‘I’ve never been afraid of the highest heights or afraid of flying’ go his lyrics, which is a good job because dance chart-topper Example is riding sky high with a new baby on the way and a tour that hits Kent this week. Jo Roberts reports.

Some people are never satisfied – and they’re often also the most successful.

An Example (see what I did there?) who seems to fit this mould is in-demand music producer Elliot Gleave, who is behind the chart dance anthems Won’t Go Quietly, Kickstarts, Changed the Way You Kiss Me and Stay Awake.

During an interview about his gigs at Kent’s biggest music venues, the 32-year-old Londoner – whose stage name arose from his initials EG – was telling us in the same breath of his ambitions in the world of acting.

Oh, and he’s got his first baby due with his supermodel wife – yes, a bona fide former Miss Universe contestant for Australia – Erin McNaught.

So if you’re a ticket-holder to see Example at either Folkestone’s Leas Cliff Hall or Margate Winter Gardens this week then enjoy it, because it could be this ambitious young all-rounder’s last music tour for a while.

Who, or what, was your earliest musical influence?

“The first love of music was definitely from the parents. You don’t really have a decision on what music you listen to as a kid, so it was my mum and dad playing all their favourite stuff from the 1970s... and then your tastes are shaped when you get to school. For me it went from listening to the Kinks, the Rolling Stones and Barry White with my parents were listening to Wu Tang Clan, jungle music and Nirvana when I went to school.”

How come hip hop was your original direction when you were starting out in the music industry?

“It was mainly trying to fit in with what was hot at school. The main music culture was dominated by black music at my school in 1993, so that was why I started rapping, to fit in. It was a very different thing back then. Now everyone turns a blind eye to whether someone’s a white or a black rapper, but even in 1993 it wasn’t really a done thing – there was no Eminem, The Streets weren’t big in the UK so a lot’s changed in the last 20 years.”

What was driving you to push on with music as a career choice?

“Nothing! I didn’t want to do it as a career, I wanted to be an actor. I was releasing rap records in 2002/2003 almost as a joke, because I didn’t really take it seriously. A song got played on the radio and then my first hip hop album came out in 2007 but no one bought it. I almost gave up music completely, but then I had this epiphany: I realised that as much as I loved hip hop, it wasn’t really me as a genre. I enjoyed dance music a lot more and I decided I’m going to start singing now and I’m going to start making electronic music. I’ve never seen myself as a rapper or an MC.”

So which is the track when, looking back, you consider you really hit your stride?

“Well Kickstarts was probably the turning point in the career. That was the first moment where it’s like singing, rapping, and it’s a full-on club festival radio bang-up and that was when I kind of realised that is what I need to do. You have to find your lane as an artist, find the thing that you do well, and Kickstarts was that first moment.”

You moved lanes from the underground hip hop scene to the mainstream pop dance market – how do you categorise your music?

“I try to just get in the studio and make good music that I’d want to listen to or I think my fans would want to listen to. The song that felt like a game-changer was Stay Awake because there was a lot of rapping on it, there was a dub step element, it was a club song, a festival song. The chorus was very uplifting and worked well commercially: that song for me was kind of like the best of both worlds. It was a No1 hit and it was all over the radio, but at the time it was quite fresh and different and it didn’t feel cheesy in any way.”

Among the many things you’ve turned your hand to is stand-up comedy with Richard Herring as a one-off for BBC 2’s The Culture Show. How did the stand-up nerves compare to the live music nerves?

“There’s no nerves at all with music for me, whether I’m playing to 50 people or 50,000: it’s just what I do, it feels natural and easy. It’s not scary, it’s exciting, whereas when I did stand-up it was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done. Probably still the biggest buzz I’ve ever got was doing a stand-up gig to 500 people for 15 minutes.”

And what about the acting you’re moving into these days?

“I’ve just finished my first acting role last week in a film, it was pretty scary going into that as well. Acting’s now something I think I’m going to have a go at for a little while. That’s why I think this tour I’m about to do could well be my last tour for a very long time because I’ve now got my missus expecting our first child. Music-wise I may take a step back or at least not be as prolific as I once was, and there’s the draw to go and make films and act now.”

What have you got planned for the Kent gigs?

“We have all the effects involved in the arena shows and I’ll be performing a 90-minute set, so it will be all of the old hits and the classics, and some of the new stuff. But I won’t just get up and perform the new album – I know that a lot of people still want to hear all the old stuff. It’ll be the full spectrum!”

ACTING UP

Example has been filming his first serious acting role in recent weeks on location in Liverpool.

The Boy with a Thorn in His Side is a drama about a Scouse lad who goes in search of his fortune in London, with much of the story told through scenes in nightclubs.

The film stars an up-and-coming newcomer called Chris Mason as well as Example, Mark Womack (husband of EastEnders actress Samantha Womack) and Lucien Laviscount of Waterloo Road fame.

Producer Pete Gibbons has said: “It’s a love story, in essence, boy meets girl, boy loses girl. We were filming for the whole of October.”

Example is at Folkestone’s Leas Cliff Hall on Tuesday, November 4 at 7pm. Tickets cost £28.50. Visit www.atgtickets.com/folkestone or call 0844 8713015.