The Monday after the White Party, club king Jeffrey Sanker hurts so good. When it’s all over, he asks his staff a trademark question: “Did anyone get the license plate number of the bus that hit me?”

White Party weekend in Palm Springs will do that to you.

Sanker, the D.C.-born New York groomed Los Angeles “high priest of gay parties” (as one media outlet dubbed him), wouldn’t have it any other way.

Sanker took our call en route to Palm Springs, where he was meeting to discuss details about next week’s annual circuit party event, the White Party, April 18-21.

He took some time to dish on this year’s soiree, why Internet killed Saturday night fever, and why he doesn’t dance in America.

Gay & Lesbian Times: Tell readers a little about the White Party theme this year, Boogie Fever?

Jeffrey Sanker: It is the 30th anniversary of disco music, so I thought it was appropriate to do something to celebrate that.

GLT: Is a younger generation going to connect with the theme?

JS: I think so, maybe even moreso than an older generation. Vintage is very much in vogue right now. We’re not going to just play ’70s and ’80s music – we’re going to play current music too. People have a fascination with that disco era, though. It has to do with fashion – it’s fashionable right now, the clothes, the vocal music, it’s all in fashion.

GLT: How have you executed the White Party for almost 20 years?

JS: I lost money three years in a row, the first three years, and every year I’d pay the debt off. I would put it on a credit card or borrow money from whomever and every year I lost less. Every year, the years I had lost money, it kept growing and I just had the feeling that it was something that was going to keep growing. So I kept doing it, I was persistent – a lot of people would have given up, but I felt like there was something there.

A lot of people would have said “Fuck it, fuck it – what am I doing here?” But I felt it growing, I saw it growing, and it was four years before I made a profit. I don’t think many people realize though the cost of doing business now – [White Party] costs $1 million to produce.

Obviously it’s a business – but I’m very passionate about it. I could make a better profit and not give as good a party, but I’m more interested in giving a good party. That’s what the formula has been the last 19 years. If I had given a shitty party, it would have been over. A lot of other parties don’t exist anymore, a lot of events don’t happen anymore – but because of my passion and my drive, I’ve wanted to make it better every year. And I think I have.

GLT: How do you keep it fresh? The White Party is known for surprises. How do you keep it under wraps?

JS: Technology keep changing and it allows us a lot of changes. In 19 years I don’t think we’ve repeated a theme. There’s always a twist or a variation.

We don’t always keep surprises under wraps – too many people leak out what’s going to go on, but I think a part of the surprise is the décor. The surprise isn’t necessarily the talent. The experience is the surprise. We’re going to have a photo booth this year and the décor is different. There will be all kinds of new elements. There isn’t necessarily one superstar performing – it’d be great to have Madonna perform, but it isn’t going to happen. I’ve asked, by the way.

GLT: What was the most memorable White Party moments you’ve had?

JS: J. Lo performing was memorable – I had to pinch myself. I was standing with Manny Lehman in the DJ booth and we were pinching each other. We had to say, ‘Can you believe we have J. Lo performing?’

Another was the first time we hosted a party in the Convention Center – we had done it in the Wyndham ballroom, but by 1998 we had grown so much that we had to move to the Convention Center. The sheer size of it, it had grown to such a magnitude that that was a special night for me. We had started this thing with 500 people and it had grown that big.

GLT: How is the club/party scene different now than it was 20 years ago?

JS: The whole club life has evolved. Everything has changed, not for the worse, but it’s changed. Everything has to change. With this generation now, because of the Internet, we’re more global, we have more accessibility to knowledge than anyone else in the past.

GLT: How has that changed the scene?

JS: With social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace and even ManHunt, all social networking can be done via the Internet. People are socializing less and less in public and so they have less experience socializing in public.

And, I think this generation dances less than we used to dance. It was the fact of life that you’d go out dancing on Saturday nights and you would prepare three days in advance to go out on Saturday night. You’d get your hair cut, a manicure, make sure you had the right clothes, plan which friends you were going to meet up with, and that would all culminate in going out dancing on Saturday night – it was a part of the culture, gay culture.

GLT: How does the White Party combat that homebody spirit?

JS: The White Party makes it the one or two times a year that people actually go out or want to go out. You wouldn’t want to stay at home and watch the White Party on the Internet – you want to experience it in real life. People save up for it, they get ready for it, same as we used to do every week to go out on a Saturday night. Now they do it once or twice a year. People go on diets, they go to the gym, they get their hair cut, they get new clothes all to be prepared for the White Party.

GLT: You mention that this is something people prepare for once or twice a year, which brings us to the Vegas White Party. You launched the Vegas White Party last year. How do each of the cities, Palm Springs and Las Vegas, enhance the White Party experience?

JS: With Palm Springs you get a small town. You get everything centralized in one area. You can park your car and never use it all weekend. You get amazing weather and a kind of Mayberry setting. It’s a really friendly, welcoming town. It’s like going to a small town – and we own the hotels for the weekend, so you have hotel exclusivities. All hotels go gay for the weekend.

With Vegas, it’s so massive, it’s so big, you get the Vegas experience – you get Cirque de Soleil shows and concerts and gambling and over-the-top hotels. Personally, I think Vegas, in 10 years, is going to be bigger than Palm Springs.

Next year, we’re buying out the Cher concert on Sunday so a part of the weekend will be Cher in concert. I’m adding a slot tournament, a pool party and a Cirque de Soleil show, on top of three parties. We’re going to shuttle people from London – we’re doing a special charter plane from London and Germany.

GLT: As the king of club events and massive parties, where do you go when you want to dance and have a good time?

JS: I have one rule: I don’t dance in the United States.

GLT: Why? Where do you dance?

JS: It’s not as much fun as it is in other countries. I go to Brazil, I go to Rio, I go to Ibiza.

GLT: When did you make that rule?

JS: About 10 years ago. Usually I go places where I don’t know anybody, where I can cut loose and not have someone ask me on the dance floor, “Why did you use pink lights at the White Party this year?” Not that that happens – I just have more fun as somebody no one knows. You’re a lot less inhibited.