Badly Drawn Boy webchat: your questions answered on Springsteen, About a Boy and writing in his slee

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.