Hey mister DJ put a record on

I love what I do. It's a great lifestyle, but going out all the time is not what it's about. You go out to be seen - its part of the industry. But you have to keep your head about you. You may be out until 5 a.m. but you still have to be up by 10 a.m. There are just too many people out there who would love to be in your position.

At the moment, I'm working on my new single, which is due out in mid-March, so I'm spending around four or five afternoons a week in the studio. I get together with a sound engineer and we try out different sounds, chopping and laying vocals down. The end product will be around three-and-a-half minutes of music. I have a home studio as well, so unless I have something specific on, I usually spend time at home in the mornings messing around in the studio or on the piano.

I have just signed a new six-album deal with Universal, so lately I've had quite a few meetings to wrap things up. So for the next few months, I'll be concentrating on that. I may as well give it bash - after the success of Maniac 2000 last summer I think this really is the ideal time.

I still consider being a radio DJ as my main career though. Since last April, I've been a dance DJ at 2FM on Friday nights from 7 to 10 p.m. and from 6 to 9 p.m. on Saturdays. On these days I usually head into Abbey Discs early to check out their new stuff. We always play four tracks of new and exclusive dance singles every show, in addition to the charts. Then I head out to RTE for about 2 p.m. to prepare for the show.

I've been doing radio for years: I set up my own pirate station in Wexford during the summer of 1996 when I was 15. Before that I'd done loads of gigs and had worked as a sound engineer touring around with a company called Roadshow Rentals.

After the summer of 1996, I went to work with Dublin pirate radio station Pulse FM, presenting its drive-time show. Over the years I've worked at nearly all the other stations as both a sound engineer or DJ - Today FM, FM104, Atlantic 252, 98FM.

There's a real homely feel to working on pirate radio. You feel like you're talking directly to people. 2FM is a national broadcaster and you're so aware that you're playing to a way bigger audience.

So far, I've been getting great feedback from listeners, who send me SMS messages while I'm on air - that's how we interact. I'll have the first set of JNLR figures in April and I'm looking forward to see what impact we're having.

I've been doing live gigs for years including the Heineken Rollercoaster, Guinness Jazz and Blues Festival in Temple Bar, the Temple Theatre and others, but at the moment I'm not doing many gigs. Maniac 2000 became a big pop hit and that was great, but I think it confused a lot of people who knew me as a dance DJ. So I'm having a bit of a credibility battle stepping back into that role.

On the nights that I'm not working I love going to the cinema, otherwise I hang out with my mates. There's a big group of us who all know one another from pirate radio days and we like to get together and mess around with sounds or just chill out.

In conversation with Sue Carter