Originally, I thought I’d just make a ‘best of’ album. That seemed like a good idea. Just record my ten best songs. So I started whittling down a random collection of around 30 ditties, trying to decide which ones were the best. That took a while. I had to be brutal. I had to kill my darlings, and I didn’t want to let them go–not like that.

But in a way, I found that I did want to be free of them, all those surplus songs. They would whisper - ‘What about me? Get me recorded… tell my story…’ – and I was tired of their ceaseless bleatings.

So I scrapped my ‘best of’ idea. I went back and resurrected some of my poor, murdered darlings - songs half-finished, songs with no name. I bid them welcome with arms outstretched, as they rose from their shallow graves and clambered back towards me like the horrible ghouls they surely were.

I made them all sit round a table, in some semblance of an order, and with the help of my friend Mike Wilton, we duly set about tarting them up, making them presentable to the outside world, as they croaked and groaned and shifted about.

Some wanted eyes to weep and remember the good old days, so we gave them eyes. Some wanted teeth, to bite, so we gave them teeth. Others just wanted to party and fool about and not mix with the others — we shot those ones in the head and promptly buried them again.

And when we were done, Dr Wilton and I, the album was an altogether different beast, for better or worse. I hadn’t planned on making a ‘concept album’, but that seemed to be what had happened.

Bonfire Music tells the story of a boy, so desperate in his quest for adulthood that he ventures to the dark heart of a forest, where he means to take all the songs and stories of his young life and set them alight on a bonfire. On the one hand it’s a cautionary tale, but on the other it’s a celebration of independence, of growing up, of saying bollocks to everything and everyone and just going off and doing your own thing.

Making this album was many things, but mainly, it was a pain in the arse—make no mistake. It wasn’t meant to be, but it was, and I was glad when it was finally over. It took me 15 years to write those songs and two years to record them, and there were times when I thought I’d never get there.

At the end of the album, the boy in my story mocks the bonfire he has created – his own collection of ‘painful little stories’. He mocks the rainclouds, the twinkling stars, and all the nightmares that threatened to gobble him up in the long dark hours he spent alone in the forest. ‘Hell no, I’m not coming back,’ he says.

I rather like that ending. My boy has had a rough night for sure, but he emerges victorious, if not slightly crazed. But I don’t mind that either; if he leaves the forest with a somewhat skewed perspective on life, that’s ok. He didn’t try to weasel out of dealing with his shit, and I like that. He discovers he is selfish, and is unconcerned with the outside world – unconcerned with bringing anyone any kind of “message”. And I like that too.

My approach to songwriting has changed a lot since making this album. I think the slash-and-burn metaphor of the bonfire served its purpose just fine at the time, but that’s not a sustainable way to make music, or indeed, to live. Nowadays, I recognise the need to absorb stuff, rather than incinerate it.

Life isn’t like a bonfire, not really. I prefer to think of it like some great, bubbling cauldron; from the minute we're born, stuff just gets thrown in – some of it good, some of it bad, some we have control over, and some we don’t. Sometimes nothing happens, and all you get is tasteless broth. But sometimes things stick, and bind with each other, and one day you dip your hand in and pull out something you didn't expect.