John 00 Fleming: Nine Lives - the album

John 00 Fleming, a DJ with a truckload of albums already to his name, has just released his debut artist album.

Yes, you read right, his first ever, from go to whoah solo creation.

D.M.M recently caught up with John and here's what he had to say:

"My goal is to share my artistic creations with everyone. That's simply what I’m about.”

It’s with this opening pearler that trance doyen John 00 Fleming begins to explain his inaugural solo artist album, Nine Lives.

To the album: it’s something almost 20 years in the making. This in itself is perplexing as this is a DJ who has over 10 million album sales to-date. So then, as anomalous as it is how can this be? It can be because Nine Lives is, for the first time ever, pure unadulterated J00F from go to whoa.

Zero collaboration. Zero outside input.

Pure unadulterated J00F – now that’s worth a wait, but why such a long wait?

"I don’t like to work as many other DJs do with teams of writers and engineers. To me, it’s not a factory and I refuse to do that,” he says steadfastly. “When I write a track in my head I’m the only one who can truly see it, and when I create I’m often going to dark, weird places. No one can know these places and ideas apart from me. Digging those ideas out when I’m alone in the studio is what gives me the real buzz; it’s just me with my sleeves rolled up,” he muses.

"To me, that is what being an artist is and they are the ones who last the longest. Yes, I could go and employ someone to write tracks but it isn’t me. And that goes for anyone, not only those in electronic dance music.”
Bluntly honest in his appraisals, that’s the J00F we know. His beautiful truths underscored by his longevity in the scene and straight talk.

"My goal has never been to be number one DJ in the world, not to be a pop star, not to earn millions of pounds. If it was I’d have this team of people surrounding me. My goal is to stay to true to myself while sharing my artistic creations with everyone else. I do apologise that it sometimes takes so long but I do hope it has been worth the wait.”

Nine Lives was released on 16 August.

Get it from Beatport, iTunes, or Amazon.

Meanwhile, here's track seven - Finding Ganesha:

Check back real soon, or simply subscribe to the RSS feed, to catch part two of D.M.M.'s interview with John.

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