Antony Millar, 30, an IT director for the CPL Training Group, in Wirral, explains why he spends his spare time playing drums in a band at gigs around Merseyside

MONDAY to Friday, I work full time as IT director, overseeing the IT network infrastructure for CPL, which is a training company in Birkenhead.

My role there is focused and technical, so by the time the weekend comes around I let my creative juices flow through music.

I’ve been part of our band, The Stines, since 2004 and play the drums.

There are four of us in the band and we have known each other since secondary school.

What started out as a teen band, playing in our bedrooms, turned into a 20-something one gaining momentum, to a now 30- something one that writes and records its own material and is gigging more and more.

We play every weekend at bars and clubs across both Liverpool and Wirral mostly playing covers, but squeezing in our own tracks when we can.

For the past 12 months, we have been producing our latest album which has been recorded and mixed in the CPL office thanks to our kind managing director, David Dasher.

The area downstairs has great acoustics and we can thrash out our tunes as loud as we like, far away from any complaining neighbours.

It’s coming along nicely now and we hope our masterpiece will be ready early this year.

When we first started the band, we wanted to take it up professionally and got close to being signed, winning the best unsigned act competition from Radio City.

Although we didn’t quite make it professionally, it’s our passion and love for music and playing live that drives us along, and the band is now just part of our lives.