The house music scene in Australia has proliferated to its highest peak, particularly over the last few years. There are several big names that come to mind that have been the ‘lead’ behind the bullet, but one name stands out as making his mark as the ‘heavyweight’ of the Australian dance scene; that is, of course, John Course.

This veteran of house has been djing for over 18 years, and consistently owning his top 40 spots on the ARIA dance charts by mixing compilations, for in particular, one of the biggest commercially released albums, Ministry of Sound. Course was also behind ‘Dance, House & Club Anthems’ and the ‘A Night Out With’ series.

Having blasted the roof off many residencies throughout Melbourne and the rest of Australia throughout the years, John Course is one of the most sort after DJs. Securing major gigs such as closing sets at Summadayze and headlining the Ministry Of Sound national tours, Course has worked with other big names such as Andy Van, who together, play an integral role with the succession of the Australian label Vicious.

Recently, we caught up with John Course to talk about his new release, ‘Vicious Cuts’ , which features the hit singles ‘Midas Touch’ and ‘Star2fall’ ,and other massive tunes that have seen 2004/2005 as as a huge year of dance music…

You’ve been spinning and mixing for some 15 years now. When you were growing up what kind of music were you listening to? Having said that, who have been your influences?
I listened to lots of disco (the commercial end given that I was not clubbing at 10 years old). Village People, Saturday Night Fever soundtrack etc because my older sister listened to them. Then I got into break dancing and listened to all the stuff that was related like the Beat Street Soundtrack, Herbie Hancock's “Rocket”, Arthur Baker’s “Breakers Revenge” and some mix tapes from DJ Marcello which I used to get from Andy Van.

What made you want to become a DJ? How did you first get into it?
I saw a DJ in the movie Beat Street, was always into music and just wanted to get into scratching etc.
[Editor- John actually went on to win the Victorian state final of the DMC mixing Competition twice, in 1988 & 1989.]

You’re always on the bill for the biggest dance parties and have residencies throughout Australia. Do you have any favourites? What has been the most memorable gig to date?
The closing sets at Summerdays just because they have been so big have been highlights. A 1 hour set that turned into 4 hours in Italy was great, as was a St Kilda festival outdoors gig that went from 2 hours to 6. Week in week out One Love is pretty hard to beat. Musically and vibe wise I think it rates with just about anywhere in the world.

You’ve just added your ‘Midas Touch’ to the Vicious Cuts CD released in late March, which also includes another hit single, ‘Star 2 Fall.’ How difficult was it to compile the Vicious CD? What kind of mix were you aiming to make?
Given that it showcases mostly Vicious released music it was actually pretty easy. Both the tracks you have mentioned here were released by us (Vicious releasing our Australian developed music and Zip releasing stuff that we license from overseas). Basically I wanted to showcase all the things we are doing at the moment, from the new and more underground things like “Funkbomb” through to the cross over successes of “Star To Fall”, “Midas Touch” and soon to be hit “Something About You”.

What can we expect from you in the near future in terms of production? Will you be spending more time in the studio?
I have been in the studio a bit with mrTimothy this year. We are working on original stuff under the name of the “Electro Funk Lovers” and have done a stack of remixes already under this act including re-producing Marcia Hines “You” and mixes for Zaab, Kyle and New Zealands excellent hip hop act The Fast Crew (our mix of “I Got” is currently going very well in the Australian club chart).

Who would you most like to collaborate with?
Would love to have Electro Funk Lovers produce a track for Kylie and to remix New Order or Depeche Mode.

The majority of your compilations and mixes have become popular commercial releases, with top spots achieved on the ARIA ‘pop’ and ‘dance’ charts. How would you best describe your style? Do you perceive the more commercial nature of house music these days in Australia to be a good or bad thing for the house scene?
I always believe that the more people that get behind something the better. I am not a “well it’s not like it used to be” negative kind of person with regards to the house and club scene. Its as good, or better now than it ever has been. Everybody has the right to listen to what they want and somebody who has listened to house for 10 years does not have any more right to hear a new house song than a brand new convert. With house sounds crossing over so much it means the good DJ’s have to work harder to find things and keep ahead of where the commercial mainstream is at. What you hear at Onelove is quite different to what you hear on our Nova mixes (our being Grant Smillie and myself) which is a good example of finding fresh music for the club while still giving commercial listeners every opportunity to hear new music and build the whole club music movement.

Do you switch from different styles relative to the the type of event/night you’re playing at? Are you more inclined to drop ‘anthem bombs’ at larger scale events, rather than spinning fresher sounds?
At big events there are more people, so if you want to play something that 50% of the people there are into you have to have a fairly well known track. Likewise to do the same at an underground club with 200 people means you only need 100 people to get into it, so you can be much more specialist. The one thing I always try to do is introduce new tracks. An anthem at an underground club may be considered a new track to a more mainstream audience so its about judging where the venue your playing is at (from a music perspective) and trying to push them forward, introducing new music while still supplying a rocking time.

If you could play at an event anywhere in the world, which would you choose?
200 of my friends and another 300 happy, partying people, in the middle of summer, on the St Kilda foreshore with great weather, right here in good old Melbourne.

What else do you do besides DJing for a job? What activities fill your spare time?
I am also one of the owners of the Vicious label so Andy Van and myself take care of the A&R direction for the label. I also work in the studio and do several CD’s a year for Ministry, plus the Vicious one. I also do mix ups for the Nova network of radio stations and promote the odd one off event with friends Grant Smillie and Colin McMillan…this keeps me pretty busy!!!