You were quite a serious young man, weren’t you?
I was probably too fucking serious looking back on it. I wasn’t in any way enamored with the other aspects of stardom, or whatever you want to call it. I was very serious about what I thought was my art, and writing, and what the band should be doing. I like to think I kept us on the right side of commercialism. There was plenty of opportunities, and plenty of people at the record company and my dad as well who would want us to do what I considered fucking naff things, like a TV show or some terrible nonsense, that would get us out to the masses. I think I helped reign all that in, probably to the annoyance of a lot of people. Yeah, we were a successful band, but I think they probably thought it could have been more successful. Like The Police, or someone like that. They were mentioned at one point in time. I said, “I’m not doing that. We don’t do that.”

The Jam were a great singles band, and here you are releasing a new single, “Brand New Toy”, your first new material since “Flame-Out!” in 2013, which was also a one off single. Are you a particular fan of the format?
I miss the days when you could put three of four singles out in a year. You probably can if you just use the internet. I don’t know what value they’d have still, I’m not sure. But I like the idea of just making a record. I’ve got a couple of songs, I like them, let’s go and cut them and put them out. I like that spontaneity. It’s all changed so much, even in the last five years, how people receive the music and how you put the music out. It’s a different world. It’s not going to go back to what it was. It’s impossible. Does that bother me? It bothered me at first, but I’m accepting of it. That’s what it is, you’ve got to deal with it. It’s not good moaning it’s not as good as it used to be, because that’s the way it is. It’s not necessarily progress, but that’s just the way it’s gone. It’s like any technology it’s got its good points and bad points. It’s great from the point of view that if I wanted to, I could stick something now on the internet and people would get to hear it. But I think the negative side is that it devalues a lot of it as well. When you were waiting for certain records, when you’re waiting for a band to put a single out and the whole build up to it and trying to get your hands on it first, I don’t know if it’s quite the same now, is it? It’s literally just the flick of a switch, isn’t it?

When did you record these new tracks?
Down at Black Barn, in my studio, Ripley.

When?
Probably only like a month ago, or something. Quite recently. Six weeks, five weeks.

Who played on the record?
Our percussion player, who’s also drummer in a band called The Moons, a guy called Ben Gordelier, he plays drums on it. Our bass player, Andy Lewis, played on it and the rest of the stuff I did myself. I worked with my engineer down there, Charlie Reece, and a guy called Stan Kybert as well, who I’ve worked with in the past. But really quick, you know. A couple of days, that was it, really. Two or three days.

Are they representative of the material you’ve been working of recently?
No, because it’s all really different. I don’t know where it’s going to go at the moment. I’m quite into having it a bit more groove based, that’s about as focused as I am at the moment really. I’ve just got lots and lots of songs but they’re all quite disparate so I don’t know where it’s going to go. I’m going to keep writing and recording and store them up and see where it goes.

Is that usual for you, or do you have a usually prefer to have a vision in mind for an album when you start work on it?
After you get six or seven songs under your belt, then you know where it’s going. It’s too early to say at the moment. I’ve got loads and loads of little bits from all my jamming and playing at nighttimes, I’ve been recording them on my little thing like that [points at recorder]. So I’ve got loads and loads of bits and I don’t know where they’re going to go. Chords, melodies, some half songs, some lyrics I haven’t put music to.

What comes first? Melody or lyrics?
There’s no pattern at all to it. No, not at all. Sometimes I just write a lot of words and then I’ll be in the studio and there might be a piece of music and maybe I can just pull something out of it. Not use a whole thing I’ve written, just use pieces, pull pieces out of it. That’s more of a spontaneous thing. That’s more how it’s been, more so now. Like I said, before I always had a song finished pretty much, I had the lyrics finished most of the time, the arrangement as well. I like the whole thing of chance, a bit of a half formed idea that once you get in the studio goes somewhere else. It brings out different things as well, things I hadn’t thought about. People making mistakes – that sounds good! When I was younger, I was much more set in my ways. But it worked for the time. You have to move on and try other things and become someone else and grow.