It’s been a miserable couple of days weather-wise working in Fullerton Cove, NSW, for me lately, so when I hear that England is enjoying some sunshine for a change is actually making me a little jealous.

“I’m just waking up to a beautiful day here in the south; we are actually in a bit of a heatwave at the moment which is unusual!” John ‘00’ Fleming tells me. “You might not believe it but we are actually in a bit of a dry spell. There’s been a water shortage down here for the last couple of months – it’s like being in Melbourne!”

It’s not surprising he knows all about our water restrictions, as he is a much loved dance music icon here in Melbourne, spending a lot of time here when he gets the chance. He is loved so much, in fact, our forumers dedicate such thread titles to him as ‘there is nothing like a bit of j00f in the face’. How does that make him feel?

“Ha, well, I’m not surprised really. I appreciate all the support I get in Australia and Melbourne in particular. I feel a special connection there. I’m so happy I have a bunch of hardcore J00f fans. They just seem to get me, get what I do. It’s actually getting me psyched up to play knowing that I can forge away in my own style and be appreciated for it.”

Another fan of Australia is John’s lovely wife, who – unlike the super stylin’, high profilin’, first-class flyin’ husband – had to make it back to England in economy class after the Godskitchen Boombox tour last year. Did that warrant a trip to the doghouse?

“No, I escaped the doghouse! Doing all that flying all the time really takes it out of you though. I love what I do, it’s a real passion, but at the same time it’s work too. It’s like being a business manager or something flying all the time on work trips. I save all my frequent flyer miles for her, but sometimes you can’t get a flight. She’s not coming out this year as we couldn’t get a flight, so instead M.I.K.E. is playing the wife!”

Just seeing him smile at every gig and listening to him talk about music, you can tell he really does have a passion for it. And that passion gets re-ignited every time something unusual or disastrous happens to him. “I’ve lost track of the number of lives I have left, it’s like I have a magnet for danger. Every time you go through a wake-up moment like the boat accident or the cancer or my other hospital trips it makes you stronger; makes you appreciate what you are doing more.”

Someone else with a strong passion for what they do is chef Jamie Oliver, who ran campaigns trying to change what children are fed in UK schools. Since John’s first gig was an underage school dance organised by his headmaster, maybe he could go on a campaign to get some proper trance going at school dances?

“Well, I don’t think my old headmaster would think much of that, it probably won’t quite work! Music can be a great release for people, for kids in trouble on the streets or with drugs or whatever, but dance music probably won’t work too well. We still have that stigma from the ‘90s about everyone in dance music on drugs all the time and it can be annoying. You mention rock and roll and the first thing that comes to mind is the old saying ‘sex drugs and rock and roll’. Somehow that’s good but dance music isn’t! There are so many problems with violence at pubs in local towns all over but the public don’t see that. Getting kids into a hobby or a studio of course would be a great thing but I don’t think dance music would be the way to do it!”

One of the more normal expressions of his passion are his new ‘J00f Editions’ club nights that just began in England and the US. “The nights have been brilliant, in San Francisco and Brighton. One of the things that seems to have been lost in clubbing over the years is the music progression of an event or a night. People are now brainwashed into expecting whoever the flavour of the month DJ is to be like a jukebox and just play hit after hit after hit.

“We tried to do it a bit different. We had our own night, hired out the club, controlled the music and the lighting and sound and it went fantastic; there was a real difference in the crowd. When you have a line-up that works, with good warm up DJs, it can go great. We did have a couple of teething problems, we have just started but we are working on it. This tour to Australia is a little similar in a way; I have longer sets so you can control the direction and flow of the music as you go along. You can control the dancefloor, which is how it used to be!”

Speaking of how it used to be in the old days, a lot of people in the industry like to re-live those times again and again and again. The digital age means labels can take risks on new talent, but there are so many rehashes of old tunes that it seems to be a waste to me. I ask him what he thinks.

“Well, it comes down to the difference between having more underground labels and more commercial labels; it’s the way of thinking. The underground labels will try new things, get new people out there, but then sometimes they might want to change though or look for more and then become the commercial label. They see the mainstream audience, they want a bigger share so they release the candy and that’s their new business model. If it gets people jobs, gets people paid well then good on them.

“The commercial labels now probably don’t understand the underground labels. They would be thinking, ‘Why are you doing that when you can do this and make much more money?’ It just comes down to the model and what they are there for. Look at cars. People like Lotus would make specialised cars. Someone like Ford would say, ‘Well, why don’t you change this, add this, make this more comfortable and you could sell heaps more.’ That’s not what they are about, though.”

Will he take J00f Recordings down the update route and be dusting off his 1998 remix of Gloria Estefan’s Don’t Let This Moment End for 2010? “Hell no! Not quite my style anymore! Back in the day it was a good learning curve working with vocals like that, then moving on. It was actually quite a pounding remix then. I had just got a new 303 at the time and was loading everything up with acid. Those were before the days of plug-ins when you used real hardware!”

If he wasn’t into music he says he would have loved to be into car design. So while we wait for the first J00fmobile, we can already see something John has had a hand in at clubs around the world. Pioneer solicited feedback and input from a number of DJs while developing the CDJ 2000. “There was a good range of us, people like Eddie Halliwell and James Zabiela, people with different styles and needs from the equipment we use, so we all had different ideas and inputs.

“One of the main things I was concerned with was the software and interfaces with the SD cards and USB sticks. Before you would plug something in and it just lists everything in alphabetical order, it could be a nightmare finding the right track for the right time. Now with the Recordbox software, you can make playlists, save cue files and artwork and everything is there every time you load your drive on every CDJ. It was great to be actively involved in getting the tools we use right.”

That should make it easy for everyone, including his mother? He once said in an interview she could play a set of anthems and rock any dancefloor. Is she coming to a J00f Editions night soon? “Well, no, she only plays anthems! She’s the complete opposite, she wouldn’t fit in and I would have to spend ages educating her. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but she won’t be getting a gig just yet!” Shame. Hopefully she’s a quick learner.

John ‘00’ Fleming brings Liberate to these venues in August, proudly supported by inthemix.

Friday August 6 – HQ Complex, Adelaide
Saturday August 7 – Space, Sydney
Tuesday August 10 – Electric Playground, Brisbane
Friday August 13 – Brown Alley, Melbourne
Saturday August 14 – Villa Nightclub, Perth