Paul Carrack plays The Rye International Jazz & Blues Festival

It comes out on September 17 and Paul is certainly pleased with the results.

In creating it from his home studio base as often before, Paul not only wrote, played and recorded the whole thing, but this time, he even mixed the album himself.

“It’s a way of working and it is not that unusual for me. I have done quite a lot of work like that in the past though perhaps not quite so rigorously. But I am a jack of all trades. I like to play a bit of everything. That’s usually how I make my own demo records. It’s how I write. I very, very rarely just sit down and come up with a melody and lyrics just like that. I just usually start with a small idea and play with it.”

Some musicians admit they struggled to write during the lockdowns. Not Paul.

“I didn’t have a problem at all. Initially I was quite anxious. And people were saying why don’t you livestream and record yourself on your phone in your kitchen, but really I didn’t have the heart for that. That’s not what it is about. I can understand why people wanted to do that and that is probably because they are a lot more fun than I am!

“But actually we had a whole year of touring lined up, and I was expecting us to be shut down only for a couple of months, so we rescheduled dates and so I was just going into the studio to keep myself ticking over so that I was going to be ready. But it became apparent that that wasn’t going to be the case. So I just started writing a few things since I was still in live mode and it has actually come out in an upbeat mode. It is not all introspective moaning. It is positive and optimistic.”

Paul believes the actual pandemic situation has filtered through.

“But it is all subconscious really. I never sit down with a concept and think ‘Oh, I am going to write a song or an album about being in lockdown.’

“It doesn’t happen like that for me. I just improvise and mess around with ideas and sing stuff off the top of my head, and it just comes through that way.

“And I think the album is really good, and that’s unusual for me.

“I am not the kind to blow my own trumpet, but I think it is a really good honest album, and I think it sounds really good.

“I don’t know how commercial it is, but I don’t think that that is what I am aiming for these days. I think my time on mainstream radio in the UK has gone because of various agendas. I don’t tick too many of the boxes these days. I think I tick all the wrong ones!

“But I think it is a good album. I am proud of it, and that’s really all I am trying to do, come up with albums that I am proud of.

“It is not so much about how it is going to be received. I am a people-pleaser anyway. I want to please people. And I want people to like it, but if they don’t, they don’t. But I think it is a good piece of work.”

The Rye International Jazz & Blues Festival is on an outdoor stage on the beachside South Lawn of the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea from August 26-30.