Rob is the rockin'est man I know. He's also the guitarist and singer in King Cheetah who are incendiary onstage, the real deal, a band who can make you stand there and scream whenever they play.

So...whilst I like all kinds of music, nothing moves me like fast, heavy, intense and loud rock n roll - alright! Can we talk about this please?

What is rock n roll and why do you like it?
Rock n Roll is gravity defeated by desire. It is the unknowable made fact.

What do you think about when you're rocking out onstage?
Nothing At All Ever.

On a good day, rock n roll has the power to bring me to my knees. I don't just love it, I LOVE it. How can something as lunkheaded as r'n'r feel like a religious experience?
It's mysterious, strong and true. Everything else feels like pretentious oversimplification to me, nothing else tells me what I need to know.

What's the most rockin' thing you've ever done?
I started (and I haven't stopped).

...and the least?
Cared what the audience thought.

Me and Simon went to the Rock n roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland a couple of years ago. It was tacky and shite in many ways, and I really disapprove of the whole idea of it in the first place, but it was also unexpectedly moving too. We watched some "orientation" films about the history of rock n roll, its roots in slavery, etc. Maybe we were overtired from the long drive to get there, but by the end of it we were bawling our eyes out! The thing that got us was people's compulsion to make rock n roll, how the spirit of mayhem embodied in the music is like a life-force, how they keep at it when everything else in their lives has gone, when it's killing them. Do you think that a r'n'r life is a bad one to get into?
If the rock n roll life finds you, it will own you.

Name ten of the rockin'est things ever
How about TWO?
1) The Music (frequently gets overlooked) I like these ones: 'Asbestos Lead Asbestos' by World Domination Enterprises, 'City Slang' by Sonic's Rendezvous Band, 'Johny B. Good' by the Sex Pistols , and 'Europe endless' by Kraftwerk
2) Having something to say.

I heard that your dad is a big classical music fan. What was it like being a young rockster growing up in that environment?
My dad is a musician who has made a succesful career playing in the big British symphony orchestras, my mum was a ballerina. I was taught to play the cello, and when I got a note wrong I was shouted at or beaten. They both loathed and feared rock n roll. All pop music was banned in the house, Top of the Pops was forbidden, we had no music centre, the radio was tuned to Radio 4, and if the dial ever got touched there would be an enquiry launched. One day I was given an antique mono tape recorder and an ancient ribbon mike by a musician friend of my dad's (who probably witnessed my family's cruel musical apartheid), on the few occasions that I could get my brother to distract my mum I'd hold the big mic against the TV's speaker and record ANYTHING with drums on it! That was my darkest guilty pleasure.

Is rock 'n roll in danger of dying out?
It's not at all the epidemic that people are being told right now, but it's a very stubborn stain.

What would it take to make you give up r'n'r?
I don't Fear the Reaper. What else you got?

Anything else you want to add?
Don't let other people tell you what it is EVER. The ones who need to tell you definitely don't know, and if it has a journalist attached, you can be certain that it's firing blanks.

PS. Rob would be far too modest to say this but the King Cheetah album is going to be out soon. It's called 'New Weather' and it's getting mixed right now in Portland, Oregon. Look out for it in a couple of months, okay?

There's a King Cheetah website too.