"pop just passed me by almost until I joined the Style Council", admits Steve White, without a trace of embarrassment. "I was given the gig with the Style Council on my merits as a jazz drummer. It was only through being able to do a basic swing rhythm on a cymbal that I got the gig, so my introduction to pop came pretty much when I joined the Style Council."

Steve White is still comfortably under 25 years of age. Yet he's not only managed to find the time to spend five years in the Style Council, run his own band - the Jazz Renegades - with saxophonist Alan Barnes, and work as current sticksman with the James Taylor Quartet, but in the process he has become recognised as one of the country's finest drummers, in any style. Not unexpectedly, his interest in all things percussive began at an early age.

"I started showing an interest in drums when I was about six or seven... When I was about 10 or 11 my dad bought me a drum set which had a blue tom and a red tom, and a big cymbal and little cymbal, and in some ways I wish I'd stayed with that kind of concept. Simplicity!

"I spent the entire formative years of my school days playing drums. I wasn't particularly interested in anything other than drumming - and as a consequence my education probably suffered. But there was nothing that I was prepared to do to make things right: I wanted to play drums and that was it!"

And if the majority of pop (with, he admits, the exception of Madness) had passed Steve by, that didn't mean he wasn't listening to music. He spent his early teens enjoying the big bands of Glenn Miller and Duke Ellington, but the turning point in his musical development came when his father took him to Ronnie Scott's to see Louis Bellson.

"It was the most incredible experience that I'd ever had of a drummer", recalls Steve. "When I actually went backstage to get to meet him, I said to him: 'how much do you practise?' He said: 'I used to practise eight hours a day'. That was it for me. If that's what you had to do, then that's what I would do. And from then on, that's the volume of practice that I really started to do.

"I was lucky enough that my dad said to me 'if you want to go and see a drummer, let's go and see this guy Louis Bellson' - a jazz drummer! It could have been Cozy Powell, but it wasn't, it was Louis Bellson, and that was the strongest influence that I had at that time. He shaped the whole direction that I went in."

If Louis Bellson shaped Steve's musical direction, then working with the Style Council must have been a major life influence.

"The Style Council was a fantastic experience. It was absolutely brilliant because it was one of the only bands that maintained a level of credibility, was actually trying to do something different, and produced some really great records which I'm very, very proud of."

Joining TSC just before his 18th birthday, Steve managed to exert an influence on the band well beyond his years, and that helped him progress from the "honorary councillor" recruited by the Weller/Talbot Style Council duo to becoming a fully fledged and credited member of the band. Paul Weller has never been shy to admit White's influence on the Style Council.

"NO DISRESPECT TO RICK ASTLEY, BUT I'M NOT INTERESTED IN PLAYING SOMETHING FOR THE MONEY. IF IT COMES DOWN TO MONEY, I THINK I COULD MAKE A LOT MORE DEALING IN PROPERTY."

"At the time that I met Paul, he was formulating an interest in jazz. He was interested in bringing more of a jazz element into the Style Council. I'm a great believer in spontaneity. The direction the Style Council took on 'Cafe Bleu' was very much along an improvised jazz line. The album was recorded very quickly, but it was how it should have been done; we just went in and stuck it down and that's why I think it sounds so good."

Still, the Style Council remains very much the brainchild of other people, and there's nothing like working with your own project. Thus, the Jazz Renegades is obviously an undertaking White values deeply. But despite major record-label interest, and a sizeable reputation, the Renegades are still recording through an independent deal - currently with the highly fashionable Acid Jazz label. Why have the big corporate guns been shy to take up the challenge? Why aren't the Jazz Renegades major recording artistes?

"It's very difficult for a band that base their entire philosophy on 'no compromise'", insists White. "We're not prepared to compromise for an A&R man who we feel has got nothing to contribute to our music."

With his time now split between the Jazz Renegades and the James Taylor Quartet, it seems Steve is content just to play the kind of music that pleases him. Does he ever see a time when he may get involved in another major league pop band?

"Nothing's out of the question", he asserts, "it just depends on what comes my way. A lot of my friends and contemporaries in London seem to be chasing tours; at the moment everyone is trying to get the Rick Astley gig - I'm not interested in that. No disrespect to Rick Astley, but I'm not interested in playing something for the money. If it comes down to money, I think I could make a lot more money dealing in property or something like that. I do drumming because I love it passionately, and because almost every waking moment I have, I'm thinking about drumming, percussion and music...

"That's not to say that if a band - where I thought I had a great opportunity to play - came my way, I wouldn't do it. But there aren't that many around at the moment. I've got ambitions to play with certain people - I'd really like to work with Peter Gabriel."

Regardless of his ambition to broaden his range of musical experience, jazz has still been the dominant force in Steve's life. With so many career aims sewn up so early, does he ever worry he might end up as one of those 35-year-old jazz musicians playing 20-minute improvisations in a seedy London pub?

"No!" he says with a frightening degree of certainty. "I don't think I'll be living in this country when I'm 35 because I think this country has one of the most stifling environments for creativity, especially from the mainstream record industry... I think I might be in an Italian wine-bar playing 35-minute numbers - but not in a London pub."

Here's to 'La Dolce Vita' then, Steve.