STEVE Diggle penned his latest solo work, Inner Space Times, in his mum’s kitchen in Blackpool.

“Sometimes you feel a bit powerless in the world these days don’t you?” said The Buzzcocks legend.

“This record is me just stepping away from The Buzzcocks, doing something a little bit more personal about stuff going in my life and when people hear the lyrics then, hopefully, they will associate it with their own lives too.

“A lot of punk music was about social surroundings, which I write a lot about, particularly with my songs in The Buzzcocks, but Inner Space Times is much more about my own journey.

“I thought it was time to look inside – if you can’t control the outside world, you can have an internal revolution of your own.”

Diggle added: “Do you remember that science fiction film Fantastic Voyage?

“A tiny spacecraft goes inside a human body and travels to all corners of that being, in veins and various tubes, and I was kind of thinking about that when I was writing Inner Space Times because it felt like I was looking inside myself.”

There’s a haunting psychedelic dash to Diggle’s introspective work, his fourth solo album, and it is powerful and engaging pop music we have come to expect from him.

Indeed, it reflects a stark view of a troubled world and the fast changing face of Britain through Diggle’s eyes.

He said: “Britain feels like it is being ripped apart and that’s troubling because we’ve lost that sense of real community that used to be so much part of the country in the past.

“You walk down any high street and much-loved buildings have been demolished, and what you are left with is a soulless carcass or nothing at all.

“For me, it feels like half the country is getting cared for and the rest are just left to rot.

“People need to be looked after, but I don’t see that at all.”

Diggle was always a gifted wordsmith. The opening song on the Buzzcocks debut LP – Fast Cars – was written by him, as were many others, including the pop-punk anthem Harmony in My Head.

“I live in London, but I go back to see my mum two or three times a year, and a lot of stuff I observed in Blackpool went into the theme of the album,” he said.

“I’d wander down the Golden Mile and then weave my way through the back streets, and that stark experience sparked a lot of what I wrote about.

“You need moments to reflect in life, that’s very important.

“When I got home to my mum’s, I sat in her kitchen and wrote about what I’d seen and I had a record.”

Diggle added: “I’ve a battered old cassette tape I’d kept since I was 16, a recording of my mum Hoovering the landing outside my bedroom on the day I wrote Fast Cars!

“So I’ve used the sound of mum’s Hoover as a backing track on the album’s final song, Inner Space Times.

“It’s funny how life comes full circle isn’t it?

Inner Space Times is out now and is also available as part of Steve Diggle’s four solo CD box set from www.stevediggle.uk.com