Singer-songwriter Nick Mulvey begins his new UK tour this Saturday, which includes a gig at Gloucester Guildhall on Tuesday October 2.

The rising indie star, originally from Cambridge, spoke to a reporter ahead of the tour.

1) This new solo tour comes over a year since the release of ‘Wake Up Now’ – are these dates rounding off the campaign before you go away and work on the next record?

Well the old cycles of working - take time off to write, release, tour, repeat - are changing. People are consuming music in smaller amounts and artists are staying engaged with their tribes through social media. But albums and album cycles aren’t gone entirely. So I am indeed at the end of the Wake Up Now campaign but don’t expect me to disappear entirely and reappear later... I’ve got some interesting recordings and things brewing...

2) What made you decide to go out on your own rather than with your band?

My listeners! They’ve been asking for it..

3) You are playing dates on this tour that most touring schedules never see; such as Buxton and Pocklington- what made you choose to head down to towns like these?

I’ve done a fair few tours up and down the UK and normally you hit the obvious places and centres. But there's so much more than that! So I’m varying it this time. Also I wanted to reach some of the special venues I’m getting to on this tour.

4) You became a father for the second time earlier this year. For ‘Wake Up Now’, you said you wrote the songs in parallel to your wife’s pregnancy with your son. Have you had a similar approach to writing new tracks in the build-up to the arrival of your daughter?

Not with tracks but my daughter Honey was born a similar amount of time - 6 weeks - prior to my last tour (around the UK in May this year), as my son Inka was born prior to the recording of Wake Up Now in 2016. And once again I experienced a rapid increase in productivity and creativity. I think it’s mostly accountable, obvious reasons: I slow down for a few months in anticipation of the birth, I drop my ‘Nick Mulvey’ project and life gets very simple. Then there’s the actual cathartic experience of the birth and the welcoming of the new being. Maybe it’s no wonder when I re-engage and go back to the studio or out on tour that I feel I reach new levels.

5) You released your Dancing For The Answers EP earlier this year, is this a taste of new music to come or rather tracks you still had from the Wake Up Now sessions?

I’m keeping shtum! Let’s see what the new music / new directions wants to be and where it wants to take me. I get superstitious about defining it too early. Certainly I’m proud of the Dancing For The Answers EP and it was vital for me to let out some of the wider breadth of music I have inside me - not just songs and song forms (verses, choruses, 4 minutes in length) but to let it all flow... and take whatever shape it wanted to take.

Let’s see...

6) Are there towns on this tour you’ve never played before?

There are towns I’ve never even been to before. Buxton... I’ve heard Hebdon Bridge is good too. Can’t wait.