Ocean Colour Scene talk ahead of Birmingham festival appearance

He remembers the early days of hope, when he was working on a weekly newspaper in Birmingham and dreaming of being anywhere else. Then there’s the hard times when OCS had no money and were propped up by Steve Craddock’s session fees from Paul Weller. There was the overwhelming, zeitgeist-capturing success of Moseley Shoals, a record that sold more than a million copies and put them alongside Oasis and The Verve as one of the most important bands of the times. And, of course, there has been the blur of drink and drugs, of hang-ups and let-downs, of friends and family, of familiar places and places he’s known.

When OCS played the Symphony Hall, Foxy was pretty sure he was going to burst into tears. And when they headlined the Town Hall, for an emotional homecoming gig that was released as a DVD, he pretty much did.

“Nah, I’d trodden on a nail,” Foxy deadpans.

He’ll be back home for Beyond The Tracks, the Birmingham festival that runs from September 15-17.

“Birmingham is one of the places that’s always really kind to us. If you go outside the area, a lot of bands think audiences have a tendency to be dull. But I’ve never ever found that. I think that opinion says more about the people who think it, than it does about the Birmingham crowds. The Town Hall was a really nice gig. Steve started off on the organ and people were sitting there, all around him. That was a really nice show.

“And the Symphony Hall was special because we played with a string quartet. The first night was probably one of the quietest and most disappointing that we did during that set of gigs. It was a Saturday. But the Tuesday one was miles better. We thought it would be the other way round. I remember walking out and thinking I was going to burst into tears. I thought what the hell are we doing here? The Symphony Hall is such a beautiful place.”

OCS work when their mojo clicks in, these days, rather than when a record company demands. In recent months, Foxy has been trying to write new songs that will form their 11th album, the first since 2013’s Painting. It’s an unhurried process that’s devoid of the normal deadlines.

“We’ve had a busy year, with these summer gigs and then with shows planned at the end of the year for Australia and New Zealand and Dubai. But we need to start recording and I need to find time. I write the songs, I always have done. Then the others turn it into OCS. Steve is our musical director.”

There are no concessions to modernity when Foxy is writing songs. Though OCS once released an album called One From The Modern and, like Weller, are intrinscially linked with the Mod movement, the songwriting process is distinctly Old Skool.

“I sit down with an old Sony tape player, that you would have had for Christmas circa ‘72, with cassettes. I had to buy a job lot of because I wans’t sure how long they’d be about. I got them from Asda Living, in Stratford-Upon-Avon. I play and record and just start. I just see what happens. Sometimes nothing comes and other times a song will come in minutes.”

He always feels nervous before he starts, over-thinking and worrying about what might happen. For him, OCS come to life on the stage, rather than in the studio. “I think bands start because you want to play to your mates in pubs and impress girls. Then suddenly you find yourselves in the studio. These days, once I’ve written the song, I may as well head off down the pub for two days while they’re recording, then come back to do the vocals.”

OCS were the apogee of Britpop. When Cool Britannia ruled the waves, no band had the same swagger and street cred, no band looked as smart or partied as hard. A carousel of drink and drugs seemed to spin for years as the band enjoyed five top 10 albums, and became the house band for Chris Evans’s TFI Friday.

“It was a lot worse than anyone can ever imagine, but it was wonderful.”

Those days have gone, however. “Yes, no longer. These days, I live in a village near Stratford, where I know everyone and everyone knows me. We’re all friends. I spend most of my days reading The Times at the local pub, or with my friends, instead of songwriting, which is probably what I should be doing. The other boys have their own lives and Steve’s is down in Devon. When we started out, we were a gang. That was one of the greatest things about being in the band.”

Foxy remains a roadhog. As much as he likes his village pub, he’s never lost his love of a hotel room. And as the band remain popular around the world, particularly Down Under, he’ll be spending plenty of time in them.

“We played Australia and New Zealand for the first time last year and we sold the gigs out in hours. None of us had a clue what it would be like. We didn’t know if they’d even heard of us. We’re going back and doing bigger places.

“I like being on the road. I love hotels. Everyone says it must be a nightmare but it’s quite good fun. All your rooms are nice, there’s a bar and there’s nice food – what else do you want? When we started saying in decent hotels, I’d been used to living in student accommodation in King’s Heath and Moseley. I couldn’t believe it, I was staying in rooms where the windows weren’t broken.”

And yet for all of the rock‘n’roll excess, Foxy’s true home is with an acoustic guitar in a pub, playing songs like Simon and Garfunkel’s The Boxer. “You don’t have to be Mick Jagger. A pint on the table, a Neil Young song and an acoustic guitar . . . that’s what makes me happy.”