I’m on a plane from Oslo to Monte Carlo. It’s the last few dates of the Bryan Ferry tour – no more gigs until the end of October, and I have to say that comes as a relief. The collective noun for a group of musicians should be a ’grumble’, and I am ashamed to say that I’ve been conforming to the stereotype recently. Not that I’m complaining – I am continually counting my blessings for being able to make a living out of music. The locations have become evermore luxurious (the last leg of the tour culminated in a few days off in the Algarve), but the gigs have, for me, become difficult purely because I’ve run out of ways to make it interesting for myself. And this is playing challenging, brilliant music. How the hell do people cope having to play for Girls Aloud all year? Luckily I had Chris Spedding to talk to and ask advice. He told me that even if you’re bored of the notes you’re playing, they are still good notes and the audience will enjoy it, so basically – act if necessary. Of course he’s right, and I’m always touched by his encouragement. But I don’t want to act – I want to be emotionally involved in every note I play, and recently there have been times when the music has contained about as much feeling as the buttocks of a man who has been set about at length with a carpet–beater. Maybe I’m just a spoilt brat. Anyway, last night was fun – a festival with hired equipment that didn’t work too well, my amp emitting a constant buzz that was louder than the guitar itself. This, along with a few glasses of wine, inspired reckless acts of abandon such as invading the viola player’s riser and dancing with the backing vocalists. I also, for once, came to the front of the stage for my solos – but that was because my amp sounded so awful that I just wanted to get away from it. At breakfast this morning Bryan came up to me and said “You were really great last night. Pissed, weren’t you?”

I had a wonderful few days in the studio, producing and writing with Iarla O’Lionaird for his next record. His singing is indescribably beautiful, and although at first its serenity seems utterly at odds with his frenetic, wildly enthused personality, I really think only someone who truly loves and enjoys life and other people as much as he does is capable of expressing such honesty and depth of feeling. His lyrics are all in Gaelic and some of them are taken from traditional Irish sources. One of the most interesting aspects of working with him is that he translates each section of the song for me, and describes how there need to be little touches in the music to reflect the meaning – a meaning which only a very few listeners will be able to understand.

In the meantime I had some legal issues to sort out with the new album, and did my first ’proper’ interview related to it, which can be found at rockfeedback.com