So, I'm walking around Asda, St Helens branch, when a familiar feeling hits me. "INCOMING..." And there it is, another song in my head, or at least the bare bones of one.

I think I'll call this one 'Enter The Dragon' being as I was born in 1964, a year of the Dragon, plus my eldest is also a Dragon (2000) and has just started his first band. What a wonderful year for us dragons this 'un has turned out to be.

It's also the title of the rather excellent Bruce Lee fight-flick that took the UK by storm when I was a kid, turning everyone my age into kicking, screaming mad ones, but I digress.

Anyway, "nice tune", I think to myself. "Think I'll keep hold of it unless Michael Monroe calls and wants me to write something on his new album". It would sound great with him singing it.

He never called.

Cut to Atherstone, UK where I'm mixing a couple of songs for my 555% album, and the chorus fully presents itself in blatant technicolour, 3D and Sensurround, insisting I change the title 'Enter The Dragon' to 'Swimwear'. Not being one to wrestle with my muse I allow the switch.

Suddenly a writing opportunity crops up with Courtney Love, for which I write 2 songs ('The Thrill Of It All' and 'Feral Days', both of which also appear on Hey! Hello!), and I keep 'Swimwear' stuffed firmly in my back pocket should the other two songs be gleefully accepted with open arms.

She never called.

Cut forward to a silly, semi-drunken conversation about making a noisy pop record where I play all the instruments. These kind of conversation are pretty dangerous for me as I react very positively to challenges.

For me songs typically breed, and it wasn't long before my recent, and so far unheard little compositions started to multiply.

First there were four, soon there were eight, and in no time I was demo-ing ten new sonic babies, bashing on an electronic d-drum kit in a small studio deep within the Midlands.

Armed with a ten song demo, with drums extracted and a click track installed, I went about learning how to play the drum tracks on an actual kit, starting with a kiddies scaled down set (belonging to my youngest, who incidentally named Hey! Hello!) and ultimately graduating to a full scale, shiny, big-boy drum kit.

I have to say that I had more fun recording these backing tracks than I can ever remember having in a studio, carving out not only sounds but personalities for the different players (being a multiple personality schizo certainly came up trumps on this occasion) and wrapping up the entire recording process in two weeks, before sending the tapes Stateside for Victoria to add her trans-Atlantic magic in time for a breath-takingly loud mixing session with Russ Russel.

And that, my friends, is the story of Hey! Hello! and 'Swimwear', in a nutshell.

And to think that if people wanted to hear my songs in the first place it would never have happened.