Why did you wait so long to make "Road To Hell Part Two"?
Chris: It was mentioned a couple of years ago that it would be a good idea to do a part two, but I didn't particularly want it to be just for commercial reasons - I can only work under inspiration. So I said that I would do a Road To Hell Part Two when I felt I had enough material to make it a real thing. And I think that time has arrived. It is coincidental that it is 10 years exactly since part one. I think this goes in the normal human cycle of events really. You can see why ten is a magic word, because there is enough time for reflection.
What have you been listening to and has it influenced the album at all?
Chris: I got some Charlie Paten records. A journalist in France said that he'd found this record and it sounded like a Chris Rea demo (and this is pure coincidence or something else cosmic). I'd never heard of him and this guy said it sounds like me muttering and then talking. And so I was able to get hold of these records and they fascinated me because apparently, this guy is the earliest. There were three guys in the world, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Paten and Robert Johnson and it's a great debate which one came first and which one actually did that first blues pattern. I love this stuff because it feels good to me, its so uncluttered by production.
Do you feel at odds with the commercial record industry?
Chris: I think there is a constant battle between art and money, they do have to go hand in hand. God hasn't invented a being who can do art without having it earn money to buy food, it's the most basic point of the theory. And there is always going to be this battle. I accept it and just get on with it.
After 18 albums, how do you keep yourself motivated?
Chris: I think it is self explanatory from this interview that I just love music. People ask me what I do in my time off and won't accept that I do music. It's my first love. I get up in the morning, I make myself a huge Lavaza cup of coffee and I play music right away. I have to do it!
Do you enjoy doing interviews?
Chris: I Like interviews. I find them therapeutic. You always get something new that comes up. The only time it gets difficult is at the end of a promotional tour when you might be talking about something you've been talking a bout quite a lot over the last three weeks in different countries. All of a sudden you see that your mouth is about three inches in front of you and you're looking down at your own words coming out and you realise that your brain has become separate from your mouth. You're listening to yourself speak, which is quite a weird experience.
What are your expectations for this album?
Chris: My only expectation or hope for the album is that people see I'm still around with brain intact and that I am not just regurgitating the same old Chris Rea stuff, that I've moved on, and that I am still trying things. I've never asked the media to say "he always succeeds" and "he's fab" but I have always asked them at least to say for sure that Chris Rea is always trying things. I'm not just lamely putting out the same old stuff.
Have you got any ambitions which you have yet to realise?
Chris: I still have three major movies in my head to do with music. They are inextricably connected to music. I still have ideas and ways of making records that I haven't done yet. There's book ideas...I've got tonnes of stuff. It's not that I ever had an ambition to set out to do one thing and then stop breathing. I'm just the type of person that always has ideas for next year. I was born that way. When they bury me, I will have an idea about doing something with God. He'll probably tell me to get lost!