Let’s hear it for the Boy

Mercury Music Prize winner is back with a new album after overcoming his personal battles

IT’S been a decade since Badly Drawn Boy released a studio album, and eight years since he put out the soundtrack to Robert De Niro movie Being Flynn.

The 50-year-old from Bolton, born Damon Gough, has a good excuse for this.

He split up with his partner of 15 years and the mother of his two oldest kids. And he battled depression, drink and Crohn’s disease.

But the singer with the trademark woolly hat has got through it. After meeting his new partner, he went to rehab in 2015 and had another child, a boy who is now three.

Clean and happy, Damon, whose 2000 debut album The Hour of Bewilderbeast won the Mercury Music Prize, is back with a new album, Banana Skin Shoes.

You’ve been through a lot but can you believe it’s been a decade since your last LP?

I hate saying it’s been 10 years because it just sounds like: how lazy have I been? But I don’t mind talking about the truth in all this, because it’s deeply relevant.

Boozing became a habitual thing in the periods of time I’ve been making albums, touring, the last 20 years… I tended to work at night – after midnight, really. That’s when I thought I got my best work done – you’re well into a few rounds of drink and just relaxed. And it worked.

Until it didn’t work. After your stint in rehab, your second marriage and the birth of your son, why did you feel the time was right for a new album?

I’ve had to grow up a lot. I want to reconnect and sing again. It can sound corny, all this stuff, but I’ve genuinely made an effort to look at myself, fix the things that were wrong.

Tell us about Banana Skin Shoes?

I do think it’s the poppiest record I’ve made. But within that frame of pop, I want to say a few things, and try to subtly be a conscience for people who might think like me, whether you call it your fanbase, people who are like-minded, Remoaners or whatever…

There is the music fans will love but there’s also hip-hop, prog rock and even Motown. It isn’t a cohesive sound as such?

I realise people consume music differently these days, so I didn’t worry about whether all these songs fitted together sonically like I’ve done before.

I picked the ones that told some kind of story, so it’s ended up different to most of my other albums, almost like a playlist of my best writing from the last few years.

Lyrically, songs like I’m Not Sure What It Is and its lyrics, “I’m tired of climbing ladders/Just to slip down all the snakes”, sound like you are giving yourself a gentle reminder?

It’s poking fun at me and my failings. I’ve been having therapy to change my patterns of behaviour.

Some days I can’t cope with the world. I’m trying to articulate this stuff but it drives me mad. So I’m trying to make this less of a struggle for myself. I don’t want to be a struggling tortured artist any more. I want to enjoy this.

What have you learned from your personal life and writing this album?

Everybody has a duty as a human being, especially in these times, to just bring something good to the table.

That idea is in the chorus of I Need Someone To Trust: “Bring it back, make it whole.” That’s what I’m trying to get across on this album. This is my attempt.

●Banana Skin Shoes is out now.