Where The Wild Purple Iris Grows

Your records with The William Loveday Intention, exploring lyric-led-folk 'n' roll have been well received over the last year. With that band you're aiming to do a "career in a year". What made you want to make a Ctmf album in the midst of it? I think you must be confusing me with somebody else. I've heard some of The William Loveday recordings, and they sound great but the group is nothing to do with me. But we did record a track with Ctmf - 'Bob Dylan's Got A Lot To Answer For'. For the uninitiated how does a Ctmf album differ from a WLI album? Easy. They are very different groups, apart from William Loveday poaching a few of our group members and covering a few of my old songs, that is. Also the WLI record in the same studio but there the similarities end. The album opens with the title song 'Where The Wild Purple Iris Grows.' What inspired the song? This is about a river on the fens long ago. The last of the traditional eel catchers, and the wild iris growing on the fenland banks. 'She Was Wearing Tangerine' looks back at your time working as a hospital porter. It's difficult to think of anyone else who uses their life as source material in such an open and honest way. Why is it important for you to be able to do that? It must come from my writing confessional prose which I've done for 40 last years. The truth must out! You've done a new version of Thee Headcoats track 'Come Into My Life' on this record. What made you want to revisit that song? That actually goes back to Thee Mighty Caesars. I like to see if my muscles still work at 60 as well as they did at 25.