I gave up everything to make music for about two years and I don't regret a single day of it. However, I do regret every single day I go into work to pay for those two years instead of being able to get on with my current affairs. It will take a full 12 months to fully pay for the time I spent producing all the time. Mind you, it's a bargain considering how long some graduates have to work to pay off their three years at uni.

One thing I will say though... Producing full time is pointless. Music must be a soundtrack to life and not the whole of it. If you're not getting out there being hurt and angered and annoyed or pleased and enthused about stufff then it will reflect in the music you make and you and your music will be boring.

Now I'm working I make fewer tracks but the track I do make ar far better than I could ever have imagined making a year ago adn the opportunity to listen to my old stuff having had a break has allowed me to view my works objectivly and through this I have learned to perfect some of them. Something you simply cannot do if you're playing with techno all the time.

Those long quiet bus journeys to work have given me the headspace to consider what I truly want from music. Sometimes listening to silence gives you more insight into what sounds should be like.

Producing full time left me broke, very ill, socially inept (more so than now) and jealous of just about everyone who had a life and the ability to do simple things like pay into a club or go for a curry.

Eventually you hit rock bottom if you're not workiing and sometime you get yourself so deep in a hole you just can't climb out. I was lucky that a very kind lady reached out to me and pulled me out of that rut. I was falling to bits and I'd lost sight of the simple things in life you're supposed to enjoy. Even good bread and nice cheese seemed like something only rich folks could have.

My roof was leaking and I kept running out of electricity on the meter and there was nothing I could do and no-one I could borrow from and my clothes were threadbare. It's the closest I've been to poverty and was only ojne step up from homeless for a long time. I didn't like it one bit.

I now have a responsibility to myself to make sure I never get that lonely, depressed, skint or ill again. In hindsight I admire my former self for dedication to the cause and the blind faith that it would be rewarded and it was rewarded to some small extent but the people who did well out of my efforts were the least deserving of them.

Successful living is about balance. Excesses of anything is the road to ruin.

In terms of techno, it's a well being thing. It requires much thought and much effort and if you're not looking after yourself there no way in hell you can expect your music to reflect well on you. A tired clouded mind produces tired clouded music.