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The UK's impresario of nu-energy, Tony De Vit, currently finds himself at his peak after twenty-one years of DJing. He's managed to cross over from the gay scene into wider club culture. Everybody loves him. He's clocking up nominations as best DJ in the influential dance magazines ("DJ", "Mixmag") and scooping up trophies at prestigious industry events (the International Music Awards). He has his own show on London's Kiss FM. He's completed a swag of first rate remixes with his V2 partner Simon Parkes. He's enjoyed Top 40 success with his own singles "Burning Up" and "To The Limit" and there's more to come. Finally, his latest dance compilation, "Boxed Live In Tokyo", received a five-star review in "Mixmag".

Holed up in his gloomy, wintry Birmingham base, an amiable De Vit is looking forward to his second visit to Australia. 'It was like it was here in 1989,' he says of his first encounter over a year ago. 'People were very excited by it all. We've had this scene now for quite a while and sometimes I go to clubs and find that it's a little stale. When I came out to Australia it was really nice, because it was fresh and everybody was so into it and so keen.'

De Vit has an intensive schedule with gigs almost every night of the week, as well as an ever burgeoning studio career. Besides his celebrated residency at Trade, he plays such venues as the Ministry of Sound, Gatecrasher and Cream. De Vit also regularly interrupts his itinerary to tour the international circuit. What is the secret to this workaholic's vitality? 'I take loads of vitamins,' he laughs. 'I think when you're actually doing something that you love, it's less of a problem than if it

was just a job. There's a different energy.' It wasn't always rosy. When De Vit, then twenty-one, started his DJ gig at a Birmingham gay night spot called The Nightingale he held down two other jobs. He worked as a computer programmer during the week and demonstrated Panasonic camcorders on Saturdays. 'Those were the days when you struggled,' he recollects. 'It was hard to get bookings. People didn't pay you much. It was a very different thing in those days.'

De Vit regards securing a residency at London's progressive gay club Trade as the turning point in his career. 'Getting a residency at Trade was one of my big, big ambitions,' he reveals. 'I really didn't think that it would ever happen.' In 1991 De Vit first attended Trade as a patron at his friends' insistence. 'It changed my whole idea of DJing,' he remembers excitedly, 'because I basically stood there and I didn't know one of the records!

They were playing this amazing music and the people on the dance floor were on another planet. They were so far into it -- I just couldn't believe what I was seeing! This Trade thing was so hedonistic. The music was unreal. Within one week I changed everything. I just emptied my box of all the old music I was playing. I went to London and I bought all this new music that I'd heard in Trade.' His radical change of direction may have cost him his ten year stint at The Nightingale, but De Vit was on the way up.

Over time De Vit has observed many trends in club culture (somewhat controversially he regards drum'n'bass and speed garage as definitive examples today. 'We're lucky in England because the scene is so diverse. You've got happy hardcore, speed garage and drum'n'bass clubs,' he says, 'but without a doubt all the main clubs play house music, whether it be happy, cheesy or hard.' He adds with a laugh, 'These little trends come and go each year. I believe the magazines actually start them just for something new to write about.'

Pointedly, "Mixmag" recently ran a story on De Vit, nu-energy and the backlash in the gay press. De Vit refutes the suggestion that nu-energy, too, is just a fashion. 'The kind of music that I play is definitely the mainstay of the house scene,' he argues. 'It's just so popular and I've seen the music get harder. I can play a lot harder in clubs now than I could have a couple of years ago.

People find it more exciting, more energetic.' A fired up De Vit continues, 'People want to go to a club and they really want to get into the music and expel some energy. They don't want to chill out.' No wonder, then, that De Vit's molten sets of hard, fast rhythms pull in the younger clubbers. 'I've been playing nu-energy, hard house or whatever you want to call it, for four years and I don't think that's a passing phase.'

Given the climate, it's no surprise that De Vit and his studio collaborator Parkes (who both operate under the guise of V2) are in-demand remixers. 'Usually when they want a Tony De Vit mix they want something harder, faster,' De Vit offers, citing mixes of tracks by Louise and Michelle Gayle as two of his favourites. Of course, V2 pass over many projects. 'A track has to inspire me. I have to hear something in it,' De Vit says. 'If we feel a track isn't suitable for our type of mix we will say so.' The pair don't apply a formula. Instead they create completely new tracks and slot in vocal samples from the original. 'I would prefer it if they called it a rework remix,' De Vit remarks. Only lately De Vit has launched his own label, TdV Records, with its maiden voyage being his own double-A "Feel My Love/Get Loose". A second outing, "Bring The Beat Back", follows soon. His vision for TdV will impress devotees. 'I wouldn't want it to become a big label,' he points out. 'I just want it to have a reputation for being a really good underground label that releases amazing club tracks.' Wary of the compromises that the majors have imposed on other dance subsidiaries, he reiterates, 'I would never sell out to a major.' De Vit plans to get behind new DJ/producers. He gets flooded with tapes from virtual unknowns and is struck by their raw talent. 'We listen to everything we get,' he claims.

Indeed, the most marked aspect of De Vit is that he lacks the arrogance of his peers. He refuses to cultivate the aloofness of an icon. Instead De Vit is happy to chat on his Kiss show in between the tracks or hang out with the punters after his club sets. The media's cult of the super DJ makes him 'a little bit uneasy'. 'It can get very overpowering,' De Vit says with bemusement. 'It's not something that I ever expected I'd have to deal with.' Of his contemporaries, De Vit admires Boy George the most for his staying power. 'When he started DJing he took a lot of stick over here. All the magazines slagged him off for being a crap DJ, a failed pop star ripping people off as a DJ. To be honest, if I'd had that much bad press over a couple of years I don't know whether I'd have kept doing it. But he stuck at it. And now he's quite a good DJ playing really good music.'