YORK musician Steve Roberts has two causes for celebration.

Hellraiza, his album with his Ze Suicideproject, is ready for release and he has just taken delivery of a platinum disc to complete a hat trick of special discs for his work on the drum kit for punk legends UK Subs.

Drummer Steve, who lives off Lord Mayor's Walk, was part of the original UK Subs line-up with Charlie Harper, Nicki Garrett and Alvin Gibbs. Last autumn they belatedly received gold discs - 12 years late - for the 500,000 sales of their albums Endangered Species and Diminished Responsibility. Now the platinum disc has arrived to mark UK Subs' contribution to Guns N' Roses 14 million-selling Spaghetti Incident record, which features the Subs' song Down On The Farm.

"Those 500,000 sales weren't bad but I wish I'd been in Guns N' Roses," says a joking Steve. "But there is one sadness in receiving the award now: my father died before seeing it.

"He was a musician too. He was a prominent pianist in York and he played in Ron Burnett's band - I remember playing my first gig with my father and Ron at the Corner Caf in Scarborough when I was 15."

Steve is now focusing his attention on his Hellraiza album, produced by Trevor Bolder, once part of David Bowie's Spiders From Mars band, who also contributes bass to the record. Steve plays all the other instruments and provides lead vocals too.

"We hope to release it in May or June, probably on BMG, but I don't think I would have had a look-in without the Subs' connection: I got a lot of help from a lot of people. I'm lucky but it's a damn shame that record labels are just not taking on new talent," says Steve, who has taken on the stage name of Stevie Ze Suicide.

"The name Ze Suicide came from my plans to do a Bowie tribute with Trevor Bolder. I was going to call it Ziggy Suicide, hence Ze Suicide," he says.

For the album, Steve is doing a video for each track, working with Chris Adams and his All Round Video Productions company based at Hessle. Six are in preparation, and the next one, for the track Bad Girls, is likely to be filmed by Frank Lee at his London studios.

"Frank did the UK Subs live video at The Marquee last year, and we're hoping that the Bad Girls video will be shown on MTV and the Kerrang! TV channel," Steve says.

Live shows for Ze Suicide are not imminent, more a case of wait and see. "With Ze Suicide, I'm not going to be able to take it on the road until the record is there to promote," says Steve. "I desperately want to get the right musicians but that's been difficult."

For more details, visit the website www.zesuicide.com

Updated: 09:24 Friday, April 18, 2003