After the stardom enjoyed with The Fratellis, Jon Fratelli is happier than he has ever been. Chris Price reports.

Every time Jon Fratelli gets up on stage, he shrugs his shoulders at the fickleness of the music industry. The former Fratellis frontman’s flippant acceptance has become his way of dealing with the monumental changes that have happened to him in the business.

The Fratellis won a Brit Award, had two top five albums and created the singalong tune of the noughties with Chelsea Dagger. Yet two years ago the Scottish three-piece played their last gig as they headlined the Hop Farm Music Festival in Paddock Wood.

“If I say I don’t miss it that sounds disrespectful but I’m really happy now,” said Jon, whose solo band includes Gordon McRory, aka Mince Fratelli, on drums.

“I’m happy we had the good times but we got out at the right time. It is important to know when your time is up. I have always tried to do that.”

Originally, Jon mooted The Fratellis might one day re-form but now admits it is unlikely they will ever play live again. Talking to him, he accepts his days of major commercial success are behind him but is delighted with the cult following he has built since the split in 2009. He released an album with singer-songwriter Lou Hickey in the band Codeine Velvet Club and is now touring his debut solo record Psycho Jukebox.

“I’m not distrusting of the music industry,” said Jon, 32, whose real surname is Lawler. “Most musicians agree they don’t understand it. I don’t understand it and it is not going to make a real difference to my life if I do understand it.

“It comes to the point when you have to get down to the simple things which is making music and playing for people. It is not a bells and whistles approach but it is definitely something you can put your trust in whereas the other stuff you can’t.

“Playing music to people is the last thing musicians have in their control. Whether your song gets airplay is out of your control and a lot of shadowy figures have their say. The only thing you have left is putting on a guitar and playing it.

“I like the idea that you can still have that as the way people measure you. It can be the old-fashioned thing of playing music to people in a room. As long as there are people who want to do that and watch you it is a comfort to know that it is still an option. You can always just go out and play to people.”

Despite his solace in playing live, Jon makes no secret that the writing process excites him a lot more. Rather than keeping up with the latest trends the Glaswegian immerses himself in what he calls “obvious” artists like Dylan, The Beatles and Pink Floyd, the latter of which he describes as the first band he really got excited about.

“I’m still excited by Pink Floyd because they were my awakening to rock and roll. It was the first time in my life I got stupidly obsessed with something. They are a comfort band because when I listen to a Pink Floyd record it makes me feel 15 again.

“That was a really exciting feeling and I don’t think I have had that since. That first one is the one that never leaves you. It gives you that eight-year-old-at-Christmas-type feeling.”

He added: “I don’t think the commercial thing is something within your control. The more you try to second-guess what is commercially successful you are screwed. I please myself.

“Sometimes I do music because what else would I do?

“That little bit of excitement that maybe this next song will be great is why I get up of a morning. Maybe when I sit down today at the piano something will come out that wasn’t there before. You feel the excitement that at the end of the day something will exist that didn’t yesterday.”

Jon Fratelli plays at Tunbridge Wells’ Forum on Saturday, September 24.