with a strikingly wide variety of sounds, as highlighted by latest signings: fidget house maestro Trevor Loveys and garage don Zed Bias.

It allows them to provide a full line-up of acts under the Fat! banner, something they seem to have particularly rinsed out in 2007 at festivals including Wildchild, Antiworld and Bloom.

We never rinse things out, we’re far too lazy for that,” Paul laughs. “I think the fact that we are here 10 years later and still a very underground club night shows that things have just naturally progressed. The night has built a strong reputation and following and always put on quality club shows and line ups. The Festivals were a bonus.”

Their long-running original residency at Brixton’s Bug Bar became a bit of an institution on the breaks scene, bringing many of the genres hottest artists to the intimate venue on a weekly basis just as the music was blowing up internationally.

Then they moved to the lounge at The End on Steve Lawler’s nights, where rumour had it they we’re far too successful for the headline DJs liking(!) but managed to score themselves a monthly slot running the entire club in the process.

Their canny evolution from being a ‘breaks night’ to hosting a wider range of DJs and sounds was a combination of this expansion and changes in the scene as a whole.

“To fill the club each month you need to be packing in some heavyweight line-ups, and breaks wise this was never an option as many of the DJs are under exclusive agreements with Fabric so they cannot play anywhere else,” Paul says.

“Because of this we’ve programmed the nights very creatively and brought in a lot more than just breaks which has worked to our favour. There haven’t been enough established breaks artist coming through and what people forget is that breaks is a tiny scene in reality.

“How many breaks albums out there are worth any note? Not many. Its great club music and there are some great artists but we’re always trying something new.

“Last month we started the night with Skream which worked really well. It gave the night a real variation and set it up for the DJs to follow. Musically I couldn’t be happier with the way Fat! is going as we move on from the 10th birthday. We’ve got Riton in the main room and Thomas Schumacher in the next couple of months which I’m well excited about.”

Paul is a busy DJ himself on top of the promotion, agency and label day job, (he’s also behind the Certificate 18 d&b imprint). A music lover in the most pure and passionate sense, he still refreshingly refuses to take it too seriously.

The infamous Fatmail sets the tone, and has a cult following for its vicious wit, while Paul has adopted the nickname ‘Trouble’ for his DJ work. We ask how, and does the original Ministry of Sound legend Paul ‘Trouble’ Anderson approve?!

“I don’t remember exactly when it happened,” says Trouble Arnold, “but I think it was a close friend who just gave it to me as a nick name. Every time I’d go out I was always end up in a scrape or two. But other than the usual drunken shenanigans, it really got to be used when I’ve been on tour…”

“I was held hostage by gunmen in Argentina, had a power cut 10 minutes into my set in Brazil, I’ve scraped through a fire or two, the Pope popped his clogs the weekend I was due to play in Krakow Poland so that was cancelled.” Trouble indeed.

“I’ve never bumped in into the main man Trouble to find out what he thinks. I do remember always thinking it was a cool name when I was younger but mainly because he was a wicked DJ - massive sessions back in the days of Dingwalls. It’s only a word between two others, I think he would understand!”

So on the eve of a decade of Fatness, with how does Paul hope things will look in another 10?

“I hope we will still be having fun, enjoying life, not taking it too seriously and buzzin’ about new music as much as we are today. In what form that will take I am not sure but if lets me have as much fun I have had for the last ten then I for one will be very happy.”

After tonight’s anniversary bash, the celebrations continue on tour across the UK and into Europe for the rest of the year. With storming recent output on the label including Unique 3’s rave classic, The Theme, Hook and Sling’s mix compilation plus Merka’s massive Bererka LP, things continue to go well for Fat! despite challenging times.

Maybe Paul’s learned about endless patience, hard grind and not taking things seriously from his dedicated if long-suffering support of Ipswich Town Football Club?

“I shall be sporting my new Town kit with ‘Trouble’ written on the back at the 10th Birthday tonight,” he says. “It’s not particularly cool and I don’t as rule really want to see a load of football shirt wearing hooligans at the club, but someone has to support them. Maybe in 10 years I will be able to buy them!”

There could be more than a Fat! chance of that.