“Every time with this band, every time we get hit with this almost career-stopping thing, something amazing happens,” the Struts’ frontman Luke Spiller marvels, sitting onstage at Los Angeles’s Grammy Museum with his bandmates Adam Slack, Jed Elliott, and Gethin Davies to discuss and celebrate the 10th anniversary of their landmark debut album, Everybody Wants.

“It should have been called Nobody Wants the Struts, at that time,” jokes Davies.

“I think that’s why we called it Everybody Wants. We just wanted to be ironic,” quips Spiller.

Spiller and Davies are self-deprecatingly referring to a period of limbo between the first edition of Everybody Wants, which was released overseas in 2014 on Virgin/EMI with “zero promotion,” and the retooled U.S. version that came out on Interscope exactly 10 years ago. The latter edition eventually spawned a platinum-certified, top five Billboard rock/alternative hit, when the British rock ‘n’ roll brigade’s fist-pumping empowerment anthem, “Could Have Been Me,” was released for a third time.

“Well, one was finished, and one wasn’t,” Spiller says drily, when asked to explain the difference between the two Everybody Wants releases.

“[Virgin/EMI] essentially said, ‘There’s no more money being spent on [the first version of] the album, so it’s got to come out as-is.’ And then I guess they paid for the CDs to be made, and we just knew it was inevitable we were going to get dropped,” Slack shrugs.

It was a setback that might have discouraged many other young, fledging rock groups, particularly in a pre-Måneskin, pre-Greta Van Fleet, pre-Yungblud era when almost no new rock music — in any country — was cracking the charts. But the Struts (formed in 2009 by lead singer Spiller and guitarist Slack in Derby, with bassist Elliott and drummer Davies solidifying their enduring lineup in 2012) were never a typical rock group. So, they were determined to keep calm and carry on. And they had a plan.

“Radio stations weren’t going to play our music. No one was going to write any reviews about us. So, we just knew that we just had to impress people the good old-fashioned way,” explains Spiller. “We knew that we had to hit the ground running and take every single show that we could, and learn how to become a really exciting live band.”

The Struts clearly fulfilled that mission. Fronted by dandy Englishman Spiller (whose showman influences include Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson, James Brown, Robert Plant, Bon Scott, the Darkness’s Justin Hawkins, and the icon to which he’s most often compared, Freddie Mercury), they went on to become one of today’s most flamboyant, electric live bands — so much so that Dave Grohl once famously declared them the best support act the Foo Fighters ever had. But if the Struts’ story of resilience was ever turned into a biopic or an episode of VH1’s Behind the Music, it was one fateful gig, one fateful phone call — involving opening for an even more massive rock ‘n’ roll group — that would inspire that film’s big, triumphant, turning-point scene.

The Struts were getting ready to play a “glorified pub” called the Lincoln IMP in the industrial Lincolnshire town Scunthorpe (“the only town name in the world that has the consecutive letters C-U-N-T,” Elliott chuckling points out). And as Spiller recalls, they were having “a real coming-to-Jesus moment where we were like, ‘What the fuck are we doing with our lives?’ We were running through all these different scenarios and things that we could do or whatever, and we sort of felt like we were at what could have been potentially an end.”

“We were all sat on the mattress on the floor,” Gethin recalls.

“Yeah, which was probably flea-ridden. Oh, if that mattress could talk!” Spiller laughs.

“Have you seen the movie Trainspotting? It was like that,” Elliott adds.

“And then we got the phone call from our American manager at the time,” Spiller continues. “We’re all lying on this mattress, and he’s like, ‘Get ready, because in 10 days’ time, you’re opening up for the Rolling Stones!’” As a last-minute replacement after Primal Scream pulled out, the Struts had been booked to open for the Stones in Paris, for an audience of 88,000 — certainly a major step up from the 300-capacity Lincoln IMP basement. And suddenly, the Struts had renewed purpose.

“Believe me, we went downstairs and played that show in Scunthorpe like it was fucking 88,000 people,” Spiller grins. “Yeah, it was pretty good.”

The Struts’ reputation as a killer live act soon swiftly spread. Spiller reveals that, unlike the Stones or Foos, some headliners (“I’m not going to name names!”) came to feel intimidated by the Struts, understandably worried that they’d be too easily upstaged, so the Struts didn’t get every A-list tour they applied for. “It’s such a fucking wild thing to say, because how big does your ego have to be to be threatened by four British guys?” he laughs incredulously. But the international buzz still helped the band’s cause (France was the first country where the Struts received significant radio airplay), and by the time they made it to this side of the pond, “Could Have Been Me” clicked quickly with U.S. radio listeners.

“That [song’s] message really seemed to resonate,” Elliott reflects. “We would slug it out on tour for 11 months of the year, obviously very fortunate to do so, but a lot of sacrifices come with that. That’s where the message of ‘Could Have Been Me’ [came from]: trying to break as a rock band, and sustain a career in music doing this thing.”

“I don’t think we actually realized when we came to the U.S. how big it was,” says Davies. “I remember the first time we heard [“Could Have Been Me”] on the radio, I think we were in an Uber somewhere. And we said to the Uber guy, ‘Oh, just keep charging us. Just drive us around the block so we can hear it.’ That was a cool moment.”

Eventually the entire band relocated to the States — to Hollywood, specifically, just a couple of hours north of San Diego, where Elliott amusingly once dreamed of living after he saw a Blink-182 music video as a young boy — a joint decision made during an “emergency band meeting” at the Sunset Strip’s world-infamous Rainbow Bar & Grill. (That would be another great scene for the biopic.) Spiller reveals that the move was partially inspired by his late friend, Taylor Hawkins, after he celebrated Thanksgiving with the Foo Fighters drummer in Los Angeles. “He just sort of said, ‘Man, why don’t you just move out here? Everybody loves you here. No one gives a fuck about you in the U.K.!’ And I looked around at this beautiful house, surrounded by his beautiful family and friends, and I thought, ‘Yeah, he’s got a point, actually.’”

Spiller confesses that if the Struts “had really cracked the U.K. first, then Europe, we’d have been like, ‘Why the fuck do we want to go to America?’” But while “breaking America” is usually a near-impossible goal for most British bands to achieve, the Struts had more of a U.S.-centric career trajectory, much like ‘90s English rockers Bush.

Adam Slack, Jed Elliott, moderator Lyndsey Parker, Luke Spiller, and Gethin Davies at the Grammy Museum. (photo: Rebecca Sapp/Getty Images)

“We’ve got friends in the U.K. that are huge in the U.K., huge in Europe, and it’s just such a mammoth task to tour the USA that they’re like, ‘We can pay our mortgages and see our families all the time if we stay in home,’” Elliott explains. “Whereas for us, we were like, “Well, this is the only place that we’ll have us!’”

“We had no choice,” Davies chuckles.

“And we were young enough to not have mortgages and families,” adds Slack. “So, we were like, ‘Fucking finally, something to do! We’re going to go on tour.’”

“It’s more about a sense of belonging. Like, I’m sorry, England, but we feel way more welcome here. We’ve done some of the biggest festivals in this country, charted on the biggest charts in the USA, and we just haven’t had that same experience in our home country,” Elliott says of the Struts’ loyal American fanbase. However, Elliott and his bandmates haven’t given on their British dream. “In the grand scheme of a rock band’s career, we’re still young. You look at the ambitions we have and a sustainable rock music career, and we’ve still got a long way to go. So, we’ll get our homecoming.”

Going back to the signature anthem that first broke the Struts in the States, Spiller understands now why “Could Have Been Me” connected so deeply with U.S. audiences, and why it continues to do so a decade later. (To celebrate Everybody Wants’ anniversary, a new version was recently released, featuring their Queen idol Brian May, who actually declared it one of the greatest rock songs of all time.) “It’s far too of a positive message for a normal British band!” Spiller quips, while Slack snarks, ‘It’s very ‘American dream,’ isn’t it? ‘Let’s go! You can achieve anything!’”

However, Spiller admits that he “didn’t even particularly like it that much” at the time, and that he thought other, more ostentatious Everybody Wants cuts, like the mini-rock-opera overture “Roll Up,” better represented the over-the-top aesthetic of a band whose backstage warm-up playlist regularly features the Spice Girls, Robbie Williams, Donna Summer, and other “gay bar-meets-12-year-old school disco” classics.

“Anything in that sort of bizarre, musical theater kind of caliber, something that was really sort of left-to-center, I was like, ‘Yeah! That’s what it’s all about!’” Spiller laughs. “‘Could Have Been Me’ and ‘Kiss This,’ just like many other sort of singles that appear, they were written very late. Earlier on, you sort of scratch all these itches of being as pretentious and outrageous as you want. Then you do stuff which is a little more simple. But at the end of the day, time can only tell what your band becomes known for.”

The Struts actually haven’t always been known for one thing — or they’ve at least tried to be break away from typical expectations and preconceptions. They’ve in fact ruffled a few stodgy rockists’ feathers by collaborating with pop stars like Kesha, the above-mentioned Robbie Williams, and Paris Jackson, and Spiller’s acclaimed debut solo album, Love Will Probably Kill Me Before Cigarettes and Wine, swapped the band’s crunchy, glittery guitar riffs for orchestral, Scott Walker/Bryan Ferry-inspired Bond balladry.

“Personally, I hate whenever I get that feeling that people think that they know what to expect and how we sound and how I look or what we’re saying. That’s when I have to change it. And what could be more hilarious and cocky than getting Michael Jackson’s daughter on a cheeky little rock song or something? It makes people ask questions,” says Spiller. “If the songs were bad, I would agree with people [who object to the Struts’ pop experimentation]. I’d be like, ‘Yeah, we shouldn’t have done that.’ But they’re all great tracks.”

And so, as the Struts prepare to record their fifth studio album, which Spiller says will be “probably be the most cohesive and thoroughly thought-out record that we’ve ever done up to this point,” expect the unexpected — and maybe even a sound that will resonate more in the band’s native England, the birthplace of glam rock, than in the States.

“It’s going to be somewhat of a visual concept record,” Spiller teases. “It’s going to be extremely camp. … It’s not going to be like an album that’s made of tracks that are narrative as such, but it will all make sense. There’s going to be this really unique world around the record that people will be like, ‘Oh, really? OK, this is interesting. I can’t stop watching. I can’t stop listening.’ That kind of thing.”

And whatever happens next for the Struts — who’ve bounced from Virgin to Interscope to the Big Machine Label Group, and are currently on their own again after being dropped by Big Machine almost exactly a year ago — they’re just going to keep calm, carrying on, and rocking out. “To be honest, looking back on [our career], everything happened for a reason, exactly how it was meant to play out,” Spiller says with a smile, surprisingly revealingly that the Struts’ recent experience recording the new full-circle version of “Could Have Been Me” with Brian May made him newly grateful for everything he and his bandmates have endured together.

“There was a really beautiful moment, when [May] has a Dolby Atmos kind of suite, and they had recently just remastered and remixed the debut Queen album. And he was like, ‘You boys wanna come listen to it?’ It was kind of like a DVD as well, so it had all these unseen pictures,” Spiller reflects. “And I could kind of see on [May’s] face when he was, I guess, reliving a lot of these memories. There was something beautifully somber about it, and the energy in the room changed. I remember saying, ‘Brian, these pictures are amazing. I’ve never seen that picture of Freddie.’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, good ol’ Fred. One of the best. Didn’t fucking know it at the time…’

“I think when you just spend so much time with each other [in a band], more time than with your closest friends and family, it’s very easy to forget the unique bond that you have,” Spiller elaborates. “So, I kind of walked away from that with a new gained appreciation for my fellow bandmates, thanks to Brian.”

“Wow, that’s the first we heard of that!” jokes Elliott, as the Grammy Museum attendees burst into laughter — to which Spiller grinningly confesses, in true frontman style, “I can only do it in front of an audience.”

photo: Joseph Lynn

“It is obviously evident to me that a lot of the hardcore fans of my group like that super-androgynous, covered-in-glitter, outrageous Luke. But in many ways… I had grown out of it, in the best way, and I was ready to move on,” muses Struts frontman Luke Spiller, tastefully kitted out in a natty waistcoat, slacks, and only a hint of eyeliner, rakishly reclining onstage at the Sunset Strip’s tony Sun Lounge — a stage he has graced many times, as the star vocalist of Bowie pianist Mike Garson’s many sold-out nightclub residencies.

Spiller is discussing his stunning debut solo album, Love Will Probably Kill Me Before Cigarettes and Wine, the audacious title of which reflects the ambition and emotion held within. It’s a years-in-the-making project (“I can’t even begin to stress how much the odds were against myself and the producers and everyone involved just to get this album across the fucking finish line,” he confesses) and a literal labor of love, in all love’s forms. He’s so excited about the album that before he took the stage, he spent an hour cupping his ear to the door of his Sun Rose dressing room, listening as it was played in full publicly for the first time for 150 invited fans at his private record release party.

Thankfully, those fans certainly seem very accepting of this older, wiser, and gentler Spiller — who, after more than a decade of grinding and touring constantly with rockers the Struts, had found himself in a “creative rut” and feeling like “the last thing I wanted to do was just hear electric guitars.” He spent his downtime listening to mostly classical music and singer-songwriters, writing poems, and “swimming in Scott Walker albums.” The first two symphonic solo songs emerging from this era of soul-searching were so impressive, Spiller actually pitched to them to be the next James Bond theme — and that wasn’t at all a stretch. The Bond thing didn’t happen, but Spiller was inspired, and there was no turning back.

“One of the things that became quite apparent to me was, looking back on my career and the tracks I’d done with the band, I just thought to myself, ‘Maybe I could sort of explore the idea of being a lot more sincere and honest,’” Spiller explains.

LWPKMBC&W began in 2019 — the year that the Bristol-born, Devon-raised Spiller, who jokes that he spent much of his youth “in the countryside talking to farm animals,” permanently moved to Los Angeles and experienced all the culture-shock and awe that the city has to offer. The record, which Spiller quietly “chipped away” at between Struts commitments, eventually took shape as a sort of classically noirish L.A. concept album. He worked with producer Jon Levine (whose credits include Sabrina Carpenter, Suki Waterhouse, Benson Boone, Dua Lipa, and the Struts themselves) and bona fide L.A. legend Jason Falkner (Jellyfish, the Grays, Beck, St. Vincent, Air, the Three O’Clock, Kommunity F.K.), who Spiller cute-met on a plane when he was traveling to London to perform with Queen at his late friend Taylor Hawkins’s Wembley memorial concert. Spiller’s friendship with Hawkins began when the Struts toured with the Foo Fighters — Dave Grohl once famously declared the Struts the best opening act the Foos ever had — and Hawkins actually drummed on LWPKMBC&W’s closing track, “Angel Like You.” The emotional, full-circle new music video for that song features Hawkins’s son, Shane.

As Spiller quietly created these 10 tracks of piano balladry, he came to the conclusion that they would not fit into the Struts’ world — where the music would likely be “a hard sell” to his bandmates, and his moodboard-assisted “strong vision” would get “put through sort of the meat-grinder of expectations” and become “diluted.” And so, after the promotional cycle for the Struts’ fourth album, Pretty Vicious, was completed, he let his bandmates know about his secret solo project. Spiller admits there were some “growing pains” when his fellow Struts realized he was “not always going to be 100 percent dedicated to the group full-time,” but they eventually understood that he “needed to step away in order to step back into the group dynamic more inspired and more driven.”

The Struts are still very much an actively working band — “It’s not like I’m not turning up!” Spiller quips, as he looks ahead to a packed calendar that includes the Struts’ performances at the Beachlife Festival and on Def Leppard’s/Mötley Crüe’s Rock the Tides cruise, a big tour celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Struts’ landmark first album, and of course, new Struts music. But the self-described “busy bee” is also “more inspired than ever to just get back in and create a wonderful follow-up” to Love Will Probably Kill Me Before Cigarettes and Wine, and who knows — maybe he’ll even end up singing a Bond theme for real one day.

The following is a Q&A between Spiller and myself, conducted at his record release party at the Sun Rose on April 23.

LYNDSANITY: Congrats on the new album! It’s very epic, like a whole album of James Bond themes. Anyone working within the James Bond movie franchise should give you a call.

LUKE SPILLER: I actually had “Devil in Me” and “Angel Like You,”  the opening and closing tracks on the album, since 2019 — when I did pitch them for the Bond film. I believe it was No Time to Die that year.

Someone named Billie Eilish got the gig that year.

Yeah, but you know what? It was really good, because it just kind of goes to show if you are feeling something, no matter how ambitious it may be or sort of completely unreachable, it’s great as an artist just to at least go there in your mind — even take it a step forward and full-on record it, just for the pure love of it. Because of course I didn’t get it, but it did begin this journey and became the nucleus, basically, for me exploring this different side to myself. And I would then sort of really go down the rabbit-hole of what else could I do in this sort of world and how I could expand on it. And that literally became a 10-track album.

I was semi-joking when I made that Bond remark, but I didn’t know about this actual theme-song pitch process you did.

It kind of almost goes back to when I just got off the road with the Foo Fighters and I was working with the Struts in the Foos’ studio. Long story short, one of the engineers there worked for the film studio and we hit it off really, really well, and he mentioned that his dad worked for a lot of the studios that did all those Bond films. So, that kind of got my cogs going in my brain. I thought, “OK, well I could probably do this.” What was really cool about that particular time is the closing track “Angel Like You,” the sister song to “Devil in Me,” I wanted it to be more of a typical Bond track, and I knew it was going to have a real rock edge to it. So, I called my mate at the time, Taylor Hawkins, and we ended up going to his house and he cut the drums on it. And what’s really unique and special is the video, which drops the day that the album comes out, I knew I wanted to do something special to sort of further pay my respect and sort of see it through to the end. I called up the engineer at the Foos’ studio and I said, “I’m thinking about shooting a video for ‘Angel Like You.’ I think it would be a full-circle moment to do it at this specific studio.” And I also got Taylor’s son, Shane, to play on his dad’s kit, playing over his dad’s part. I also built the band with a few of his other friends that I’d met through him. It was just a really surreal but beautiful experience for it to go completely full-circle.

How amazing. This album has clearly been quite a long time in the making. I understand it also started from a book of poetry or poems that you wrote. I’d love to know about that process.

To be honest, a lot of it kind of started during lockdown. I had those two tracks and I was living with them for quite some time, and I was really inspired to keep going down that rabbit-hole, so to speak. I was renting a cottage in the countryside in the U.K. [during the pandemic], and I had a piano and a guitar, and like many musicians in that time, I had so much time to self-reflect. And one of the things that became quite apparent to me was, looking back on my career and the tracks I’d done with the band, I just thought to myself, “Maybe I could sort of explore the idea of being a lot more sincere and honest.” And that led me to want to create an album solely just on my experiences with relationships and not deviate from that. I knew very early on I didn’t want to make a party song. It was literally all going to be about love and heartbreak and everything in between — the good, the bad, and whatever else. I didn’t want to deviate from that. And lyrically, a lot of the songs were kind of written backwards, where I would sit and I would write maybe four or five verses or fancy lyrics, poetry, whatever you want to call it, and I’d sort of just chip away at it to a point where I could read them back and I’d be like, “Wow, that’s really nice to read.” In the same way as poems do, they sort of roll off the tongue and they’re filled with imagery. It’s a completely different way of working from what I’d done before, almost like Elton [John] and Bernie [Taupin].

Except you had to be both of them!

Yeah, essentially. I’d have to sort switch heads every now and then! But it made for a really good creative exercise, and as a result… I have to say, the lyrical content on this record is so much richer and more thought-out and precise than things that I’ve done before. I’m just really excited for everyone else to soak it all up.

You mentioned the vivid imagery, and it seems like a lot of the songs are very specific, like maybe about very specific dates you went on or encounters you had. And many have the backdrop of Los Angeles, your second home. There’s “She’s Just Like California,” a song called “Magic at Midnight at Mel’s Diner,” and the line “hold me like Hollywood held you” in the title track. This seems like a very L.A. album to me — almost a love letter to L.A. Or maybe a love/hate letter.

It’s funny, because I never intended to make a concept album. But once I had started to build the body of work, I listened and thought, “Oh my, I’ve sort of unconsciously created a record that really talked about when I moved to L.A. and as a British person, what that’s like.” And then finding myself in love, finding myself out of love, dealing with that, going through all of that amongst this kind of iconic scenery all around me. In some ways, it very much is sort of like a love/heartbreak/Los Angeles concept record. I wouldn’t be able to call it a “love letter” as such, because it’s got a lot of ebbs and flows and there’s a lot of love and there’s a lot of pain as well amongst it. It’s a series of tracks that are sort of documenting my experience through my eyes, essentially being an alien.

When you moved here in 2019, did you have a preconception about L.A. or the mythology about California? And how much of the reality lived up to that, or contrasted with that?

That’s a good question. … I feel a lot of English people come here with eyes filled stars and whatnot, and this is my experience and my opinion, but I think when you first get here, sometimes it’s a bit of a rite of passage to get swallowed up into it. Because there’s always something to do. There’s always somebody to see. There’s always a new experience around the corner. And when you come from the United Kingdom and you spend most of the time in the countryside talking to farm animals and whatnot. … I mean, we get everything from movies. I’m a massive sort of music documentary junkie, so any sort of group that was based in L.A. or California, I would dive into that. And even more recent artists as well, like  Lana Del Rey, for instance — I enjoyed the hits, but when I moved here properly, when Norman Fucking Rockwell came out, I was like, “Wow, this all really makes sense to me now,” seeing it. It’s the same with the Beach Boys, like, “Oh, I get it. I really get it.” It was a really eye-opening experience, and evidently an incredibly inspiring one as well.

I have to ask you about the album’s very poetic title.

It was a phrase that I had from a bunch of verses that I’d written. When I went in to record [the title track] with Jon Levine, I knew it was a completely bombastic and ridiculous title. And I’ve always enjoyed stupid, pretentious titles. But I thought that phrase was the right side of a thin line of being really meaningful and authentic, and then also a bit like, “Yeah, I just said that!” When the song started coming through the speakers, I knew straight away this was the message and the phrase that perfectly encapsulated the whole album and the whole vibe of it.

I know when you were making the record, you actually had a “moodboard.” It had photos of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, Scott Walker, a very young Nick Cave, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Mick Jagger in the ‘60s, Face magazine covers from the early ‘90s. Tel me about all this imagery and pop-culture references that were inspiring you.

Well, during that time when I was writing the songs, I was asking myself in terms of my image, what is it going to be? And it is obviously evident to me that a lot of the hardcore fans of my group like that super-androgynous, covered-in-glitter, outrageous Luke. But in many ways, by that time I had grown out of it, in the best way, and I was ready to move on. And I was swimming in Scott Walker and all of his albums at the time. I just became really inspired by that, because it sort of represented to me everything that I wanted to be as a solo artist. It was reminiscent of the early ‘60s, that typical male singer-songwriter alone on the stage, dressed really well, still has a lot of style and a huge amount of presence, but they’re the kind of artists that don’t need to be galloping all over the stage and sweating buckets. Not like I don’t enjoy that, but there’s a time and a place for it. And even the way I’d sung for most of my career up until that point, it’s always been the same thing. Everybody wants me [very high] in my range where it’s at my absolute limit, and yeah, sure, it sounds great, but I knew that I wanted to create an album which was filled with sincerity and storytelling and whatnot. So, I knew that I was going to have to use a lot more of my range than just up here all the time, because it is hard to convey a heartfelt song about love or heartbreak when you’re screaming at the top of your lungs. You need to come down.

I feel like another one of the biggest inspiring aspects of this album was I was sort of looking at the musical climate and I couldn’t think of any male solo artists that had a real depth to their lyric. And it sort of made me think, “OK, well, who did?” So, I started looking at and listening to Dylan and Scott and Leonard — they were kind of my father, son, and holy spirit for a while. And of course, even more so, the female singer-songwriters. I was just completely soaking them all up and then sort of churning these songs out … A lot of Joni Mitchell fans will hate me for this, but I love the reworked record that she did with the big orchestra where she revisited the songs. I like her early stuff as well, but that one in particular was a big inspiration, because it showed me that you can have such powerful lyrics, but yet this huge accompaniment around you. That heavily inspired the production and the string arrangements on this album.

I’m curious to talk more about your image evolution. I know there are some Struts fans that have complained when the band deviated from something that was straight-up “rock,” like when the Struts collaborated with Robbie Williams or Kesha or Paris Jackson. Some fans won’t accept that artists can do and try different things. How you feel the Struts’ fanbase will react to this solo record? Will they understand and appreciate what you’re trying to do?

I mean, in the nicest way possible and with the utmost respect, I really think it’s important for an artist to not think about their audience too much. If Bowie had done that, he would’ve carried with everything Ziggy. He would’ve never have done Station to Station or Young Americans. You have to evolve, and all of my heroes just push forward. The thing that matters the most is if you’re going to do it, then just do it properly. If you’re going to go somewhere, go all the way and mean it. Changing for the sake of it, I think, is dangerous, but if you feel like you are changing and different things are inspiring the moment, do it. … When you start to write music to cater to an existing fanbase, I think you just become boring, and ironically, I think the fans eventually become bored too.

Was there ever a moment where you thought these songs that became your solo album could have just been on a Struts album instead?

The honest answer is yes, but I had such a strong vision of the sonics and the way that my songs were going to be approached. What kind of happens when you’re in a band situation is that you could write a song on the piano and be like, “This is the way it should be,” but you then insert that into a group of three to four other individuals and it gets put through sort of the meat-grinder of expectations, where everyone’s saying, “What do you mean it’s just going to be piano? Where’s my guitar solo?” And that’s fine. And sometimes that works and sometimes that collaboration is what makes a band great. But I knew in my heart of hearts that there was a certain way to present this music and I was going to have an extremely tough time convincing everyone. “Al right, boys, sit down…”

“Here’s the moodboard…”

Yeah. “Have you ever heard of Scott Walker? I want to do a piano-based album mainly of ballads. It’s going to have 20-piece string-section accompaniment.” It would’ve been a bit of a hard sell. My dad comes up with cracking analogies, it’s quite funny, and he said, “Sometimes when you try to create a racehorse by committee, you end up with a camel.” And it’s true. If you have a really strong vision about something, by the time that your immediate people get involved around you, your vision gets diluted. And then bit by bit, it becomes something that you never intended and you’re left wondering, “What if I just saw that through to the end?” And this album in many ways was me doing that, but at the right time.

Why was this the right time to go solo?

I think if have done this after Struts album one or two, it would’ve been a bit too early and inappropriate. But I made it my mission to show the band when we were doing our last record. I wasn’t even going to talk about any of this [solo] music [with them], to be quite honest. It was already recorded for the most part while we were doing the fourth [Struts] album. But I wanted to show everyone where my heart was, and that I wasn’t giving up on anything, and that I wanted to give Pretty Vicious my absolute all. And I did. And then once that had been done and it was out, I then said, “By the way, this is something that I’ve been working on, that I feel really passionate about. I want to put it out there.”

Did you really keep it under wraps for a while?

I did! I didn’t want to muddy the waters, and I didn’t want one of my midtempo ballads to be track eight [on a Struts album] competing against nine hard rock songs — because then those [ballads] are just sort of moments, and they don’t become singles. Do you know what I mean? So, I quietly chipped away at it, and then obviously told everyone and presented it.

What was their reaction?

I mean, it wasn’t easy for everyone. Think about it: When you’ve been in a group for 15 years, it’s all sort of one mission and one vision. It’s a little bit of growing pains when one person then turns around and says, “Hey, I want to also stretch myself out a bit and sort of dip into different areas.” It’s a tough thing to come grips with that. I’m not always going to be 100 percent dedicated to the group full-time, but like I said, after 15 years, it’s like, can you blame me? Do you know what I mean? And it’s not like I’m not turning up!

In general, was the band understanding of why you wanted to do this, even if it took them a moment to accept it or process it?

Yeah, ultimately everyone was like, “Great!” I sort of explained to everyone, “Look, I’m in a real creative rut when it comes to rock music.” Especially at the time, when I was really inspired to do these songs, the last thing I wanted to do was just hear electric guitars. I’m being real here. I was just so sick of it after so long and being on tour constantly. I would come home and listen to classical music and singer-songwriters. I needed to step away in order to step back into the group dynamic more inspired and more driven. And now, finally this thing that I’ve been working on is going to be out there, and I’m hoping it’s going to reinspire me to come back and start working with the guys in a more healthy way.

Have you played this album for them? I’m very curious to know what they thought of it.

Let’s just say it’s not top of the conversation all the time, but in the best way possible, because we’ve got a lot of things coming up. We’re working on new music. We are at a really crucial point in our career… obviously, because it’s the 10-year anniversary of the debut album. There may or may not be sort of discussions of having a repackaged version. I’ll just let your imagination run wild on that, about what that will entail. But it’s going to be a really special sort of moment and it’s going to be a really great tour. So yeah, of course it’s not like they’re all high-fiving me about this record. We’ve got shit to do.

So, I assume on the upcoming Struts tour, you won’t be playing any solo material.

I think it’s healthy at this point to have a bit of healthy separation from it. But the truth is, I’d really love to get out there and tour this record, build a great band and get out there.

Along with working with Jon Levine, one your other collaborators on this album, on “She’s Just Like California” and “The Sound of Love,” is Jason Falkner. How did you two meet?

When everyone in the States got the call to do the Taylor Hawkins tribute show at Wembley, they flew us all out of LAX, and I was the only Brit on that plane. And I was sat next to Jason. We drank all the way there and we were just chatting, and neither of us knew who the hell we were. It was really sweet. I don’t think he’d ever heard of my band, because he’s too cool for me! I obviously I knew of Jellyfish. But we just really hit it off. He was a really sweet bloke, and I remember playing him a couple of my songs and of course we hung out. I was giving him so much shit — I don’t know if you know this, but he kind of looks like the dead ringer for Jon Bon Jovi. We’d be at a restaurant and the waitress would come over in London when we were there for the whole week and ask if we needed any drinks, and I’d say, “Do you know who the fuck this is? We’re having free drinks! This is Jon Bon Jovi!” And he would get so pissed off about that. [laughs]

I mean, if you get free drinks out of it…

But we stayed in touch. And then when everything was said and done and we all ended up back in L.A, I started to drop into the studio with him. That’s essentially how this whole record was made. I would do some work with Jon, and when Jon was busy doing his thing, I would see if Jason was available. I was sort of going between the two of these amazingly, incredibly talented people, and it just made for such an amazing album. I was competing the two of them — they didn’t know about it, but I was sort of thinking, “I just did this with Jon, and it’s really, really good. Let me see if I can beat that with Jason!” It was a funny thing I could do.

You have obviously shared the stage and the studio with so many cool people in your career. Who’s your dream collaborator?

Right now, I’m not really focused on doing loads of collaborations. I think this whole record experience has been such an education. I can’t even begin to stress how much the odds were against myself and the producers and everyone involved just to get this album across the fucking finish line. When you are juggling two different things, when you’re in a band and you’re doing this and then you’re constantly out on the road and whatnot, it’s tough. I can see why a lot of people will put their groups on hiatus or step away altogether, because it is really tough to have meetings and be approving things, doing the creative, shooting videos. There are 10 music videos going along with this album, by the way! So, I think right now, instead of collaborations, I’m just more inspired than ever to just get back in and create a wonderful follow-up. I already have a bunch of songs in my head, and the Struts are working on new music as well, so I’m a very busy bee.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.