I’m a massive fan of The Juan Maclean, so it’s difficult to describe them without going into hyperbole. If you haven’t heard their latest album The Future Will Come, you are doing yourself an incredible disservice – Happy House and One Day are sublime. The Juan Maclean is also currently in the country, having already completed their New Years run of gigs and with just a few performances left before they head off overseas again. Their past favourite festival experience was playing to a crowd of thousands in Helsinki, right after Grace Jones, and I have a strange feeling that this Australian tour will be on up there as well on their favourite list as well.

In addition to the hectic touring schedule, the group, fronted by John Maclean, is working on some new material and a mixed compilation for the seminal DJ Kicks series, but they very kindly took the time to chat to ITM about all their recent machinations.

First off, I would like to say how amazing I thought your show was last year with Cut Copy…

That was actually the first bit of touring that we did in almost 2 years; that was sort of the warm up for the album tour.

Are you still touring with the guys from Holy Ghost?

No, they had to bow out because they were doing their album, which is going to be coming out probably at the beginning of next year.

Are you working on new material? I think it was in the Dummy Magazine interview that you mentioned something about an acid house track with Nancy Whang on vocals?

That’s actually the next 12” that I’m working on now. I’m not sure when it will come out. It’s basically like the acid house version of Happy House in some ways. That’s all I can say about it now.

Is acid a direction you are going with other songs, or just this one?

It’s funny, I had always used a 303 as a bassline on a bunch of things on the album – a lot of the time it just doesn’t sound like one because I’m not being that extreme with it. It’s a little more prominent – where as Happy House was sort of a piano house track updated. This one will be like an acid house track updated.

It’s ( the 303 sound) inescapable but it can still sound fresh?

For one thing it is always funky – it’s just the way it works it makes everything a bit bouncy. Just the sound – I think when people hear it in clubs they don’t know what it is but they get excited.

You are going to be on the Australian festival circuit – and Australians take their outdoor festivals very seriously – my question is, what’s your favourite festival experience as The Juan Maclean?

Oh God, it’s so hard to say – one of my favourites was just recently. We played at this festival called the Flow festival in Helsinki. We were headlining the big dance tent there. We were the last people to be playing. We got to see Grace Jones play right before us. Everyone was really excited from that and it was like 10,000 people just really going crazy at 4 in the morning.

Wow…I was wondering if you started producing dance music before you were a DJ?

I didn’t start DJing until 2000 – I had my first studio when I was 20 so I had always been engineering and recording. It wasn’t until the late 90s that I got into electronic music production, like sequencing stuff with the computer.

Does that give you a different perspective as a DJ like you began as a producer and just moved from there?

Yeah – I don’t really understand how to make a 12 inch until I went out and DJed in a club – that’s how you can really see how they work and the effect they have. You can find out what’s effective and not effective

DFA records have been around for a decade or so and I wonder if it will be like Warp Records where it is a permanent fixture or its popularity might wane?

I am surprised that it has maintained the place it has for this long. What the DFA has going for it is that the release schedule is very slow and deliberate. There is just not a lot of stuff coming out. It’s a very small roster that release. And something that they are conscious of is putting out a couple of 12 inches before they put out an album. Also there is such a heavy filter in place for everything. When I’m putting together tracks for my album James Murphy, the Holy Ghost! guys and other people at the DFA traded them around and everyone goes through them and offers their opinions. It weeds things out. It makes DFA a pretty bullet proof model. I think it will stay around for another 10 years. It’s funny because it has kind of had a renaissance starting with Sounds of Silver and then Hercules and Love Affair, throw in my album in there and then the Holy Ghost! album will be coming out the beginning of next year.

A lot people on the DFA have done a few re-edits on labels like Mindless Boogie and RVNG Of The NRDS. I was wondering if you had a hidden back catalogue of re-edits or do you not touch on that sort stuff?

I have been asked to them but never have I think mainly because I haven’t really had the time. Other stuff has taken priority but I’m doing a DJ Kicks CD next year and in that there will be a bunch of tracks re-edited.

The Juan Maclean tour dates:
Friday January 8th – The Royal Melbourne Hotel, Melbourne
Saturday January 9th – Summafieldayze, Gold Coast