Justin Currie’s heart will always belong to Glasgow – because no-one tries to sook up to him here.

The singer is part of the city’s musical history, thanks to both his solo career and being Del Amitri’s lead singer.

Having lived in Glasgow all his life, he reckons it’s a place that still fires his creativity.

“If someone offered me an apartment in New York I’d jump at it, but I do love Glasgow, and I love it more as I get older,” he chuckles.

“You can go away for a bit and then come back, and you’ll still find some of the same places, and that can be very comforting when you are away from home a lot.

“Plus, no-one takes any crap from you – in other places people always sook up to you but no-one ever has that in Glasgow, and I’ve always found it really easy to write here for some reason.”

It’s easy to write here, but less easy to record. The singer will bring his latest album, This Is My Kingdom Now, to the O2 ABC on Saturday for a homecoming show.

Originally Justin had envisioned the record, his fourth solo offering, as being simply him and the piano recorded at home, only for some building work to demolish his plans.

“I was just trying to do live vocal takes with only piano in my house,” he explains.

“Then I had three building sites start up outside my house and I had to knock it on the head. When I went back to it I’d lost momentum, so I took it to the studio and started adding drums and the like. Once I’d taken that break for six months I realised an album like that would have gotten boring very quickly, so I changed tack.”

The album as a whole, however, was a lot easier than his previous solo record. 2013 release Lower Reaches saw Justin head to Texas, where he worked with producer Mike McCarthy. At the time the singer was filled with enthusiasm for letting someone else take control of his work. In practice, it proved a lot harder than he expected.

“I only just got a record out of it,” he says.

“I thought it sounded beautiful and it was worth doing from that point of view, but I was desperate to get back to being the boss and calling the shots in terms of what songs to record. I was elbowed out of my own process a bit last time.”

In-between solo records and touring with his band the Pallbearers, Justin also returned to the Del Amitri cause, playing a run of shows in 2014 that included a huge gig at the SSE Hydro. He’s confident the group will return at some point.

“I am sure there will be more gigs,” he says.

“We really enjoyed 2014. We weren’t sure whether we would or not – we did it because the money was good and we thought that enough time had lapsed that it would be enjoyable, but it ended up being very emotional.”

In the meantime, he’ll update fans about his projects through the likes of Twitter. It’s regularly claimed to be a great way to help musicians sell their music, but Justin has his doubts.

“It’s a nice way to while away the time, but I don’t think social media helps me sell my music in the slightest,” he says.

“All it does is bring a minority of my audience closer to me, and I’m not sure who that really benefits. The good thing about Twitter is that it’s amusing, while Facebook is just folk telling everyone they have a better life than you.”

Twitter’s better known for being a hotbed of political arguments and discussion. Justin used social media to highlight his switch from a No vote to Yes during the independence referendum, but he feels this also spotlights a problem, where you only listen to views you agree with on social media.

“I try to follow people I disagree with, because I want to avoid falling into a bubble, like everyone did during the independence referendum,” he says.

“I wasn’t hearing any other voices other than pro independence ones, and I’ve tried to get out of that. I felt towards the end of it that there was a mild hysteria setting in, even for someone like me that’s always been anti-nationalistic, and it’s very easy to get trapped in an echo chamber.”

Justin Currie, O2 ABC, Saturday, O2 ABC, £22.50, 7pm

JONATHAN GEDDES