Imelda May speaks ahead of Birmingham show

Imelda May’s third album Mayhem was just as memorable as that stunning black-and-blonde quiff – a record chockfull of hits such as Psycho, Mayhem, Kentish Town Waltz and Inside Out.

It shot to number one in Ireland and the top 10 in the UK, as well as grazing the charts Stateside. Mayhem also paved the way for the 2014 follow-up, Tribal, which confirmed Imelda’s stature as a bona fide star as she went to number three in the UK and entered the American Top 100.

And now she’s back. Following the April release of Life Love Flesh Blood, Imelda is on the road and headlines Birmingham’s Symphony Hall on Monday.

Her new record – it’s one with a fringe, rather than a quiff . . . And, yes, that’s the music as well as the hair – showcases Imelda’s new groove. She’s exploring blues, soul, gospel, folk, rock, sensitive acoustics, cinematic drama and explosive balladry on a set of the boldest, most personal and intimately autobiographical songs she has ever written.

The record followed the end of her marriage with her guitarist Darrel Higham, the start of a new relationship and the subsequent end of that too.

“People change,” says Imelda. And the record shows it. Her hard-driving rockabilly style is gone. And the end of her 18-year relationship is ever present.

“I wrote the album over the course of a year, so I wrote it about everything. So yes, my marriage breakup is in there, but then I met someone else – and feeling guilty for being happy again, and then having desire and sensuality, all these beautiful things that are certainly a different experience in your 40s than in your 20s, you know? You learn new things about yourself.”

In many ways, music has been her salvation. The routine of writing, marketing and touring has kept her on the straight and narrow. It’s never been about a salary – being Imelda May is a way o flife.

“I love what I do, I love all the different parts of it – it’s never mundane. So I love it from writing, through to recording, editing, mixing, mastering, artwork, touring, rehearsals, all of it.

“But on stage, it’s probably where I feel most at home, performing. That’s the reason to make music you want to make – I can’t imagine how awful it must be to make an album to try and get a hit, hating it, and having to tour it, talk about it, and pretend you like it. The moral of the story is: always make the music you want to perform, for maybe two or three years – and maybe all your life.”

Imelda has made waves among the world’s biggest stars, with Bob Dylan calling himself a fan. She was blown away that the folk singer professed his support for her.

“To have my name uttered from his sweet, sweet lips made me die and go to heaven. I think I’m going to have that on my gravestone: Here lies Imelda May, Bob Dylan liked her. He’s just brilliant.”

She’s shed the rockabilly look as she’s embraced a different ethos. She felt it was time to move on, time to experiment and time to start anew. She hit the reboot button on her musical career and hopes people will enjoy her new approach. “I’ve never made music to please others, and I’m not going to start now. I’ve been gigging and writing for 26 years, but only known for seven of those, and I started singing blues, jazz, all kinds of roots music. I’ve never been 100 per cent pure rockabilly and I’ve always stated that. How I got involved with it in the first place was that I mixed it with blues and jazz and punk and gospel, and was told: drop the rockabilly part. That made me want to do it more, because of the natural rebellious streak in me, and because I couldn’t understand why such an influential music was so shunned. Without rockabilly, we would never have had punk, rock’n’roll, progressive rock, and most things we love today.”