Spinning wheels, discs, and yarns with the man whose mojo is electrifyin', baby.

GT's wearing his trademark cat-that-got-the-cream grin. I think it's safe to say that he approves of the Ministry Monaro. In fact, the DJ/producer, whose own ride is a fully schmick, fully optioned VW Golf, probably hasn't been behind the wheel of such an eye-catching beast since he got to drive with an army half-track while touring East Timor with a bunch of other musicians, on an "entertaining the troops" mission; an experience he refers to as "band camp with guns!"

Our photo shoot, on the street next to the North Bondi golf course, is literally stopping traffic. The canary yellow Monaro is attention-grabbing enough without having the tousel-headed bloke draped over the bonnet, playing the pop star to the hilt. Meanwhile, our resident photographer is snapping from the middle of the road, with your reporter acting as traffic monitor, yelling every time a car approaches. Inevitably, passing motorists slow to a crawl for a rubberneck, and the whole scene is watched with a mix of amusement and bemusement by a team of removalists across the road. "What are you blokes trying to do?" yells the guy showing rather more arse crack than is strictly tasteful. "Cause a bloody accident?" GT, seasoned performer that he is, takes all this in his stride. In fact, he seems to be enjoying the experience. "My girlfriend says I've got only-child syndrome," he confesses. "You know, 'Look at me!'"

Warned about the extreme degree of yellowness that characterises the Ministry staff vehicle, and being a stylish sort, GT's even colour co-ordinated for the occasion. Well, the writing on his T-shirt - it says "BLUDGER" - goes reasonably close to matching the duco. You wouldn't want to take that slogan too literally though. GT's really been at it this past 18 months or so. Apart from further forays to foreign parts, toting his record box and headphones, he's also maintained his standing as one of the few Aussie DJs with a national profile thanks to constant interstate gigs. And somewhere among all that, he's also managed time to make his second album, "Electrifyin' Mojo".

"It's named after a DJ in Detroit in the late 70s and early 80s," GT explains. "He used to have a mix show on radio where he'd play Kraftwerk next to Funkadelic next to Led Zeppelin, and was a huge influence on people like Juan Atkins, Jeff Mills, Kevin Saunderson and Derek May - and me. It's a great name, but I also like the spirit of adventure he used to encapsulate." Not surprisingly, that spirit of adventure is reflected in the album, which runs through a variety of styles, mixing four on the floor with breaks, vintage sounds with bleepy FX, floor-slaying instrumentals alongside 'real songs' with fine vocal performances from the likes of Kye (Wicked Beat Sound System) and Hamish Cowan (Cordrazine). As such it represents a definite step forward from his debut album, "Road Kill".

"That was my 'growing up' album, a 'difficult birth' record, says GT. "When I listen to it now, I think it's too derivative and a lot of the songs are too throwaway - it wasn't until after "Road Kill" that I realised that when you make an album you have to live with it for a very long time. With this album, I wanted to make music that wasn't just this months latest thing, I wanted to make an album that can stand on it own two feet, that isn't derivative - that has its own sound, I guess. That's where Andy has been so important."

GT's referring to co-producer Andy Page, an extremely talented young Tasmanian who's also worked with the likes of Sasha, BT and Adam Freeland. "Andy's probably the most eccentric person I've ever worked with - and the most brilliant," he adds. "We had a fantastic working relationship, partly because Andy's a details man and I'm so not. Andy can fool around for hours getting one little sound exactly right, and that sort of thing drives me nuts. The brief I gave to Andy was this : electronic pop, organic dance music," GT continues, "I wanted to bring those two strands together. I also wanted to have more of the kind of songs I could play in my DJ sets. With my last album, there was a distint gap between the sort of music I played when I was DJing. So, I'm trying to bring this album down to the essence of what I'm looking for when I DJ, the things which attract me to a track. It's still rockin' drums with good grooves and crazy sounds over the top, but at the same time it's focused more heavily on songs rather than instrumental dance tracks. There's a lot more depth and longevity in it."

Over delicious corn fritters, post photo shoot, GT seems slightly surprised to find himself talking about things such as depth, complexity and longevity. After all, these qualities were far from the front of his mind when he started out as a teenage hip-hop DJ in his native Adelaide. Back then he just wanted to spin the records he loved and have fun, but it wasn't long before he'd branched out into production via remixes for the likes of Skunkhour. He then relocated to Sydney and started to look for a recording deal, eventually signing with Virgin "on the basis of a couple of half-baked ideas - I didn't really have any songs."

Virgin, though, could see that GT's combination of talent, ambition and self-belief had the potential to take him far. After all, he'd quickly established himself as one of Australia's most in-demand DJs. Just as important, in a country that places excessive value on often false modesty, and workin in a genre - dance music - full of faceless shrinking violets, GT wasn't afraid to be a bit of a showman. That faith was rewarded with "Road Kill", and while GT might have some reservations about it now, you can tell he's still proud of his first-born. More importantly, it sold reasonably well, garnered four ARIA nominations spread over two years, and tracks from the album were picked up for TV shows and movies, thus ensuring not only a supplement to GT's more substantial earnings as a DJ, but the chance to make "Electrifyin' Mojo".

He also nurtured a couple of side projects, both secret and not-so-secret. GT's involvement in Chili Hi Fly is reasonably well known for instance, but there are others he won't be drawn on, and still more that haven't got past the planning stage yet. He has a hankering for instance, to do somethin on the funky, down-tempo tip. "I'd really like to produce a hip-hop record, sort of go back to my roots. Find a great MC and do it from scratch. I've got so many ideas that aren't really appropriate for GT, and I much prefer working with vocalists to just doing instrumental tracks. That's something I realised when I was working on "Electrifyin' Mojo".

Which brings us back to his current priority. By the time you read this, GT will have started the process of criss-crossing the country to promote the record. But on this occasion, there will be no live band, a minor disappointment for those of us who enjoyed the sight of GT in full rock'n'roll frontman mode. He seemed comfortable with it, probably another manifestation of that 'Hey, look at me' syndrome. "Look, I'm a DJ," he reasons. "It's what I do, I acknowledge that. And there were people who were disappointed that I wasn't doing that last time. So this time it will be me with an MC and a singer, more like a sound system. We're going to create a real block party vibe."

Once again, that chesire cat grin is back on GT's dial. And who can blame him? He's concieved, created and released his second album, the one that's always supposed to be 'difficult'. He's recently moved into a stylin' new apartment with glorious views of Sydney Harbour with his girlfriend. (Rented, not bought, mind you - he's not doing that well.) He's even been nominated for GQ Magazine's "Man of the Year" ferchrissakes. ("They kicked Nick Cave off to put me on," he sniggers.) Not bad for a guy whose teachers always said lacked application.

Describing himself as "a little shit-stirrer, a smart arse", he runs through some of the more frequent comments on his school reports : "Easily distracted. Seems to think he's too good for this class. Could do better if he applied himself. Too interested in listening to music at the expense of his studies."

That last comment was meant to be a criticism that would sting him into gettin off his arse and getting serious about school. Trust GT to turn a supposed minus into an A+.