Richard Hawley is trying not to swear. It's not going well. "For the last few London shows, I've turned up half-pissed in a denim jacket. Some people complained," he explains. Half an hour later, between soothing us with earthy tales accompanied by twinkling keyboards and trickling guitars, he has articulated his beliefs on the questionable success of laser eye-treatment, dealt with a with heckler and admitted to messing up a song. All this in language that leads him tentatively to ask if there's anyone religious around.
But if he's going straight to hell, it's worth it. Hawley has waited patiently for his share in the spotlight, having added his guitar licks to Pulp, the Longpigs and All Saints before releasing his debut mini-album, a collection of gently affecting gems that conjure up images of opulent ballrooms and grimy B&Bs.
Hawley embodies the rub of the suave and the sordid. He looks like Jarvis Cocker's fuller-figured, more conservative brother, wearing a suit that's a little too shiny, the black frames of his spectacles too thin to be cool. But it's this feel of being in the gutter and looking at the stars that makes both him and his music so appealing. As he picks up his acoustic guitar, his unexpectedly rich and strangely familiar voice - Bobby Darin meets Babybird on some faraway planet - floats above a lovely melody, with lead guitar reminiscent of the poppy twangs that made Billy Fury songs so comforting and memorable.
Only the innocence is missing. Hawley is a realist and his love songs detail everyday longings. He tells us he dreamed that he went aboard the first Apollo moon landing and held the earth in his hand like a marble. "It was beautiful," he says wistfully. "But then we all had to come back to sign on."
Hawley's self-deprecating humour and chatty manner are almost as good as the music. He is Johnny Vegas one moment, Roy Orbison the next. He clings to the end of each phrase he sings, his passion too genuine to be cabaret, his crooning style adding to the songs' sense of displacement. It is a transfixing combination, or as Hawley himself says, "fucking excellent".
