That's all for today!
mrstein asks:
Do you still have Born in the USA as your ringtone? Do you like any of Bruce Springsteen’s more recent material?
To which carbonblacktest adds:
If anyone can watch Pay Me My Money Down in New Orleans and not love Bruce Springsteen by the end, then there is no hope for them. Joyous from start to finish.
Guardian contributor Does someone actually know that I had that as my ringtone?! I'm trying to remember if I did. I don't have it any more. Bruce's recent album is amazing, it's like something he's never done before. It's similar to some of his other albums, like Devils and Dust and Tom Joad and more acoustic and Americana-y than what he's typically been doing, but I was really lucky to see him in October, my birthday present from my wife was to see Bruce do a Q&A at the Hamyard Hotel in London, a screening of the film that accompanied Western Stars. It's a beautiful album and the film's even more beautiful. It's really reflective and sad and poignant. Even my wife was in tears. She's not a huge fan but she understands my love for Bruce - she was really touched. That was the last time I saw him. He was just amazing. I've met him several times but this was the most brilliant. You can just sense that he's getting older. He's still fit as a fiddle, he looks amazing at 70. But you can tell with the film, he's been pen about his mental health issues, and in his book, all the deep-rooted stuff, his relationship with his father. We only had about 10, 15 minutes chat, and I really wanted to perhaps offer some advice - not that I could - or ask him a few questions, like, have you tried this? Things I've learned in recent years. But that would be patronising to think I could help him! Yesterday, in fact, I heard that someone who works with him was hoping to get my new album to listen to - when I saw him in October he said he was looking forward to hearing it.
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hammockmagi asks:
What did you set out to achieve with the new album that you felt you hadn’t achieved with previous albums?
Guardian contributor I feel like my writing in the past has always had a spirtuality, a hopefulness, a romantic quality. Chris at Q magazine described this new album as being like romantic realism - not twee, reflectful or nostalgic. Theres a real grit to some of the things I'm writing about on this new album. Because I've expeirenced a lot of tough things in the last 7 years - breakup, giving up the booze, diabetes, Crohn's disease, the world gong crazy, worrying about my kids - it's a more focused version of what I've tried to achieve in the past. The lyrics, I'm proud of cos I feel I've articulated something that might be useful reminders of where we're at and what we can do to make this world different. There was a question about whether I would have changed much about the writing if coronavirus had happened whilst I was making the album - this album was finished last November and I feel fortunate that I was able to address some of the things that are going on in the world in this album. Perhaps on first listen it's not obvious I'm talking about these things. I think it's ultimately, hopefully a more focused version of me as a writer because of what I've experienced. Being humbled by a few knockbacks in life can do you the world of good, even though it's tough. It makes you realise what's important, and all of that's gone into this new album on a level that I wouldn't have been able to do before. I was trying to do that, and there were valiant attempts, but perhaps not as focused and rooted in reality. It was always me hoping things were better than they were. This is more direct - I know a bit more, I'm a bit older and wiser. I'm still ridiculously confused as well, if not more so. But what I do know is in my core now. I've learned to think from my head, my soul. That's another thing I've learned - re-evaluating who you are. We all need to do it, and particularly now, to stay sane and keep optimistic, you need to sort out who you are, yourself. Be aware of it more, be good to yourself and others, all of that has gone into this.
stuckinazoo asks:
You often used various aquatic imagery in your lyrics, as well as sound effects early on. Was this rooted to particular places on our waterways – eg holidays you took – that are important to you?
Guardian contributor Yeah, I suppose it is. Holidaying in England or the UK, which is something we did - Wales, Cornwall - being the island we are, I think it's seemed into a lot of my lyrical imagery, even on the new album, Apple Tree Boulevard is about this island we live on. Even being in Manchester we're only 30 miles from the coast. Nature in general, I'm always inside, even though I've got a nice house, I sit outside all day even when it's raining. I feel like my brain is connected to something better in the open air, and water adds to that, it's flowing and alive. It harks back to dossing around with your mates as a kid, daring each other to jump across streams. Going on adventures with a stick in your hand. Like This Country! It reminds me of growing up in a housing estate and getting into trouble. Finding a rope swing on a tree somewhere and spending hours messing about on streams. That freedom and connection to something real when you're little, it just stays with you. I'm more in love with nature the older I get, and climate change should be making us feel we need to be closer to it to understand and respect it and appreciate it more.
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gary19852 asks:
Whenever I try to write music, I have a voice that says, “This is a rubbish.” Do you ever suffer from self-consciousness when writing music and any tips to deal with it?
Guardian contributor Yeah, I think there's always a moment where you feel like that. You just have to have the courage to stick with it. I'm lucky because I've had success to draw from in the past. Making this new album, I had to trust my instincts cos it's worked before. You need a lucky break as well, and perhaps a few people who are good listeners - people who aren't sycophants. Most ideas are usually good, I find, but they don't necessarily translate into a good finished product. A spark can always be interesting - it's keeping that alive throughout the process of making an album that always gets tough. My early demos are always interesting, but they're not releasable, but the spirit of them is good. Don't lose heart with it.
DWFan1 asks:
What’s your favourite Pixar film?
Guardian contributor I've been watching Finding Nemo recently - I watched it first time around with my oldest son, my older two are 19 and 18 and now I've got a three-year-old, so I'm going back to films I saw with my older two. Some of it can be mind-numbing. Watching Mr Tumble on CBeebies again... Teletubbies... But when you get a great family film, it's alright - Finding Nemo's up there with the best.
What he did with Mark E Smith's false teeth
1stinvincibles asks:
Do you still have Mark E Smith’s false teeth?
Guardian contributor Oh, well - no. They were in the glovebox of the Audi 80 that I drove at the time. And I sold the car to a friend of mine. This is like, 20 years ago. I sold the car to Matt Norman, and he's a massive fan of the Fall - he's a music enthusiast generally, he worked in Vinyl Exchange in Manchester, he's a friend of Doves, he does their videos. I think Matt's got them still. I'm pretty sure he has. I've not seen them for a long time. I told the story of how I got them and ended up falling out with Mark E Smith. Bless him. That's how I met him - I was parked outside Night and Day on Oldham Street. Mark opens the door and gets in, thinking I'm a cab, and asks me to take him to Stockport. It was 1997, I'd just released my first EP or was about to - I was an unknown quantity to him.
I said, I'm not a cab but I'll take you. He was really drunk. He got out and fell over. He got back in, I took him to his mum's. The next day I was cleaning out the car and there was a set of teeth on the floor. It wasn't a whole set of teeth, like a bridge. So I phoned him up, I didn't wanna embarrass him, and he said don't worry about it, I've got loads of them. So I kept them.
In the car I had been playing Pet Sounds and he was like, what is this, I've never heard it, it's amazing - and he was going on about it like it was something he'd never heard. He said, can I have it? I said, if you record a song with me. So he took my number and called me up. I had to deal with the teeth incident first. He phoned me up and said they were going in the studio, so I met up with him, went around his house and played him some tapes of ideas I had. He was dead enthusiastic and loved it, I left the tape and he picked a song and we ended up recording it - a song called Calendar. That's not enough time to tell the whole story of how Mark works in the studio. Just swanning about, barking orders, telling everyone I was the boss. It was a classic Fall lineup as well, Carl on drums, Steve Hanley on bass, one of the classics. And he plonked me down and said, this is Damon, listen to him, then he went off and left us to it. They were looking at me like, who's this kid? I taught them the song, then I told Mark they weren't quite getting it right. HE said, I thought so - he didn't really know what the hell was going on. It was hilarious, it was chaos. Then they moved onto some other songs and I wondered what I should be doing. I left and went for a coffee. It was just so funny. When people ask if there was a moment you could go back to and relive it, that would be it - I'd love to go back. Even standing in Mark's kitchen in Prestwitch, before the session, he was making me a cup of tea. There was literally two mugs in the cupboard, one for him, one for a guest. Hardly and furniture in the house. Curtains were shut, TV on full blast. A piano that looked like it'd been recovered off a shipwreck. I remember later reading his book, Renegade, and he said, yeah, I only have enough furniture for me and a visitor. And it was like that. I was in awe of him but he was also really nice to me - he treated me like an equal. And that was what was shocking. He was giving me a break, a chance. My only regret is that we never worked together again cos I'd have loved to do something else with him.
If I write some memoirs some day, a whole chapter will be about working with Mark, which was as amazing as it was ridiculously strange. I told that story years ago in Q magazine, and I was naive to the game of doing interviews, and wasn't even sure it was gonna get printed. So Mark E Smith was understandably a bit upset by me telling it. It took us a while to make amends - I said, I'm really sorry, I've got nothing but respect for you. Thankfully we did make it up, sooner or later. Sadly he passed away. He was an absolute legend.
Read the final interview Mark E Smith gave, in late 2017.
Simother asls:
How did you look at older musicians when you started making music? Personally I find that not a lot has really changed when I got older. What is your experience of ageing and has that changed the way you now look at older musicians?
Guardian contributor Age is a funny experience altogether isn't it. Now that I'm 50, I feel much closer to the generation of people who are in their 70s than I did when I was 30 and they were 50. If I look at Dylan in his mid-70s now, Jagger, Springsteen's just turned 70 - when you're 30 and they're 50, that seems like a bigger leap. That's the crazy thing about age, time does bend as life goes on. We all know what it feels like to be waiting for Christmas as a kid - it's never gonna come, and when you're an adult, you can't believe it's six weeks til Christmas. It's something I find fascinating but I can't let it worry me too much. I'm really happy to be 50 and being in a better place in my mind than I have for my whole career, regardless of success - my perspective on life is different. You just want happiness, the older you get. I wanted to change the world, take over the world, play stadiums when I was starting out. Now I'm happy to play the odd amazing show here and there, hope the music gets listened to, be happy for my family - I want more for my kids now than anything else. Especially now - if my kids are happy and I can see a future for them, and they can see one for themselves, that's all I can think about. The music's something I'm grateful to have as a companion for me, it gives me something to do and think about.
garythenotrashcougar asks:
The video for Once Around the Block was brilliant. Who came up with the idea for basing it on an obscure true story like that, and why?
Guardian contributor Susie Ewing did the video for Once Around the Block, a lovely young lady. Like with all videos for songs, you get sent several pitches unless you've got an idea yourself. I was sent the pitch and it was an interesting idea to have a sub-story. It was Susie - she'd seen a documentary about a couple that were locked together with their braces and caused a traffic jam, they were kissing. She told me this idea and I liked the quirkiness of it. And the fact that it didn't really have a great deal to do with the song, it was like a sub-plot - it just seemed interesting. It's a talking point - that's the thing with videos, trying to find a talking point. That's one of my early videos.
Watch the video for Once Around the Block
SuzieBadgirl asks:
I met my husband on the D floor in Holy City Zoo [in Birmingham]. Is it true you met your wife there as well? God it was mint in there!
Guardian contributor I met my ex in there, and we were never married, so I have to be accurate here. Clare, the mother of my older two kids - we broke up in 2012 after 14 years - we met in Holy City Zoo. My wife, who I'm with now, we met in Black Dog Ballroom - BDB! - which is under Affleck's Palace in town. Two quite colourful names.
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'I was so busy in my 30s, I thought I'd take my next decade off'
AnthonyParson14 asks:
After 20 years making music, how do you find the hunger and drive to stay innovative and fresh?
Guardian contributor Well apart from just having eight years off... I keep joking that I was so busy in my 30s, I thought I'd just take my next decade off, and I'm back here at 50 again. That wasn't the plan. I've never stopped writing songs, even though I've not had a new album out until this week. I've always kept writing cos it's something I have to do - stockpiling ideas, keeping myself ticking. So the hunger and drive thing, it's like - thankfully that's one thing that's always intact. It gives me purpose beyond what I thought I would ever be able to do, so I'm always respectful of having a guitar in the room and a piano, which I've got here in my kitchen, that I can walk over and play a few chords that might be the beginnings of a new song. That's all I need, really. That's the beauty, the simplicity of the equation of being a writer, for me - put your hands on the piano, make up a chord and if it evokes something, you might have the beginnings of another new song. That distinct possibility makes me really excited - it's making me wanna go to the piano now and see what's there to be found. The motivation never comes from, what can I get out of this? Will I make a fortune if I write a great song? It's just the fact that I can write a song that will be listened to and cherished by someone else, is the main motivation. Making music that might change someone's mood and cheer them up, make them feel a bit more at ease with themselves. If I'm not feeling so great, I'll put on an upbeat song like Jackie Wilson, Higher and Higher, and it'll make me forget what I'm worrying about.
AnthonyParson14 asks:
Since you first established yourself the music industry has changed drastically and to remain sustainable is more and more difficult. Are there any positives in this change?
Guardian contributor I think there's as many positives as negatives and that's what you have to focus on in any aspect of life. Technology changes all industries and you have to move with it. As hard as I've found it, I've enjoyed doing livestreams during lockdown. I've had to learn to use my studio a bit more to send people audio from my end when I've done interviews. It's a challenge but it's enjoyable. The plus side of all digital aspects of music - the immediacy is great. Being able to find a song you wanted to hear, the accessibility. There's loads of nice things about it. The touring aspect of things is a tricky one to discuss here, cos it's really labour-intensive - the crew, the band, the cost of it. I hope that comes back for the livelihoods of people who work on gigs and festivals, but maybe there's a balance of online stuff with that. I love doing special gigs. The Roundhouse in January was a standout gig recently. It's different when you to a standalone show as opposed to a string of dates - it gets tough being away on the road and keeping yourself together for long periods of time. Three months of not being able to do a real show is really making me want to do it. You can't replace real people in a room together. It's a brilliant experience for everyone. Not just music - we need to see people to feel there's a value in this existence that we all have. If it remained like this for long, long periods of time, years of seeing each other on a screen, it takes something out of your soul. As we're talking about music, yeah, I think if the two can work together, I'm finding out I can do things that I didn't realise, like livestreams on Instagram, Facebook etc that I've been doing. It's a bit daunting at first but it's quite similar to doing a real show - you can sense people are there cos they're commenting. It's quite fascinating that it can feel real. AI is another aspect of this which is scary - where that could lead to in different walks of life. Deepfakes, that Tom Cruise clip - that's pretty scary stuff in the wrong hands. I think that's the thing about technology, in the wrong hands, it can be scary what technology achieves. In the right hands, technology is amazing, wonderful when it's used for goodness. There's always that dark side looming of what other people can do. That speaks for all technologies and walks of life, different job aspects. It can be equally bad as good. Again, seeking out the good is what we have to do if we can.
SteevoA asks:
I understand that you’re a MASSIVE Bruce Springsteen fan, and that he inspired you all those years ago. I recall picking up a copy of a music magazine (Uncut) way back in 2003, and on the front of the magazine was a Bruce Springsteen covers album, of which you contributed a fantastic version of Thunder Road, probably, in my opinion, the best cover of the tune that I’ve ever heard.
How did this come about, and has Bruce ever heard it?
Guardian contributor Oh, nice. Shaun was my bass player at the time, he had a flat in Salford where we recorded it. Uncut had asked me to record it, so that's how it came about. It's my favourite song of all time, it changed my life when I was 14, I was nervous about recording it, to do it justice, so I was really late delivering the finished version.
I have a feeling Bruce did hear it because around that time, I got a lot of nice feedback about the version, cos I suppose it's a really honest version - it's stripped back, I based it on versions of bootlegs of Springsteen's that I'd heard when I was a young fan in the hope that Bruce would recognise that I'd gone to that trouble, and I have a feeling he heard it because around that time, he played a gig in Manchester and I went to see him, and he dedicated Thunder Road not to me, but to my little boy, Oscar. We met Bruce before the show. I was with my ex at the time, and Clare said, we had a little boy and we named him Oscar Bruce, and Bruce chuckled at this, and then when he played Thunder Road, he said, "I'm sending this one special to Oscar Bruce". I don't know how otherwise he would have known that was the choice of song. It broke my heart, I got a bootleg of that gig and I still have it. Oscar was 18 in March, and he loves it. It's my favourite ever song dedicated to my son. I played Thunder Road at Carnegie Hall when Bruce was in the audience, at a Springsteen tribute night with Patti Smith, the Bacon brothers, Ronnie Spector, Steve Earke. I was the only British artist on the bill. I sang Rosalita with Bruce onstage at the end. A friend of his cotnacted me, he said, he might not have said, but he loved your version of Thunder Road, so that was amazing.
Best career move
McScootikins asks:
Apart from “turning Madonna down”, what do you class as the best move in your career? Do you suffer from any contemporary backaches you can put down to all that piggybacking in Disillusion’s music video?
Guardian contributor I'm aching everywhere so maybe that video has come back to haunt me.
There isn't really any specific best move, it's just sticking to who you are and what's real. Only making music that is authentic to who you are, that's the only thing you can ever stick to and hope that keeps other people's interest in what you're doing. I've made more bad moves than good ones, probably. Taking some time off as well has been good, to make me re-evaluate and appreciate my ability to make music. Although I didn't plan to have this time off, it's just life circumstances caused it.
JamieTee asks:
Your image – in particular, your trademark hat, but also your supposedly volatile reputation – seemed to make up a large part of how you were written about in the press and therefore how you were perceived during the height of your fame. How do you feel about that? Did it frustrate you? Or did you, in part, cultivate this, knowing that public image is an integral part of pop success?
Thanks for the music. Seeing you live always brings a smile to my face. I hope we’ll all be able to experience that feeling again.
Guardian contributor These types of incidents that have occurred now and again in my career are usually as a result of me being brave enough to be honest onstage and announce that something's upsetting me or address an audience member, whatever it is. It's certainly never something that's predetermined or cultivated. I just react in the moment to things in life in general. I'm thankfully much calmer these days. It's a shame that incidents that are controversial just overshadow all the great gigs that you do, it's the way the world is - headlines are made by something that goes a bit awry, and they're longer lasting. I had a gig in LA, a gig in Northampton - even two bad gigs is enough to sustain years of bad headlines. I'm not a bad guy, I'm reacting in the moments and sometimes it's tough onstage. I regret those moments but I have to move on as well. Certainly stopping the booze five years ago now has changed my life in loads of different ways.
I still find gigs tough, even sober, but I have a mechanism for not letting things get to me - I don't know what it is... I still experience the same problems on stage that used to get me annoyed - things just not feeling right or sounding right, wanting the ground to swallow you up when you're onstage because the gig isn't feeling good. Even when I do a great gig I don't particularly enjoy the process, but I just get on with it. Because I'm prepared to talk about these issues - I'm only being honest - and that sometimes isn't the best policy in certain circumstances. You're expected to be a performing puppet at times, but I refuse to be that, and if an audience member reacts, I'll have a conversation with them and that can turn sour. I don't do that any more - maybe I'm more professional. I'm calmer than I used to be.
This break from the public eye has done me good. It's not healthy, for a start, especially when you're someone like me who doesn't believe in fame and what that means. I see myself as an audience member still and I end up on the stage. I'm good at doing gigs. I still don't believe in what I do when I do it, I just have to trust that other people do and get on with it the best I can. Sometimes the reality hits when you're on stage. I played two gigs at the Troubadour, one was great, one was a disaster, and it was like playing in two different worlds. It annoyed me that much and I said so, then I got people shouting at me onstage so I walked off. I'm human so I reserve the right to remain human and give people their money back if they're not happy.
VladimirGookov asks:
Have you ever written songs in your sleep?
Guardian contributor Yeah, that's an interesting one, definitely. Even from being younger, there was a piece of music in a sequence in one of my dreams. One of those times when you wake up in time to remember what you were dreaming. There was this piece of music that was so amazing and I wanted to know what it was. I had no way of writing it down or saving it, as it were. I couldn't even play guitar or piano at the time - it was before my songwriting days. I was probably middle teens, 15 or something, and I remember this piece of music astounding me when I woke up. I think we all dream stuff like that without even knowing it - when you wake up and try and recollect a dream. Some you remember more than others. We all have music in our dreams, and I'm pretty sure that it's usually music that the dreamer has made up, even if you're not a songwriter. I maintain that anybody can write music, they just don't know it - your brain is constantly thinking of musical ideas in dreams without you realising it. The reason I say anyone can write a song is because there was a time in my life when I didn't know I could until I tried, and if I'd become as successful as a footballer, which was one of my dreams as a kid, I wouldn't have pursued the music and would never have known that I could even do it. Music, it's part of the makeup of the human spirit, I think, which is why it means a lot to people - I think we're all capable of it.
On the About a Boy soundtrack
marthamuffin asks:
What was your process for writing the songs in About a Boy?
Guardian contributor I tried to read the script but found it tricky to get a handle on things, so I opted to read Nick Hornby's book, which was much more informative for me as a writer. And I think that was the right way of going about it cos it got me under the skin of the storyline. That was the initial part. Then I went to LA to meet the directors, the Weitz brothers, so they showed me a rough cut of the film and we made notes on where music was gonna be needed in the film. It was a long rough cut, probably two hours before they'd edited it. I think there was about 80 scenes, 80 pieces of music at that point that were required. It was like - if I had a song already, we worked out ways that that could be made into score, like variations on theme, and then it got to the point where I'd just send them three different ideas for every scene so they could pick the one they liked. It was labour-intensive, there was quite a lot of music made that wasn't used. Certain songs would never have come to be - River, Sea Ocean in particular, that purely came about because they needed an uptempo idea for a scene, so I sped up the chord progression I had from one scene and hummed a melody, and the song was born from that, and it's one of my favourite ever songs of mine. It was rewarding, for that. The song, A Minor Incident - the directors, to illustrate what they wanted, they had a Bob Dylan song in that scene, Don't Thing Twice, It's Alright, one of my favourite Dylan songs, so I took that approach to write a song, and I used the mother's suicide note from the book as the lyric, to marry a song that was Dylanesque. It gave me a song in my catalogue that I wouldn't otherwise have thought of, so that's why soundtracks are such a great thing for the writer, you get bonus songs out of it.
Updated
Bigmell asks:
Did you used to go to Jazzy Kex in Blackburn in the old days?
Guardian contributor Yeah, it was a nightclub in Blackburn in the early 90s. For a while I went every Friday night, it was the place to go. I was probably 21, 1991 roughly. It was just really great music - really varied, a lot of hip-hop, crossover jazz hip-hop and indie. I remember, the one thing that sticks in my mind from it, the last song of the night every Friday would be the same song. You knew it was the end of the night and you knew you hadn't pulled again. If you were on the pull - and I tended to be cos I was single - the last song was by Ray Barretto, it's one of my favourite pieces of music to this day, Love Beads. It's an instrumental, it's such an uplifting piece of music, so it takes me back to Jazzy Kex every time I hear it.
daveygravey asks:
Saw you in a pub in Bristol once (possibly the Ram) and pointed you out to my wife, who had no idea who you were. I then sang the “I’ve been dreaming of the things” from About a Boy – you kind of threw your arms up in the air to this and looked REALLY pissed off. I apologise for this, but do you hate (or have you hated) About a Boy?
Guardian contributor No, I never really hated it. I had my concerns when I was working on the project - whether it was a cool move. The film 24 Hour Party People was out at the time and I felt like I was betraying my Manchester roots by doing a Hollywood movie. But thankfully it all went well and was well received. It was on TV the other night and I watched it for the first time in a long time. It's a refreshingly feel-good film and I've never felt bad or regretted it. It was good fortune to be asked to do such a big project early in my career. The subject was dead inspiring to write for - Hugh Grant's character being vacuous and the boy trying to grow and be older than his years. I write about relationships anyway, so it was just extending it - it expanded my knowledge of writing songs. It taught me a lot of good lessons. The way the character divides his day into half-hour slots feels relevant now.
evokoder asks:
Congratulations on the new album – can’t wait to hear it in full. Signed vinyl and CD are on their way to me in Cape Town.
Thanks for being so honest and open about your life in recent years. Have you picked up any new hobbies since giving up the booze?
Guardian contributor Err... I can't think of any! I've got a three-year-old now, so doing that and music is enough to fill my time up. Have I got any hobbies? I've gone back to doing some drawing and I need to get back to it - I had a wave of doing it. That was my best subject in school, art, before I discovered music was something I can do. I've just got an iPad with a pen do try out some iPad art.
And we're live …
Damon Gough, AKA Badly Drawn Boy, is joining us live. Follow along here.
Post your questions for Badly Drawn Boy
Emerging, bobble-hatted, at the end of the 90s when Britpop had waned and British music wasn’t really sure where to turn, Damon Gough was a reminder to just be yourself. As Badly Drawn Boy, he made his own skewed version of guitar-pop, happily distracted by folk, soul, psychedelia and more – his debut album The Hour of Bewilderbeast won the Mercury prize, and he went on to record a popular soundtrack for the Hugh Grant movie About a Boy.
He steadily released six more studio albums but has been quiet since 2012’s soundtrack to Robert De Niro and Julianne Moore’s film flop, Being Flynn. But this month sees him return, releasing new album Banana Skin Shoes: an ambitious, widescreen and frequently quite funky pop record.
To mark its arrival, Gough is joining us to answer your questions about it and anything in his career in a live webchat 1-2pm BST on Wednesday 20 May – post them in the comments below.
Thanks a lot for anyone that took the time to be here and ask some great questions. Sorry we've not answered them all! Thanks to anyone that's been looking forward to the new album, I appreciate that too.