Carl Marsh is full of praise for 2022’s more grown-up and raring-to-go Miles Kane – back in Wales this month after an absence that seemingly made the heart grow fonder, sporting a new album, Change The Show, with a vintage sound.

The blurb for your latest album Change The Show calls it something like “a big hello from Miles Kane to maturity,” and in respect of the vocals and the lyrics, I agree. At the same time, the record seems very Motown-inspired, with a 1960s vibe going on. Would I be on the right track by suggesting that?

Yeah, mate, that’s a compliment, so thank you. I think I’ve always stuck to the fact that many of the songs on my albums have been a bit softer or with a slightly Motown vibe, and with this new one, the songs I wrote in that style were the ones that felt good. It felt like a natural progression to make a modern record, put the makeup down, and get the suit out!

And then there’s the album’s title track, which I heard you wrote whilst watching the news in your underpants! If ever a record title could sum up what’s been going on this last two years, Change The Show ain’t far off…

It definitely [laughs]… it really is. It’s a bit of a power-to-the-people song – in that zone. It’s one of them, mate. So I’ll be interested to see, you know… like, people should latch on to that, prove the truth; see who’s right, whatever.

“It felt like a natural progression to make a modern record, put the makeup down, and get the suit out”

Miles Kane

Exactly. A song for the people. We all need to be singing it from the rooftops!

Things have been tough. There was not a lot going on at all, mate. And when you started to get back to work again, there was that feeling of being overwhelmed, in that everything seemed to be a big thing when usually it wouldn’t be.

So, it took a minute to adjust back, as mad as that sounds. I am feeling good now, and I am well up for it, to be honest. I am buzzing to come back to Cardiff, man – we don’t go there enough.

I’ve got an amazing band… it’s six of us. We’ve got Holly [Quinn-Ankrah] in the band, who did some singing on the album, so it’s going to be an uplifting, exciting, party atmosphere show. We can blow the roof off with the songs we’ve got – and covers, plus a couple of Puppets tunes to play with.

Speaking of The Last Shadow Puppets, your on-off group with Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner – will you and Alex be touching that musical project again in the near future, then?

When we feel like we can write tunes together, then we’ll do that. Sure.

The last song on Change The Show is titled Adios Ta-ra Ta-ra, and both lyrically and in name, it could hardly be a better end to the album. When you wrote this one, was it a designated closing track, or did you write it with other intentions?

Yeah, I did… I guess it is a song about saying goodbye. Or walking off into the sunset, you know, like “ta-ra, ta-ra…” Where I’m from, we love to say goodbye about a million times. We say “ta-ra, ta-ra, ta-ra…” So it’s got a bit of humour in there. And there’s the way the song ends, on a bit of a Hey Jude type outro…

Miles Kane, Tramshed, Cardiff, Mon 23 May. Tickets: £22.50. Info: here

words CARL MARSH