Could you give us a brief introduction as to who you are & what your role is in dance music?

Hi. My real name is Rob Stevenson, I am a DJ and producer from York, UK and have been involved with the dance music industry since around 2003 when I signed my debut track, along with Aled Mann to Somatic Sense Recordings based in Holland.

I am mainly known as a producer although I have been DJing for longer and have relatively recently seen the fruits of my production work get me gigs around the world.

I’m not really sure what my role would be in dance music, I tend to just do what I like doing; make the music I like making and play what I like playing.

It’s your debut for Slinky & the O2 Academy, Bournemouth. What can we expect from you on May 1st 

My sets are energetic and pumping but hopefully keeping an uplifting, non-cheesy feel to the music. I like to play a mixture of trance and tech trance, sometimes breaking into what I would see as ‘proper’ techno, but only do that now and again if the crowd are more techno orientated.

It’s our 13^th Birthday on May 1^st, so were asking everyone. What would your present be to Slinky?

A Slinky! Although that just isn’t original at all is it. How about the Slinky dog from Toy Story? That’s a little better.

What would you say was your biggest achievement in 2009? 

I think the release of m debut artist album, "This World" was easily the biggest achievement of 2009. It took 18 months to complete and eventually consisted of 26 tracks. A lot of work went into it and I wanted it to be a true representation of what I thought was good trance music.

I think my biggest achievement as a DJ was playing at Paul van Dyk’s Winter Vandit Night in Berlin in December. It was his birthday that night and there was a really amazing vibe in the room. My sets was sandwiched in between a warm up and a main set from Paul. To be the guest at an event like that is definitely a special thing to have achieved and is something ill remember for a long, long time.

You now have your own show on Afterhours.fm, how is that going?

Its going well, AH is easily my favourite online station and I was thrilled what then accepted my request to have a show. They have a great community of supporters and do some really great live event broadcasts.

My own show gets a good number of listeners and I get some great feedback. It can be hard getting together brand new music every month due to the kind of style I play and the producers that used to make it moving to other styles or disappearing but the AH fans always seem to welcome older tracks too, so that’s great.

You recently released your debut artist album called ‘This World’. Do you have plans for album anytime soon?

I always thought that I would do an album and after not actually want to do another as it’s a milestone reached, conquered and that was that. However, I am warming up to the idea of doing a ‘to the point’ non concept album where its just a collection of full extended mixes for people to enjoy how they want.

This World was very much a concept in that I had clear ideas of exactly what I wanted to do, what styles should go where and how things happened. It would be great to do an album with no real planning, just sitting and making 9 or 10 tracks where the full versions would be used on the final CD.

When or if that will happen, I really don’t know.

What have you got planned for the rest of 2010?

2010 is busy for me. I am always making music; I can’t stop really so there is plenty to do in the studio. August sees the launch of a brand new label project called Borderline. I have been able to sign some awesome music already and am really looking forward to seeing how it’s received.

I am also toying with a few ideas in terms of where to take my DJing. Hopefully that will come into test towards the end of the year.

All that plus events like Tomorrowlands in Belgium and the BeeFree festival in Slovakia make this year full of really good things!

Away from Dance Music, DJ-ing & Producing, Do you have any other passions?

I have one or two but getting time to actually do anything with them is quite difficult! I really like mountain biking, I saved up for a decent bike last year and go to my local forest and throw myself down hills.

I like to relax by killing a few people on Call of Duty too. That’s always amusing.

Our theme for May 1^st is Slinky in Wonderland, if you were to look down the rabbit hole, what do you think would be down there? 

I would expect it to be very similar to an episode of Danger Mouse. I’m sure I used to understand it when I was young but have you seen an episode recently? You can definitely tell that the makers were necking acid while coming up with the ideas! Its pretty strange!

Finally, would you say you’re mad as a Hatter? 

I hate to be boring, but probably not. I am quite reserved really…. Always plotting!