"I'm trying to write a book about my life". There's a pause as the interviewer sizes up the task which Kevin Rowland is considering. After all, every single aspect of Rowland's life since his birth in Wolverhampton would be fair game for a couple of pages at least. It will surely be an epic when it's completed. The one good thing about such a tome, though, is that we'll get the untarnished truth and nothing but the truth about one of the great characters in the game. As leader of Dexys Midnight Runners, one of pop's most intriguing and consistently exciting and adventurous combos, Rowland set out his stall well away from the crowd. However, the crowd wandered over to him anyway because of the quality of what was on offer. Others may have released more than the three albums which Dexys produced during their 1980s run, but you'd take 1980's startling "Searching for the Young Soul Rebels", 1982's raggle-taggle "Too-Rye-Ay" and the masterful elegance of "Don't Stand Me Down" from 1985 over the work of countless others.

These days, Rowland may dwell on the fringes yet, as the 2003 Dexys Midnight Runners reunion showed, his passion and commitment still attracts disciples and devotees in their droves. Rowland is on the other end of a phoneline this morning because he's due in Dublin next week for a DJ-ing engagement and has agreed to talk about this. He politely requests that all talk of his own music should be left for another time ("I'll talk to you again when the new album comes out"), yet Rowland himself will inevitably steer the conversation that way at a later stage. The DJ-ing gigs, he admits, are a bit of a accidental sideline which he's begun to really enjoy. He's played at several clubs in the UK already and has even done a radio stint there, sitting in for an absent presenter for a couple of nights on BBC 6 Music earlier this year. On air, his selections included Eddie & The Hot Rods, Bruce Springsteen (Rowland's own cover of "Thunder Road" for his 1999 solo album was nixed by Springsteen), Candi Staton, Bassheads, ELO and The Temptations.

When it comes to spinning in a club, Rowland says the most important thingis the pacing and compares it to a live gig or album. "It's something whichall the great live albums like (Van Morrison's) "It's Too Late To Stop Now" have. I mean, that album has a feeling and a musical flow which you couldn't capture in a studio. "I've spent years examining that record from every angle and have tried to do what he did, but I've never got it right. When I DJ, that's what I'm after, that natural flow from song to song." Rowland's own experiences of clubland didn't come until after Dexys had ended. "I didn't really go to clubs when the band were touring", he says. "I was such a workaholic, I hardly stopped working during that period which was a shame. After Dexys, in the late 80s and onwards, I spent a lot of time checking out clubs in London. I was an observer, always listening for the records that moved people." Naturally, he was also extremely interested in what people were wearing. "Yeah, the etiquette interested me as much as the music, the way you behaved and the way you dressed and the way you danced. You were even concerned with width of your turn-ups and the length of your sideburns! They were critical, they had to be right."

When Rowland goes out these nights, he tends to favour vintage clubs and swinging juke joints. "The burlesque thing that is going on in London right now is quite interesting", he observes. "I like that club Lady Luck. Some of the burlesque clubs are a bit naff, but this one is a bit more menacing and sleazy, which I like. They use a lot of voodoo imagery. "The guys who run the club live it. It's a lifestyle choice for them, it's not just a gig they do every Friday night. They're serious about their clothes and they're serious about the music and that appeals to me." Another club which Rowland digs is the Debaser club in Stockholm. "The house band are called Club Killers. They're a 15 piece rocksteady band with a seven-piece brass section, amazing players. "The guys in the band put on a whole evening. They play two sets and they play really good records between the sets. They also have an open microphone and people can get up and freestyle. People just go up and grab the mike. I find myself doing so when I'm there, singing over the records and stuff. I've had magical nights there, lovely evenings. They're people who love their music and really care about it."

Indeed, some of Rowland's most recent live performances have been with that band in that club in 2006, playing a set which included classic Dexys material ("Geno", "Lets Make This Precious") and covers of "Everything I Own" and "The Sound Of Silence". Which neatly brings us to Dexys. There has been talk about a new Dexys album for quite some time. "All the songs for this album are written", confirms Rowland, "but I can't see it coming out this year. The songs are about love and relationships and that's something I've never really written about before. "It's good to move on, it would be pointless to be singing about nothing or performing old songs that don't mean anything to me. I'm someone who has to express exactly what I feel. Anything else just won't do."

Kevin Rowland DJs at Sassy Sue's GoGo Inevitable at the Sugar Club, Dublin on August 10th