RICHARD Hawley may have played in a steelworks and even a cave before now but he admits he’s never played at a cricket ground.

As Saturday night’s headliner at the Ramsbottom Festival, the twice-nominated Mercury Music artist, admits it’s something he’s looking forward to.

“It sounds ace,” he said of the three-day event at Acre Bottom, which starts tomorrow. “I just prefer doing smaller festivals. I’ve never really got the larger ones as I like to connect to an audience.”

The former guitarist with both the Longpigs and Pulp has, through a series of acclaimed albums, won a devoted following with his lush, emotional songs.

His most recent album — Standing at the Sky’s Edge — introduced a more psychedelic, guitar-driven sound and throughout the year Richard has been playing to sold-out crowds around the country.

“Ramsbottom will be one of my last live dates for a while,” he said.

“I have been playing a lot of shows this year and you do reach a point when it’s nice to take some time to do other things. I’ve got a part in a film and also something for radio to get involved in.”

One thing he will miss while not on the road is his current band.

“I have been a solo artist for the past 13 years,” he said.

“Before that I was never in a band for more than seven years. The guys I’m playing with now, we’ve been together for about eight years. When we’re not working together we all scatter to do our own things. We’ve all got families and things to do. As we’re all heading rapidly towards our 50s, it’s not as though we have to be in each other's pockets but we are all great friends.”

Richard is a prolific songwriter and admits that he already has enough songs for two more albums.

“But I’m not going to release anything anytime soon.” he said. “The record company knows that I will deliver them an album when I’m ready. My problem is that I like to commit to something fully so if I started working on the songs for an album I’d start thinking about what else I could do with them and before you know it there would be another full tour.”

Richard has co-written eight songs for the new Texas album and also appears on the new Manic Street Preachers release.

“I might be doing a few dates with Texas and there’s talk of appearing at some Manics shows but that’s not like touring,” he said.

As for Ramsbottom he promises a full set of songs both from the new album and earlier.

“We’ll just go and do what we do,” he said. “But it sounds like it’s going to be fun.”