MOST kids dream of being an actor or a rock star, but Steven Valentine gets to do both after landing a lead role in Disney’s smash hit series I’m in the Band.

Steven, 44, who grew up in Southend, plays frontman Derek Jupiter in ageing Eighties rock outfit Iron Weasel.

The band’s new guitarist, 15-year-old Tripp Cambell, is determined to stage a big comeback for his favourite band.

The show’s second series airs on Monday, with Steven taking to the screen as the middle-aged star.

“I didn’t think we could go further than we did in the first season,” Steven says. “It just got crazier and crazier.

“You’d come into the studio and they would go, ‘Steven, how do you feel about being hung upside down from the ceiling for a few minutes’? ”

But there was no question of whether he would return to the role.

He fell in love with the show as soon as he was sent the script.

He says: “There was a line in the original where Derek said ‘Friendship is like peeing on yourself, everyone can see it, but only you get to feel the warmth’, and I thought it was so funny.”

Steven was born in Scotland and moved to Southend aged five, when his dad took a job working for Lloyds Shipping in London.

“We lived by the seaside and it was rather lovely,” he says.

“I went to Heycroft Primary School in Leigh and then Eastwood High School for Boys.

“Eastwood didn’t really have a drama programme, which was frustrating for me.

“But I dropped by the school recently and now it is specialising in sports and drama – which is ironic.”

Steven, who was a budding magician and actor, was a member of the Southend Sorcerer’s Society and regularly performed at the Cliffs Pavilion with the Little Theatre Club.

However, his love for magic became a problem when he moved to LA – and found he couldn’t be taken seriously as an actor while working as a magician.

But Disney was delighted when it discovered his talent and ended up writing it into Derek’s character, with Steven regularly performing magic tricks.

The show is set in America and Steven is currently based in Los Angeles, watched by millions of people all over the world.

It’s not just being in front of the camera that interests Steven – he’s written a series he has sold to a network and is hoping they’ll agree to run it.

Set in 1920s England and America, it follows the true life friendship between Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and magician Harry Houdini, as they teamed up to investigate the supernatural.

Steven says there is one Southend individual who inspired him to continue with his acting dream – Alexander Bridge, who ran the Proscenium Arch Theatre Company.

“He was encouraging and inspirational,” says Steven. “As a kid that is really important.”

I’m in the Band airs on Disney XD at 4.30pm on Mondays, with new episodes shown on Monday to Wednesday, at 4.30