Badly Drawn Boy, aka Damon Gough, has been off the radar for a while. Now, as he takes his 2000 debut album on tour, he tells why he needed to take a step away

FIFTEEN years might not seem like that long a time, but the gap between 2000 and 2015, in some respects, couldn't be wider. Back then, reality TV was a relatively new concept, social media didn't exist, and Google hadn't long launched, let alone iTunes, MP3 players and streaming. Email was just an emerging trend, and the idea that you could download a film in under an hour was ludicrous.

2000 was also the year that Badly Drawn Boy's debut album The Hour Of Bewilderbeast was released. Now, marking the anniversary, the Bolton-raised songwriter, known to friends as Damon Gough, is touring the UK, playing the record in its entirety (it'll also be re-released come autumn), and for him, the last 15 years feels like a lifetime.

"People I knew back then who were 15 are now grown-ups with babies of their own," he says. "It feels like another world, although the standard reaction when I say it was all 15 years ago is to say 'Ooh, it doesn't feel that long ago'. I think it feels like longer," adds Gough, who's eldest child – daughter Edie – was born just after Bewilderbeast came out and duly won that year's Mercury Music Prize.

He's now 45, although he says he doesn't feel it – and he certainly doesn't look it, his defacto uniform of shoulder-length hair, beard and bobble hat still in place, although he admits to a few greys.

"I feel all right," he says, cheerily. "It could always be worse."

After Bewilderbeast was released and the £20,000 Mercury Prize cheque was cashed – although he actually lost it after the ceremony and had to ask for the money to be reissued – Gough became a star.

It didn't sit well with him, fame and celebrity, but he was happy enough to let his music do the talking. Two years after his debut came his soundtrack for About A Boy, and second album proper Have You Fed The Fish?

He became famous for his slightly shambolic gigs, which veered from absolutely spellbinding to drunken messes – but the fact you never knew exactly what to expect was part of the excitement.

Fourth album One Plus One Is One came two years later, then Born In The UK, until it looked like Gough had settled into the habit of releasing an album every two years, living up to his reputation as a prolific, diligent writer. 2012 saw him release another soundtrack, for Robert De Niro film Being Flynn, but then it all started to go wrong, with reports of increasingly erratic behaviour and sweary outbursts on stage.

Behind the scenes, he was going through a hard time. "I split up with my missus three years ago," he says, the pain still evident in his voice. "We were together for 16 years and have two kids. I didn't really want to talk about it at the time, out of respect to her and our relationship, but now three years have gone, I feel like it's probably okay to talk about what's been going on. That's also why I've not been playing or doing anything, because I've been putting my life back together."

He explains he's moved house, around the corner to his kids so they can see him whenever they want, and says he and his former partner Clare still care about each other and love each other very much, "But they've had to move on".

"It's really knocked me back," he adds.

There's a bitter irony to Gough talking like this while gearing up to perform Bewilderbeast. The album, while sprawling in its sounds, lyrically, it's largely centred on his attempts to woo Clare. "I fell for her, and now we're not together and I'm touring it. I hadn't thought about that before and now it's dawned on me."

The silver lining is that the heartache has spurred him on and given him the kickstart he needs to start making music again. He says he's been in the studio, and has more than an album's worth of material ready to record after a long period of not wanting to bother.

"The idea of putting myself back in the frame with some gigs and a re-release of the first album is a good incentive to crack on," he says. "I want to make everyone aware that this isn't just me resting on my laurels and releasing an old album and playing some old songs. This is the opposite, it's to spur me on to do something new; a new album next year."

He says he's now a stronger writer for taking his break, and has built up the idea bank.

"Every time I sit at the piano or pick up a guitar, something happens," he enthuses, going on to describe three or four songs as "the very best things he's written", which, even if not true, at least shows his positive thinking and unwillingness to dwell on the past.

  • Badly Drawn Boy tours to Gateshead Sage Stage 2 on Wednesday, July 29. Gigsandtours.com or 0844-811-0051. For information, visit badlydrawnboy.co.uk