Dazed Digital: David, you’ve got Holy Pictures coming out in September. Excited?
David Holmes: Yeah. It was a real different experience for me because I started writing songs myself, and singing.

DD: You’re singing?!
DH: Yeah.

DD: Wow. That’s a new direction.
DH: Well, it’s basically because all the music is so personal, and I’ve never done that before, and think you can really set out to make a personal record – it’s just something that kind of happens over time. So after all the music was nearly complete, I realised that no one else can sing on it but me.

DD: But can you sing?
DH: Well anyone can sing, it’s just a matter of whether you think it sounds good or not. I did it from the bottom of my heart, and that’s all you can do and I’ll leave it for other people to judge. But, in a way, it doesn’t really matter what other people think, because it’s a document about a life, which I’ve never done before. It’s actually quite terrifying, because you’ve got hundreds of interviews that lie ahead, and you’ve got to talk about it.

DD: Have you started doing any of them yet?
DH: No. I’m fucking dreading it. But on the other hand – who cares?

DD: So how long did it take to make? It’s been a while.
DH: I was kind of doing it on and off in between soundtracks and stuff. It took me a while to find the record, because I didn’t just want to do another album and just put it out there, - I wanted it to be very different from what I had done before. But what I found through time was the stuff that was having some kind of resonance were the tracks that you could feel, and meant something personally to me, and emotionally. And through this I lost both my parents, so a lot of it is to do with them. I also lost a friend who took her own life, and I had a child – a daughter – all these life changing things that kind of shape you as a person. So that’s what the songs are about. But it’s not obvious – I could be singing about a girl. That’s the only reason that I could get through, and that’s why I don’t even know if I could do it again, because the only way I could write words was because I had these inner feelings about what I was writing. I don’t think I could write something abstract or that’s a clever play on words à la Beck. It had to be totally just to be about what I was feeling, and that’s why I did it. It wasn’t because I’m a singer-songwriter now – I did it because I had to, not really because I wanted.

DD: Are you nervous about putting it out there?
DH: You know what? No - no I’m not. When you’ve done something that comes totally from your heart and it actually really means something to you it really doesn’t matter what people think of it. It would be different if I wasn’t doing it from the heart, and I was singing just for the sake of singing, and people slated it – you’d feel like a right cunt. But because it’s pretty for me, that’s all that matters. But hopefully people will like it.

DD: How does it compare to your previous albums?
DH: It’s quite emotive. The influences range from Herbert Hink, this German minimalist pianist; to Jesus and Mary Chain; to LA Düsseldorf to Blondie; to early Eno and Manoir; to the Beach Boys. I can’t really see all those influences working but they’re all very subtle. Some of them are more subliminal than other, and I didn’t really think about what was influencing it all until I kind of sat back and looked at it, and was able to spot all the references. And when I did I was able to see that it works, but on paper it doesn’t. Soft Machine, that was another influence.

DD: Are you still doing a lot of movie scores?
DH: Yeah, I’ve just finished one for Hunger, that film about Bobby Sands and his three month hunger strike. I did that, and I’m doing this other movie called Five Minutes of Heaven, by this director called Oliver Hirschbiegel who directed Downfall. And as we speak I’m in the middle of a Primal Scream remix.

DD: So you’re keeping yourself busy then. Are you worried about your reception as nineties producer and how people are going to react to your new direction?
DH: No. For a start, I stopped playing dance music about 1994/1995. I’ve always been playing alternative music. Lets Get Killed Tonight wasn’t dance music. It was a homage to the early days when I was a MOD, chopping up samples and records when I was 15. I don’t give a fuck what they think. People are going hang on to something that happened maybe 15 years ago, then they haven’t really been following what I was doing. I’ve always just wanted do what I want, and I’ve got away with it so far. And I’m going to continue doing it.

Holy Pictures out on 8th September.
Click here to download the Andy Weatherall remix of 'I Heard Wonders', the single, which is out this week or stream it below.