Ben Lee's new sound

Ben Lee has devoted more time to his music.

As a kid, Ben Lee would flip through the Bible and think, "I don't want to read about someone else's experiences. I wanna be in the book."

Years later, the Aussie singer-songwriter's ambitions are just as lofty. His new album, Awake is the New Sleep is more of the introspective, warm fuzzies pop music that has made him a household name in Australia, alongside his relationship with ex-fiancee, Hollywood actress Claire Danes. But it's also a philosophical album that aims to "wake up" his audience.

"Just do it, whatever it is," he sings, Nike-style. "We're all in this together. Open your heart.

"I use the metaphor waking up - waking myself up, waking up my audience," he explains, on the phone before his first New Zealand gig at the Kings Arms on Thursday.

"My music really has spiritual goals. I want to provide something to people that I think is really needed and important, not something that is traditionally found in pop culture."

This is assuming, of course, that we need to be woken from what could be a blissful slumber, thank you very much. It is comments such as these that put Lee at risk of coming across as arrogant, despite his polite, friendly manner.

Perhaps his self-belief is inevitable. His high-school band Noiseaddict were discovered when he was just 14; he released his first solo album at 16, moved to New York at 18, and at 20 proclaimed his 1999 album Breathing Tornados as the best Australian album of all time.

Powderfinger singer Bernard Fanning famously responded by calling him a "precocious little f*** ", and Lee received an onslaught of criticism for his attitude and his music. Which is part of the reason you will have trouble denting his confidence now.

"When you're a kid you're like, 'I don't get it! Why don't they like me?' " he says.

"Criticism doesn't mean shit. I got so much of it and I cried myself into that hole. Then I realised, I'm still making music. It was that sense of complete helplessness that led to a kind of strength."

Until recently, he never understood the process of songwriting. Despite it being his greatest talent, he felt frustrated by his lack of control over it. Then a few years ago, his life changed when he met a spiritual guide in India, and what had previously been an interest on the side, became his primary concern.

He says he doesn't care about religion, about the rules people follow "out of obligation because they're afraid they're going to get spanked by a big father God in the sky".

He is happy just to let his creativity loose, and in the process, has discovered that writing songs is like dreaming - they happen to him, rather than the other way around. "It's not your job to know, it's your job to flow."

"I don't think my greatest value is lecturing people on what to do with their lives. I've been lucky enough, through music, to get a big sense of joy and peace that comes with that, finding my path.

"I think that's my job, accessing the joy. I don't do it through drugs, it doesn't need to be this glamorous rock star thing with a laser show."

A number of new songs suggest Lee was mending a broken heart while writing the album, such as Ache for You, Gamble Everything For Love, and Apple Candy, a slightly homoerotic number about desiring a woman so much that "I wanted any part of her, including anyone else she was giving herself to".

And while he won't attribute any of the songs directly to his break-up with Danes, he acknowledges he can't write music from any perspective other than his own.

"A lot of times, like when me and Claire were together for a long time, I put a lot of energy into a love relationship instead of into my spirituality and my music and the things I focus on now. So I think there was this side of me ready to blossom but it wasn't ripe.

"I feel like I'm coming into my own, reaching my stride. People who knew and loved me always knew it was in me, it was just a little dormant. And then there are some people who just think I've lost my mind."

Who: Ben Lee
Where and when: Kings Arms, Thursday