It’s the day after his birthday, and Danny Howells is reflective. “I had a relatively sensible one… getting closer to forty there’s less cause for celebration and it’s time to slow down as well.” It seems slowing down in Danny’s case is still living life at a fast pace. Danny spent his birthday weekend playing a set at his own Dig Deeper party, which in his words, was “a nice and relaxed Sunday afternoon party.”

Though he always plays with that cheeky smile on his face, he admits that all the travel and late night gigs do get a little tiresome after doing them for so long. While he is thankful that he’s had the opportunity to see the world through his music (he calls himself “privileged”), he says it is getting to that time that he’d like to be slowing down.

“I don’t plan on doing it for the rest of my life, because I think when I do grow old and retire, I want to grow old with ears that still work,” he muses. “I am finding it a bit tougher now with the travelling, I don’t enjoy airports, I don’t enjoy being away from home that much, I’ll probably do it for the next ten years or so, but then maybe I’ll get to the stage where I’m doing it much more locally, and doing other work as well. But I don’t intend on being fifty, no way, my body will give in before that.”

He says he will never retire from the music industry, though. Like any true musician, he will stick with it for life. “Maybe I’ll still produce, maybe still play occasionally, do small parties, people that you know, that kind of thing. I think it’s the kind of thing you can’t really give up completely and I think if you’re a collector – I collect everything from 60s to 70s rock you know, I basically collect everything, record collecting has always been in my blood – that’s not going to go away.”

Danny’s record collecting habit is at the core of his famous long sets – sometimes lasting for as long as a whopping twelve hours. “I still really enjoy a long set, and the reason I enjoy it is going back to the range of music I’ve always collected. You get the opportunity to play all that, which you don’t always get in a shorter set. I do a lot of sets where I play sort of open to close, and then to balance that out I do a lot of shorter, ninety minute sets at bigger events, or two hour sets in clubs. It sort of keeps me on my toes and keeps me interested I think,” he says. “It changes all the time, it all depends on where I’m at musically.”

But he has also found his energy waning during these long sets. “I haven’t sort of got the energy in abundance like I did, you know back in New York, when I was doing New York every single month. You sort of lose that momentum of doing them. I did seven hours on Sunday (his birthday), and that was really good fun, but it is tougher than it used to be.” The famous twelve hour set that he recently did in Montreal proved that these long sets are getting more and more difficult. “It was right at the end of a North America tour where I’d done fifteen gigs in just over two weeks and I think had that been at the beginning of the trip it would have been a lot easier, but because it was right at the end, I was kind of hoping I was going to get that final release of energy that you normally get right at the end of a tour, but it didn’t work. I think the first eight hours were great, and then my energy just subsided for the last four hours and I was really struggling, started getting really paranoid and thinking ‘I’m playing shit’ people around me were saying ‘oh no it’s fine it’s fine’ but you start feeling yourself being absolutely crap and just needing to get to bed.”

Clearly, Danny takes his job very seriously, is a perfectionist, and wants to get the job done properly. Along with the frustration of those inner voices telling him his playing is not up to scratch, is the constant trouble he has with vinyl – mainly because most clubs aren’t equipped for it anymore. “Quite frequently I’m forced into joining the masses in a sense. Nine times out of ten I spend the whole week planning the record bag, you know, sorting out my vinyl, and then you turn up and the decks don’t work, or the airline loses your record bag and it really becomes frustrating. I’d go on tour in America for example and I’d get my record bag ready, and then before I left home, I’d then burn all of those to CD, and then I’d be carrying them on vinyl and on CD and you’d be thinking ‘well why am I carrying these on CD?’ You do it as a sort of safety net really. You know at the end of the day you need to do your best for the crowd that are there to hear you and if I’m wasting two days burning all my records to CD that’s two days I could’ve spent actually finding other records.”

And wasting time is not Danny’s only gripe. Last time he was in Australia, he earnt himself something of a reputation as having a fiery temper. It seems it is still a sensitive issue, and Danny admits sheepishly he could have dealt with it better – like a teenager who regrets drinking too much. “That particular time I was very frustrated and I vented my frustration through a blog on MySpace which, at the end of the day it was inappropriate to do it like that. I think that particular time was a combination of jetlag and a gig being wasted basically, I think I should have waited and done something a little more subtle… sounding off and crying into the keyboard, it’s not very healthy really,” he laughs.

But he still stands his ground about the issue at hand – that the promoter has a serious responsibility to program the night in the correct way, and that the headline act is exactly that, the focus of the show. Like the main act at a gig, a club gig should respect the same rules. “I think it provoked a lot of discussion on a subject that remains a hot topic. I think the party had peaked before I even arrived at the club, and I think even though I’ve got a large range of music there was very little I could’ve done that night to actually maintain the crowd’s interest. I think every hit record that could’ve been played had been played, the energy was through the roof before I even got there, and there was very little I could’ve done. I mean I’m very experienced and maybe I could’ve dealt with it differently, but on that particular night the programming of the night was really inappropriate and you know, I think it could’ve been done a lot better. It can make or break a night.”

Despite these hurdles, Danny has learned a lot over the years and is now in a position where he doesn’t need the approval of others for his music. “I don’t mind (being pigeonholed) at all actually, I did when I was younger. There’s only one person who knows the range of music that I play and that’s myself. So many times I’ve gone out and played after people like Jeff Mills and Carl Cox and Dave Clarke playing much more sort of techno sets, so many times you play you know house sets on terraces and I think for the last five years I haven’t really given a stuff what people think of me.”

As Danny gets older, he also gets wiser. “At the end of the day it’s a very privileged position to be in, still booked in week in week out and I think you have to count your blessings really. Things like that are very small things to be honest with you, I think it’s better to be known for something than to be known for nothing at all.”

Danny Howells tour dates:

Thur 31st Dec – Chinese Laundry, Sydney
Fri 1st Jan – Summadayze, Melbourne
Fri 1st Jan – Summadayze, Adelaide
Sun 3rd Jan – Summadayze, Perth
Sat 9th Jan – Summafieldayze, Gold Coast