Billy Bragg: Protest notes and love songs

Billy Bragg.

'Working-class hero' is still fired up, as Paula Yeoman discovers.

Last year, when Billy Bragg released Tooth and Nail, one of his most introspective albums yet, some wondered if the working-class hero had lost the political fire that had fuelled his earlier work.

Not a chance. As it happens, the British singer-songwriter and activist writes love songs just as well as he does feisty protest anthems. And always has done.

What has changed, he explains, is the time it takes to get new music from the artist to the audience.

"What has happened is the digitisation of music," he says. "If I write a topical song now, I tend to put it up for free download on my website rather than having to wait for three or four years before I can say something.

"Around the time the phone hacking scandal broke here in England, I wrote a song called Never Buy The Sun.

"I literally wrote it on a Friday, performed it for the first time on a Saturday, someone filmed me singing it afterwards in the dressing room, I posted it on YouTube on the Sunday and it took off.

"I eventually recorded a studio version and put it up for free download. I've done about five of those since the previous album.

"The knock-on effect of that is when I come to make an album, I tend to have love songs there."

And it's those songs with their Americana twist that are bringing Bragg back to New Zealand this month on his Tooth and Nail tour.

He says the door to Americana opened up to him on his 1998 album Mermaid Avenue, when "people all over the world who had stopped listening to me started to pay attention again, certainly in New Zealand and Australia".

Despite wanting to pursue it more, he was side-tracked by the rise of the far right political party, the British National Party, in the UK.

"They were winning council seats and I felt I should focus on that, so I made England, Half-English that explored the politics of identity and belonging and the only way I could do that was to couch it in music that had its roots in world music."

It wasn't until years later - when Bragg began chatting with the Grammy Award winning producer Joe Henry - that he started to explore American roots music again.

"I thought Joe would be the ideal guy to pick that up, because he's one of 'the' go-to producers for Americana."

Together, they have created one of Bragg's most personal albums but, unlike the last time he was here in New Zealand, it won't just be Bragg and his guitar alone on stage. This time, he's bringing a full band.

Billy Bragg plays the Wellington Opera House on March 23 and The Powerstation in Auckland on March 25.