Last updated 05:31, Friday, 18 July 2008

HE LOOKS like a renegade from a boy band – all smouldering good looks and moody poses. But Seth Lakeman is a fiddle-playing foot-stomping folk musician.Poor Man’s Heaven is his fourth album and has a bigger sound than earlier releases.

For years folk has been a four letter word that most people couldn’t say, let alone listen to.

But over the past couple of years, Lakeman along with Kate Rusby has redefined and re-positioned folk for a new, younger audience. The 31-year-old is more rock and reel than i-diddley-i-di and has been credited with making folk ‘sexy’ and ‘trendy’.

He burst into national consciousness with a 2005 Mercury Music Prize nomination for his second album Kitty Jay, which was produced in his brother’s kitchen in three weeks for £300.

That sparked a series of TV appearances and a set at the V Festival, sandwiched between McFly and Sugababes. His high-octane, boot-stamping set went down a storm.

Last year he returned to V, has appeared at Glastonbury for the past two years and will be at Brampton Live this weekend.

It is one of 19 festival dates and five or six open air gigs he has lined up over the next few months.

Seth played Solfest and Carlisle’s Brickyard in 2006 and said: “Solfest was crazy. It was just like a dance festival. We were on just before The Proclaimers. It was a good gig.

“I’m looking forward to Brampton Live, I’ve played it before, a few years ago, with Cara Dillon.”

He was part of Dillon’s band before he decided to strike out on his own, singing traditional and self-penned songs based around the wilds of Dartmoor where he was born and raised.

It’s still distinctly folk and full of Lakeman’s flying fiddle, but the drums and bodhran are beefier, there’s more guitar, even slide guitar and Jewish harp.

“It is definitely bolder, but it is a step forward that has come naturally from playing live so much,” he points out.

“The opening track, The Hurlers, is like being smacked in the face and that is what we are like live.

“We are really, really happy with the way the album has turned out, it recreates what we do live.

There’s also a distinct theme to the 11-track album, from the cover photo of him on a beach to the songs of brave but doomed sea rescue, whaling, piracy and shipwreck.

The nautical narrative happened accidentally. He wrote Solomon Browne as a tribute to the men who died in the Penlee lifeboat disaster of December 1981 and Crimson Dawn first.

“They inspired me to write more on the theme. There are a lot more songs I wrote on the same theme that have not made it onto the record, but we will go back and work on them.”

While he records traditional folk songs, he prefers to write his own material. The melody is always the first thing to hit him... “And the rhythm behind it is vital – phrases will come after that, I usually start with the chorus,” he adds.

Despite folk’s long and proud tradition of protest songs, he shies away from making any political statements.

“I’m quite neutral on political opinions, I stay away from that. The colours I feel and inspiration I love come from stories.”

His influences are wide-ranging, and he lists Stephane Grappelli, Randy Newman, Ry Cooder and Richard Thompson.

And he puts his trademark stomping right foot down to his days of being interested in house music.

“I was a massive fan of house music for three years, going to all the clubs in Plymouth. That is where the stamping comes from, it is the house beat.”

Seth Lakeman and his band headline Brampton Live (www.bramptonlive.net) tomorrow night and Langholm Festival on August 16. (www.langholmfestival.co.uk).