TWENTY five years ago James Grant stepped out at the City Halls and unveiled Love and Money’s classic album Dogs In The Traffic.

Now the singer is set to return to the venue this Friday, for a gig accompanied by a string section.

“I remember us being nervous before that gig, sitting in the Ingram bar beforehand and nursing pints while terrified,” recalls James.

“It was a Spinal Tap ‘welcome to our new direction’ moment because it was a lot mellower as an album than Strange Kind of Love and turned us into more of a cult band than the international superstars that our record label would have liked us to be.

“It was a very difficult album to make, for a lot of reasons – it was one of the lowest times in my life and I had to fight for it. I still find Dogs a very difficult album to listen to, but it’s the greatest Love and Money album by a long way. I think I was trying to make an album about the kind of writer I was, as opposed to what people wanted me to be.”

He's played the City Halls in the years since, but Friday’s show comes with a twist. Earlier this year the Castlemilk singer played two nights at Celtic Connections, running through material from his solo career and his work with Love and Money.

The gigs were successful enough, both artistically and commercially, that James has returned to the format for this Friday, where he will again be joined by the Hallelujah Strings.

“Things like Strange Kind of Love and Jocelyn Square really seem to suit it,” he says, referring to a couple of Love and Money’s biggest hits.

“I think on something like Winter, it really underscores the emotional impact. There’s a solo song called I Can’t Stop Bleeding, and I’ve always loved it but it has sounded like a miserablist anthem in the past, a bit like my own personal Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now.

“What the strings do is find another side to it, and it now sounds like a Burt Bacharach song. That felt magical to me to hear.”

James is now at a stage where he seems to enjoy dipping into the back catalogue, and going back to those late 80s and early 90s days when Love and Money were one of Scotland’s biggest bands. Then the group broke up, and he focused on a solo career, seemingly trying to put as much distance between himself and his old band as possible.

However a reunion arrived a few years ago, and a new Love and Money album, The Devil’s Debt, followed in 2012.

“I guess I’ve reconciled myself to everything from back then, even the mad haircuts,” says James.

“I was thinking ‘this was fun and it happened, so why am I denying myself that’. Should I be hung up on things? No, I shouldn’t, I should have a good time with it’. I guess that’s where I am with my life right now.

“I don’t think I want to put people through a heart-wrenching experience when I’m gigging, I want them to enjoy it and something like this setting with strings is a really special thing that highlights these songs.”

Which isn’t to say that he’s resigned myself to just trotting out old favourites forever. Two albums and a new single are on the way – one album is a live record, while he’s keeping the other under wraps for now, but promises that it will surprise people.

The same goes for the single, which should arrive next month and has been remixed by the producer Gary Katz, who worked with Love and Money in their 80s pomp.

However the most pressing concern is Friday’s show. When he performed at the start of the year the gigs concluded with a cover of Starman, and while there’s no guarantee of a repeat, it was a fitting tribute to James’s love for David Bowie’s music.

“Even now I’ve not been able to listen to Blackstar” he says.

“I still remember seeing him on Top of the Pops and not knowing if he was a boy, girl or an alien from the planet Zorg. I was just captivated and I remember us all talking about him in primary school, or listening to the radio and wanting to know what number The Jean Genie was in at.

“I must have been 10 or 11 and his music really got me.”

James Grant, City Halls, Friday, £27.50, 7.30pm