Let's talk about your latest song "Hey Hey" which I'm sure every DJ has in their book by now. Was that based on a personal experience?

I was just thinking about when you used to hang out with your friends back in the day and some guy would call on some girl, and most of the time she wouldn't give him the time of day. But on occasion you get that one shot where somebody would pay you some mind. Then a couple of years later you go, "Damn I hate this bitch!" or "Screw this fucking guy!" [laughs] That's where that record comes from. We've all been at a certain point where you sit there and regret what you've done. "And I heard you say, I knew I should have walked away..."

I love the singer - good choice! I understand you had a hard time finding a singer, you were being very particular about it?

Yeah, I had to be. Because at this moment in time you just can't get a Gospel singer to do something, there are just too many of them. It's been a disaster for our business lately. No creativity - just the same old singers and really lame songwriting. I'm sorry to say that, but that's the truth and that's why they look at our genre as a joke.

I know you definitely like to push boundaries a lot. Are there ever moments where you say, "Ooh... I'm not sure about that."

Hell yeah! I think all my big records have been, "Ooh..." [laughs] "Cure and the Cause" was one major one, I thought I went too far with that. "Touched the Sky" was the same way. I thought people were never going to go for it.

What is your take on this year's DJ Mag Top 100 DJs list, with not one House DJ listed? There's a bit of an uproar amongst our community.

It's a popularity contest! You haven't been judged by your peers, so why is everybody taking it so seriously? Your peers didn't vote for you - it's an Average Joe poll! It's so an average consumer can look at it and say, "Wow, Tiesto's #1!" Why? As a DJ who plays to 500 people, do you expect to be up there? No, because it's not being voted on the merits of your technicality or your selections. When you've got 15,000 people showing up at your gig, that's a lot of votes!

We're not owed anything. You're only as good as your last damn record and the last damn height of a genre. When soulful House was on the radio nonstop in the early '90s, well... guess what? We were up there! Look back at DJ Mag in the '90s. Well, it's not like that now because it's not a popular genre. We have a small niche in dance music.

So get off your ass and do something about it! There's a way to do things with a respect to where you came from, and it's not selling out. You gotta have an open mind! If you're really that concerned about our industry and our genre, then you should embrace the future.