“I don’t believe any entertainer from any walk of life if they tell me they don’t care about image, I just don’t believe them. Maybe they’ve forced themselves not to care because they think they’re ugly, or maybe they’ve gradually given it up because they’re bitter or they just don’t want to care. But they all do, in some way or another. Everyone deals with it in a different way, but everyone thinks about it.”

With Mixmag recently labelling him an ‘electro pin up,’ and his three favourite things being “shoes, hair and gloves”, it’s fair to guess that Tiga’s more than confident of his looks and, in fact, the Canadian electro-tech star is the first to admit he takes his image seriously. “I think image has played a significant role in making me more successful, my records have done better because of it,” he confirms. “I’ve always liked to project a sense of mystery and that’s what I’ve tried to create. I like the idea of being a little outside of the trends and I like the idea of being perceived as a ‘real’ person. Which I think it’s pretty rare. But image is important and it’s also a chance to have some fun.”

Exploding onto the worldwide stage with defining electroclash anthem Sunglasses At Night in 2002, Tiga rapidly outgrew the hugely influential, if always under-achieving scene, neatly avoiding the inevitable backlash that damaged most of his then peers. By stressing his own techno credentials and superior DJ skills, he instead crossed over quickly to the superstar DJ level, a status he’s since maintained with apparently effortless ease. Simultaneously building up his own critically rated record label Turbo, while releasing three albums and scores of remixes he’s also somehow kept the ‘cool’ with which he made his name in the first place; no mean achievement.

“I’ll tell you how my life really works right now. People pay me too much money to DJ so I can go and spend all my money to make the record I like. That’s just a reality,” he smiles. “The whole process of making a record is really undervalued, because people spend so much time, money and energy on it and in the end the record doesn’t sell,” he continues. “At the same time I’m really lucky, because as a DJ I’m overvalued, and I guess in that sense it kind of balances out,” he muses.

The record he’s promoting today is Ciao!, a typically ambitious electro-pop record featuring contributions from old friends Soulwax and Jori Hulkkonen and new friend Gonzalez. And unusually (for Tiga) there are no covers.

“I initially had a list of songs I wanted to cover and at the very beginning I thought, well, last time I did too many, this time I’ve got to be allowed to do at least one, almost like a cover was a free pass but as time went on, the whole idea just faded. I guess on this album I wanted to stand a bit more on my own two feet as far as writing is concerned,” he says. “If I like something a lot, I also want, not to copy it, but to be involved in that idea. I still have records that I love, but instead of covering them I’ve learned to steal little bits of it and make it a little more undercover,” he laughs.

Album and music sales are collapsing across the board with downloading etc: what’s your take on what’s happening?

I don’t know the future of music sales, all I know is that I have, and have always had, low expectations. I was never a band who’d been hyped. Hey, I come from the techno world where you make an amazing album, you sell 4,000 copies, then you make another one. I came right before the real downloading thing and we sold loads, I sold like 50,000 12” records; incredible. Now a record like Mind Dimension that I don’t think is so different, would probably sell 10,000 times less physical copies. So what are you going to do? The work I’ve put into it is the same… I can think about it, really. It’s like the world economy, it fluctuates.”

What’s your take on blogs and free downloading: do you download stuff for free?

Well, yes. But I get my brother to do it for me. I’m like the mafia boss, who’s never killed anyone. If I had a magic wand and could make it so all music could be transferred for a small fee that would go right into the creator’s pocket, then yes, I’d do it. It is unrealistic though, and honestly, I kind of like it how it is now. I’m lucky because I DJ and therefore I have other means to support myself, but it’s quite exciting, there’s stuff to talk about, it’s dynamic, and the industry is truly shifting. The slow, old fashioned people who cannot strategize or simply aren’t very sharp are disappearing. For me it’s a trade off.

Your life as an artist in this modern world is amazing; I can travel everywhere, I can do press from my Blackberry, remix files and send them back and forth, I’m getting reviews and Twittering my opinions, I can release my music on MySpace. A lot of it’s a bit nerdy, I know, but it’s cool at the same time. This is freedom. Not that it would be my first choice as an aesthetic, because I’m also old school, and my romantic ideal is an old fashion record, I love getting it in the mail or going to buy it, reading the sleeve notes, touching it, but modern technology has it’s benefits.

Your dad was a Goa DJ back in the day, and you lived there too?

I remember the Italians in Goa when I was a kid, they were the cool guys. Crazy, rich, wealthy noble Italians who went off there to be naked and party, it was amazing. My dad still parties with guys like the Agnelli family (Italian billionaires). I mean crazy shit. I’ve lived in Anjuna half my life till I was 13.

It’s changed a lot since . .

I guess if you were there as an adult it has changed, my dad’s always saying that, it a bit sketchy now, but for me it has stayed the same. I was friends with the other kids, I didn’t care about the parties, the drugs, I wasn’t having sex, no love affairs, I was a kid. Chasing lizards, going to get coconuts, I was in charge of getting the bread man and stuff like that. The best ever life, there’s no comparison. I’m not nostalgic, but I think if you’re lucky, you get a few times in your life where you’re really somewhere at the right time. I feel like I’ve had already a few, like Goa in the 70s and early ‘80s when it was like mental, then the beginning of techno culture in the late 80s and early 90s and even like the beginning of electro in 2000-2001 was quite exciting.

How much do you owe your current success to electro?

A lot. Career wise quite a lot; because everyone needs a break, everyone needs to be let into the club. I’m sure I would have found some good career in Canada, I’m sure things would have still been good for me because I was always successful in whatever I did, but I think on an international level, the opportunity to be noticed and work with other people came to me because of electro. Sunglasses At Night was quickly followed up with good remixes and good DJ gigs, I became identifiable and I think. I was pretty cool back then. I do. I was quite weird, this kid from Canada who all of a sudden…

Tiga’s new album Ciao! is out now in Australia through Liberator, and he’s currently hotly tipped to be on the bill for this year’s Parklife festival tour. Stay tuned to ITM!