GREG Kane is suffering from withdrawal symptoms. One half of Hue and Cry with brother Pat, Greg has decided to come off social media - and he’s feeling it.

“I think it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done,” he said. “I was addicted.

“I’ve had a nicotine addiction and I’ve come off that. Coming off social media was just as tough.

“I’m quite a strong person. I’m aware of my surroundings, I’ve been involved in new media since its inception and yet it shocked me that I was completely disorientated because I’d deleted my Facebook account.”

Greg hasn’t totally escaped the demands of social media though.

“It is important for bands like us; it’s is part of our business model so Pat and I still have to create content to engage people but we now have to go through the office to do that. It just means they can censor me now!”

But there has been one big plus resulting from Greg’s self imposed social media ‘exile’ - it’s given him and Pat more time to write songs together.

“Now Pat and I are just writing songs again which is great,” he said. “We’re just sitting there writing music.

“We’re both old school and believe in the idea of the album so we like to have around 15 songs written before we record. For us, it’s nice to do a body of work that marks a moment in time.

“Some people say that they can’t listen to their old material but Pat and I are not like that. Every song represents a certain point in our lives.

“I was just looking back and couldn’t believe that we released Remote in 1988, Next Move in 1998 and Open Soul in 2008 - we’re in our fourth decade. We’ve done lots of other albums in between but it looks as though there seems to be a high energy Hue and Cry record every 10 years. We’d best get on with it then!

“The problem is Pat and I don’t work with deadlines and plans. You can’t stop it if you go off at a tangent – it’s not fair because you don’t know where it is going to lead. If you do stop you might have prevented yourself from writing something great.”

It’s hard to believe that Hue and Cry have been putting out music for more than 30 years - and with shows in Preston and Manchester over the next couple of weeks as part of a UK tour, there’s no signs of them slowing down.

Hits such as Labour of Love and Looking for Linda have become classics and Hue and Cry are in constant demand for live shows.

“We do a lot of big festivals in front of tens of thousands of people and they want you to help them have a ball.

“So I’ve said to Pat ‘let’s write new songs that we can play in front of 20,000 people and get them to jump up and down and wave their arms around to’.”

Before the summer festivals, the current tour sees Hue and Cry on a joint headline tour with The Christians.

“We’re really looking forward to working with the Christians again,” said Greg. “We did a tour with them three or four years ago and got to know them really well. I did have this idea of Pat and Gary from The Christians doing a duet at some point but both of them just said no as soon as I mentioned it. Singers - what are they like?”

Hue and Cry and The Christians, Preston Live, Saturday, May 19, details from 01772 804444 and Manchester Academy on Saturday, May 26, details from 0161 832 1111