The past decade has seen John performing all over the UK as well as producing Hardcore, Hard House and Hard Trance. He now co-owns the ‘Bonkerz’ label with The Stage One Music Company and has also introduced another label called ‘Data Records’.

John first joined Stage One in February ‘99 and since then has been planning ahead for the development of Freeform Hardcore. He has been working very closely with Helix, Eclipse and Energy to create a style of music that doesn't necessarily travel in one direction or the other, aiming to give people a fresh new concept and expanding the current Hardcore audience.

John is a fine example of React's list of artists. He has already enjoyed success with them on the release of his debut album ‘Hard Life’. In fact he has recorded and A&R'd his own material for quite some time now. He has also co-presented the Hardcore show on Kiss FM. But he is keen to point out that he is neither solely or partly responsible for the scene's recent affluence. "Everybody around me is making it so easy to go out there and perform a good set. The music they are providing is excellent and I love it. I play in clubs everywhere, but the North of England are mad for it at the moment. They keep coming behind the decks and checking out the next tune in my record bag. It's so amazing, they just want the music so badly and the fact that I'm able to give it to them really does it for me”.

Although John writes all his own material, his passion for travelling stops him from developing his own studio further at the moment. "I'd eventually like to own a £250k studio”! He plans to stay firmly stuck to the Freeform scene. "I love all Freeform”, he says "and I love anyone who makes good music, the more of it, the better”, he continues, "but I hate really cheesy clubs and crap production. Oh yeah, and I hate bad DJ monitors and set ups”. Well, you can't do a good set without them, can you?

According to Sharkey, Freeform is the music for the millennium. So far, John has the support of every other Freeform producer: Stu Allen and the ever faithful John Peel are well and truly behind Freeform too. To summarise, Freeform producers believe their music holds certain qualities, without sticking to a formula for structure. Soundscapes and riffs are open to the imagination and each producer can write a piece of music, using personal and general emotions and make use of an array of sounds. Although most tend to stick to highly filtered and modulated sawtooth and synthesised sounds, there is the beauty of squarewave bass, high frequency pips and bleeps, sirens, vocal snatches, dreamy ad lib vocals, panned strings and the added madness of drums, breaks, snares and treble. Music is an open ended possibility for Freeform and can result in a host of styles, including deep and dark, racy and upbeat or breakbeat, moody and mysterious or Euro. Whatever the result, all the other Freeform producers support and respect what the other is doing and due to that fact, the producers who don’t DJ themselves are being exposed by those who do and those DJ’s who also produce are helping to make way for new and up and coming music makers.