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matured over a period of in some cases, as long as 20 or 25 years. I'm much more comfortable, or I
have accepted my singing ability and voice now, and don't feel the need to hide it [chuckles].

BiTS: Well, I've only heard of, as I guess most people have really, ‘Come With Me’, the track that you
released last week or the week before, whenever it was, which I think is quite beautiful.

DA: Oh, thanks Ian. Well that's the first single. In actual fact that was the title track of my very first
solo album nearly 20 years ago.

BiTS: Okay, I didn't realise that.

DA: But also one of the other things is that the music industry has changed so much. Twenty years
ago, 25 years ago, I was starting out doing the solo thing, and I was running up and down the country
with my wife, and we were
busy, sometimes doing 250
shows a year. So we were really

all over the country and they
were small gigs, pub gigs, free
entry gigs, not ticketed, but the
strategy, my strategy with every
band that I've been in, with
every band that I've managed,
has been to absolutely throw as

much at the wall as you can for
the first year or two. Then use
that to build a mailing list to get
local and regional press, to get
local, regional, and maybe even

some national radio. Go into
radio and do some live sessions and interviews and basically use that. First couple of years of
absolutely ripping it up, not as an end in itself, but it's a means to an end in using all the things that
that's a catalyst for, to kind of help move on to the next stage, which I would say would be selling
more records, selling more merch, but also moving the gigs from being free entry shows, to ticketed
shows.

That's certainly been my strategy in every country, not just the UK but USA, Scandinavia, mainland
Europe and everywhere that I go because I don't feel it's right to inflict my music on people that just
happen to be in a place, in a pub, for instance, and they're out to chat with their pals and meet their
pals, and there's some lunatic from Glasgow in the corner shouting and stamping his feet. Much
better for me that the people that are at a gig are there because they actually know what they're
letting themselves in for [laughs].

BiTS: [Laughs] That's absolutely wonderful and I love the reference to the lunatic from Glasgow as
well. Absolutely terrific. So you've been working on this album, sort of working on it, for a number
of years. What made you decide to do it now?

DA: Certainly the songs, I mean, there's a couple of much newer songs. There's one, I’d almost say
is a brand-new song, the closing song on the album, ‘Younger Days’, has never actually been released
on a physical format at all.