Ten years ago, Tom Hingley's grainy, grandiose voice was all over the radio, as the Inspiral Carpets biggest hit, This Is How It Feels, made its glorious presence felt in the charts.
Alongside the Stone Roses, the Happy Mondays and The Charlatans, the Inspirals spearheaded the Madchester revolution, marrying indie guitars to lolloping dance-beats, in what was possibly the worst-named rock genre ever . . . Baggy.
Now, thankfully shorn of his infamous bowlcut hairdo, Tom's back with a debut solo album, Keep Britain Untidy, due out July 3 on his own label Newmemorabilia, and a lengthy tour of the UK, which has seen him clock up nearly 100 gigs since last summer.
His two shows here, Maddens in Antrim tomorrow, and Katy Dalys in Belfast on Sunday, (Tickets pounds 5), are billed as "An audience with Tom Hingley".
So, will the man who Noel Gallagher roadied for all those years ago, be fielding questions from the audience in the style of Dame Edna or Bob Monkhouse?
"I don't think I quite have Dame Edna's sense of style! I certainly don't have the haircut anymore - it's not quite as bouffant as it once was! It'll just be me, my acoustic guitar, some great songs and some chat.' 'Y'see, I think the era of massive bands playing huge outdoor events is over. I'm so bored of seeing centimetre-high groups off on the horizon. I'd much rather see a great little band in a small venue, where there's some sense of communication. There are so many outlets for music now - the internet, MTV, whatever, that live music needs to give you something you can't get elsewhere, that sense of being involved that giant gigs don't have.' 'Intimate acoustic shows, like I'm doing now, are where you really get to make a connection. Also, I think there's a head of steam building up for acoustic music. Even Craig David, when he was on Top Of The Pops recently at number one with Fill Me In, did a live acoustic version of the song.'
Do you feel that you're following in the footsteps of people like David Gray, who have successfully released their own records?
"No, not really. I don't look at what other artists are up to, in terms of what I do. I've always had my own style, and I really try to avoid listening to what other contemporary acoustic musicians are doing. I don't want to be influenced that way.' 'Even back in the Inspirals we never had any heroes. We were very much ourselves. We never did the obvious thing, and we were intelligent, which is perhaps why we remained more of a cult band than a hugely successful one.'
Do you not find that people are put off when they hear that you're an 'acoustic artist' now? There always seems to be some kind of terribly 'worthy' stigma attached to that . . .
"Yeah, I know what you mean, but there's a lot of diversity within this field. Some people will automatically turn off when you say that you're doing acoustic stuff - but if you remind them that, say, Bob Marley's Redemption Song, is all acoustic, then they kinda go, oh yeah... that's alright then!"
How has your music changed since the Inspirals?
"My singing on this record is probably the best I've done. There's more room for the voice when there's so little instrumentation. The Inspirals were basically a garage-band and singing over the top of that amount of noise takes you to be a good singer. Now, I've got the space to prove it. I suppose there is a bit of a Scott Walkerish feel to the new stuff. You see, I've been singing since I was ten, in church, and this is something I've always wanted to do. I just rely on myself. There's no-one to let down or be let down by. It's just me and my songs and I can carry it off pretty well."
Recent years have seen a seemingly inexhaustible supply of great new American bands reaching these shores - Mercury Rev, Lambchop, Sparklehorse, The Handsome Family and more . . . Latest twig on this American family tree are kooky Californian quintet Grandaddy. Combining phenomenal songs with a lo-fi production, based-around electronic components and dead household appliances, dumped along country roads, their new album, The Sophtware Slump, shows all the signs of becoming a contemporary classic, alongside Lambchop's Nixon and Sparklehorse's Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot.
If impossibly beautiful songs about broken toasters and alcoholic robots will make you smile, then don't put off visiting Grandaddy at the Front Page next Friday. Tickets pounds 8.50.
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