FOR more than 20 years he's fronted Welsh rockers Feeder - now frontman Grant Nicholas is going it alone and turning the volume down.

The singer has released a stripped-back solo album, Yorktown Heights, and brings it to Oran Mor a week tonight.

More mellow than his rockier work with Feeder, Grant's solo songs look to inspirations like Nick Drake and Neil Young, and he's bringing that into his live gigs too.

"We are really quiet onstage. It's really different but I'm enjoying it," he says.

"You can hear everyone playing and it's not about the noise, but where the songs take you.

"I've got a really good band, and I wanted to keep it quite small. It's daunting because you don't get the reaction of a Feeder gig with crowd-surfing, but there's still a band vibe there."

Grant's quick to admit the solo record was never part of any grand plan. Instead it came about from a desire to write some songs different from the type of material that Feeder would play.

An example of this is Father To Son, a song that Grant penned about his wee boy.

He feels the more personal style of lyrics are better suited to a project like this rather than Feeder's rowdy pop-rock.

"There was no dirty desire to be a solo artist or anything," he explains.

"Feeder's really just me and Taka (Hirose, bassist), and I've always had a lot of freedom, but it was time to show a different side.

"I'm not saying that Feeder songs aren't personal for me, because they are, but it's more of a band and I just don't know if I'd feel comfortable with a song like Father To Son on a Feeder record.

"It felt more suitable for a solo record, which is more personal, and it's kind of got two messages.

"It's really a song about a son, but also about father and son relationships, so it touches on my own father as well.

"It's a song I felt I needed to write and I don't think my head would have been in that space if I was writing for a Feeder record."

Given that Grant's been fronting Feeder for so many years, through highs (massive singles like Buck Rogers) and terrible lows (the death of drummer Jon Lee in 2002) it's not a surprise that there were moments when he slipped back into writing for the band.

"There were days when I felt I was going back into my Feeder headspace, and so I put those songs away for that," says the 46-year-old.

"It was hard to leave them off the album, but they didn't really feel like they fitted in with what I was doing for the record.

"It sounds weird, but I had to separate myself from Feeder.

"You do write with things in your mind like your fan base or what they'll sound like live, but this time it really was a blank canvas."

The record's lyrics touch upon various emotions, too, something Grant always intended.

"I think sometimes people think that if you're writing sad songs then you need to be depressed and living in a black hole," he says.

"But sometimes I'll write them when I'm feeling at my happiest. You just want to write about a range of emotions."

Feeder fans shouldn't fret, though, as another album should be on the way soon.

"The plan is to do as much with this one then come back feeling refreshed to do another Feeder album," he adds.

"There's some stuff kept back from the last album that we haven't used, and I could put together a Feeder album quickly if I had to, but we want to make sure it's really good.

"People often just want to hear the hits, but we don't want to just look towards the past."

l Grant Nicholas, Oran Mor, October 16, £15, 7pm