7 QUESTIONS; Former Pulp man Richard Hawley on how a little local history - and a musical saw - inspired his latest album.

Byline: AVRIL CADDEN

Tell us the story behind the title of your album Truelove's Gutter. Like Cole's Corner, it's a place in Sheffield, but it hasn't been called that since the late 18th century. The title just appeared when I wasn't looking for it, which often happens to me.

I'm interested in Sheffield history and J. P. Bean, an author friend of mine, wrote a book called the Sheffield Gang Wars. We were looking through street names, I saw this and thought 'that's it'.

The street was named after Thomas Truelove. Truelove is one of the oldest Sheffield names along with Staniford and mine, Hawley. It just seemed to sum up the record. How is this album different? There's no singles on it, there's nothing particularly radio friendly, but I pushed myself as a writer, lyricist, singer, guitarist and producer. It would have been easy to make a record of pop songs, but I wanted to let the music breathe and experiment. Did your record company tell you to make the album you've always dreamt of making? Daniel Miller, the head of Mute Records, who I admire greatly, had tea round at our house. We were just talking about the record and he said: "is there an album you've always wanted to make?" I said yeah, I've got about 10 ideas and he told me just to make one of them. We were talking about doing a lot longer songs playing my guitar more and experimenting with instruments. It was a challenge. Tell us about the unusual instruments you're using. I'd heard of a lot of these instruments and heard how they sounded, like the glass harmonica. And the musical saw was something my grandad played at family parties. He was a violinist as well as a steelworke. I'd made a mental note to use that one day, and I used it on Don't Cry and Don't Get Hung Up On Your Soul. The Cristal Baschet opens the album because in my head I had a sound of a mic in the centre of a car engine.

There's stories of rejection, addiction and pain in your album but with hope - where does all this come from? There's always hope hung on every washing line. When I finished touring in December, last year, I made a determined choice that I was not going to spend time on the internet or watch TV too much. I was going to spend physical time with all the people immediately around me.

I had discovered a lot of my friends were not having a particularly great time, a lot of it was quite dangerous and I just tried, in a non-judgmental way, to write about it.

I wanted to make an compassionate record and I was trying to understand people, myself included because I've done some bloody daft things in my time. I was just to try and explore why we do it and why is there the need to be allured by things that are dangerous. It took the longest out of any of my albums to write - it was eight months - and the lyrics took a long time.

You've said before that you admire the simplicity of the likes of Elvis Presley, Fats Domino and The Everly Brothers - did you have this in mind making the album? I just wanted this album to be simple and bare - parts of it get very complex but in a lot of my previous records I've layered a lot of instruments up. On this one, I wanted it to have a more open sound. The songwriting of those musicians you mentioned is very simple, but it is very effective. I don't want to live in another era, I want to live now, but I am heavily influenced by stuff I heard as a child.

Are you working on any collaborations and what's your thoughts on a Pulp reunion? I've just written a song for Shirley Bassey, who is bringing a new album out. David Arnold, who produces all the Bond music, rang me and said Shirley would really like a song. It's the last track on her new album, which is a great honour for me. I like working with people like Guy Garvey and Elbow. The Pulp reunion isn't going to happen but every single member of that band are all still friends. It just ran its course.

AVRIL CADDEN

CAPTION(S):

Album: Truelove's Gutter is out now. Gig: Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow, October 12. Queen Hall, Edinburgh, October 13.