The intimate and beautiful new album from Damon Gough, aka Badly Drawn Boy, marks a surprising change of direction. He tells Andrew Perry what happened

He's not hard to pick out among the early-evening diners at the appointed Greek taverna. He's not sporting the same black-and-white striped woolly hat that he wore around the time of his Mercury award-winning The Hour of Bewilderbeast album, the one in which his head resembled a large Everton mint. Rather, it's a red number in three shades, but, on this hot night in a busy restaurant, Damon Gough, aka Badly Drawn Boy, is the only one wearing any headgear at all.


He stands and welcomes me heartily, introducing his mum and dad, and the three lads from his backing band, with whom he'll soon be playing a short set at nearby Liverpool University.





I only want to know the reasons for hyphenations of the following in the above.

early-evening diners

black-and-white striped