Fatboy Slim has been the face of some of the world’s biggest parties for 40 years and he has no plans of slowing down — in fact, he doesn’t even believe retirement is an option.

The 61-year-old DJ veteran, whose real name is Norman Cook, will arrive in Australia next month for a run of shows across the country which he will kick off in Perth at Langley Park on March 14.

The UK native sat down for a Zoom call from Brighton to chat about the tour, what he misses from the glory days and why he’s in awe of Fred Again.

Fatboy Slim said he can’t wait to bring summer’s biggest outdoor rave Down Under and party with his “wild” Perth fans.

“It’s a beautiful country, I feel an affinity with Australians and we have a lot of fun together, we have the same sense of humour and because I’ve been there so many times over the years everyone knows me,” he said.

“It’s always a joyous trip and a very warm welcome.

“I’ve always thought WA is kind of the Australian extreme, there’s a particular wildness about the Perth.”

The Eat Sleep Rave Repeat hitmaker has been in the DJ scene for decades, and his Aussie tour is just one sign that his hunger for the craft isn’t waning.

In fact, as the man himself put it, it’s “absolutely insatiable”.

“I had a little zeitgeist during the pandemic when I couldn’t do it for 14 months, I realised how much it means to me and made me cherish it all the more,” he said.

“And at my age, I don’t take it for granted that I’ll be doing this forever so it’s like I’ve got to cram as much into whatever time I have left to do it.

“I realised during the pandemic, that this is what I was born to do.

“I’m an entertainer, it is part of my blood, retirement isn’t an option”

On reflection, Fatboy Slim said one thing he missed from the glory days of the 80s and 90s was the “camaraderie between DJs”.

“I think there was a bigger excitement in the 80s when I was first doing it, there was this excitement because we felt like outlaws,” he said.

“We lived outside normal society, you know when normal society went to bed, that was when we came out and we played all these strange records in nightclubs and stayed up way too late.

“It felt naughty and different and then the music that we played, you’d never hear on the radio, so it was like our own little thing.”

Fatboy Slim said as DJ music becomes more accessible, the scene that was once lucrative has “lost some of the allure and romance”.

“It’s more competitive now,” he said.

One of his major competitors is ever-evolving technology which he struggles to wrap his head around. He said he would rather stick to traditional DJ methods.

Fatboy Slim admired what younger DJs such as Fred Again have been producing but would rather leave the more technical things, like fancy buttons and effects, to them.

“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” he said.

One might think a legendary dance music pioneer couldn’t possibly have any more international concert destinations to tick off his bucket list, but Fatboy Slim is yet to travel to Hawaii — despite Hawaiian shirts being a staple in his wardrobe.

But before he goes anywhere near the island paradise, Fatboy Slim must tackle the Aussie festival crowds.

Following his Perth show, he will be taking over other outdoor venues across the nation in Bowral, NSW; Barossa Valley, SA; Geelong, VIC; and Mount Cotton, QLD.