David Keenan, 49, grew up in Airdrie and lives in Glasgow. His 2017 debut, This Is Memorial Device, was shortlisted for the Gordon Burn prize, which he won last year with his second novel, For the Good Times, about the IRA. He has also published a history of the UK’s industrial music scene, England’s Hidden Reverse, and a book about tarot, To Run Wild in It, accompanied by his own deck of cards, created in collaboration with the artist Sophy Hollington. His new novel, Xstabeth, follows the 19-year-old daughter of a Russian singer-songwriter visited by an otherworldly force.

You have said that you wrote Xstabeth in “a state of possession”.
I’m not sitting down and preconceiving books any more. I always knew my first book would be about the excitement of the post-punk years in Airdrie, to go against the perception of small towns being depressing. And I also had an idea in mind in For the Good Times, because of my father and his family, who grew up in the Ardoyne during the Troubles. Xstabeth is deeper waters - it was like receiving a signal. I’m not 100% sure what’s going on in it myself, which is what I totally love. I no longer want a book with a point because once you’ve taken that point on board that book is solved and I don’t want art that can be solved.

What draws you to set your work in the 70s and 80s?
Those times have an inherent magic for me. Reality felt up for grabs as a kid: if a UFO had landed on the roof of my house in Airdrie, I wouldn’t have been that surprised. But I also like that people were less connected - there was potential for naivety. In Xstabeth, the characters in Russia are so cut off; they take music’s power to transform life really seriously, perhaps more so than cynical westerners who can just check it out on YouTube.

Are you asking readers of Xstabeth to keep an open mind?
That’s what life asks of us, so why shouldn’t art? If you’re resistant, the novel’s hypnotic rhythm is a way of bringing you in. I want to re-enchant reality. I love that the last word of Ulysses is “yes”. Even after all its disassembling of language, it was just an attempt to say a great affirmative yes. And that’s what my books are about. Even For the Good Times: it’s set in a war zone, but it’s still about four young men’s attempt to say yes, even in the Ardoyne in the 70s and 80s.

One critic suggested you were glamorising the Troubles.
A lot of people read books and then say: “Are the characters behaving in a way that is good or bad?” It’s as mindless as that. Do you think I’m going to spend three years writing a novel just to make the facile point that violence is bad? Anyway, the idea that there isn’t a glamorous appeal to violence is hilarious. Why do you watch The Sopranos? The idea that we’re supposed to pretend violence doesn’t have an appeal means we’ll never get to the bottom of it [as a problem].

You don’t shy away from writing about sex from a young woman’s point of view.
Yeah, I let the characters behave in the way they want to behave - I’m not a puppetmaster. Also, I just like sex in books, you know what I mean? I’m very interested in it myself and I like writing about it. It’s a huge thing in our lives and I couldn’t keep it out of any of my books. I mean, what could possibly be wrong about a 19-year-old woman sticking her finger up a stripper’s arse? I know sex can be very complicated but it can also be uncomplicated.

Do you see yourself as a Scottish writer?
Not particularly. Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped meant so much to me growing up, probably because the guy in it was called David. But see when I was writing? The one thing I decided not to do was read any Scottish fiction. Even Irvine Welsh and Alan Warner; I didn’t read them until I was published myself. I was so wary of picking up on any other type of Scottish voice.

You were a music journalist for 25 years. Do you observe any differences between writing about music and writing about books?
You can be more creative in music journalism. I was never a critic, I was more of an evangelist. You know, the sort of guy that stands on the side of the dancefloor taking notes with his shirt tucked in? I was never that guy; I was the guy in the moshpit and I wanted to transmit that same energy to the reader. I’d like to see more of that in literature – you’re never going to make a book appeal to me just by telling me what it’s about. But that’s all everyone wants to know. At festivals or award ceremonies, the last thing you’re going to get asked about is your writing; instead, they’ll say: “What’s your book about?”

Which novels have you admired lately?
Edna O’Brien’s Girl was amazing; to put herself in these situations, near the end of her life, in a very dangerous place – what a bold woman.

What did you read as a child?
Probably what transformed my life was getting into heavy metal. I also went to astronomy club – I was quite geeky – and all these metallers and astronomers were into science fiction. I was into Doctor Who, so I started on the Terrance Dicks novelisations. Then I found Nicholas Fisk, John Christopher, John Wyndham – and Arthur C Clarke. He blew my mind. The magic of Rendezvous With Rama has stayed with me my entire life; I reread it regularly. As a kid, it was like encountering an inexplicable alien artefact. It’s everything I want in a book.

• Xstabeth by David Keenan is published by Orion (£14.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply