Marti Pellow found worldwide fame with Wet Wet Wet and followed it up with a successful career in musical theatre but he’s not forgotten his roots. 

Pellow, 51, says he still regularly visits Clydebank despite the deaths of his mother and father.

“I came up early this week and went over because the ABC cinema is being pulled down. I wanted to see its innards. It’s Art Deco, which I love. I needed to see the heart of it.

"I watched The Three Stooges and Flash Gordon there and later I watched A Star Is Born with Barbra Streisand. I spent so much time there. It was great escapism and I loved seeing this starry world.”

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He is back in Glasgow to star in the panto Aladdin at the Clyde Auditorium. 

Pellow played the Abanazar role in Birmingham last year to great success. The Hippodrome achieved its highest ever panto sales and his critics were impressed. (“Marti Pellow makes for a fantastic, boo-able pantomime villain.”) 

Pellow makes the point he has played baddies before, such as Billy Flynn and the dark Daryll van Horn in The Witches of Eastwick. “I’ve always loved panto. I’d go with the Boys Brigade every year to see Stanley Baxter or whoever at the King’s. I’m happier playing an Abanazar than an Aladdin.”

Pellow’s journey has been incredible. He was selected by his Clydebank schoolmates to form a band because he looked right and was cheeky. Then they realised he could sing more than the pants off a song. But he wasn’t the confident boy the band members thought he was and he became addicted to heroin.Truth was he lacked self-belief.

Was this why he would often shy away from interviews, even having drummer Tommy Cunningham pretend to be him for American radio? “I’m a singer-songwriter. I’m a writer. All writers have that built-in insecurity.”

He was never content. Always looking around. Never quite of any one plan, any one place. One minute he’d buy a mansion in Helensburgh, the next he was off to New York.

“That’s the thing about fame. Once the gates open you’re holding on for dear life, and then at times you think: ‘Helensburgh. Ice-cream.’”

He’s never been the complete pop star, that’s for sure. Which is why the former apprentice painter and decorator slept in the servants’ quarters and painted his Helensburgh home himself.

“I still do that sort of stuff,” he says, grinning. “There were boys doing a job for me recently and I was at the window, and I wasn’t sure if they were doing it right so I got in amongst it. That’s because my family were in the building trade. I love working out what makes things work. I love doing practical puzzle solving.”

Glasgow Times:

THE family was a central pillar of his life but following the deaths of his mother Margaret, father John and brother John Pellow now has no immediate family. 

“Yes, but I remember all the good stuff. I was super close to my mum, and my father, and we really grew into each other. But they are still with me. I still wear them. I can smell something and I remember them, and I flash back to journeys with them. I really miss the words ‘mum’ and ‘dad’. I miss the chance to say those words out loud. So I do it. I speak to them sometimes. I need to. Why not?”

Once, life was about Ferraris and mansions and having curries flown across to the States, but reality has dawned.

“Touring in musical theatre has opened my eyes,” he admits. “You go to places like Rotherham or Hull for a week, out of the London bubble, and you realise a lot of communities are struggling.” 

The man who grew up a council house appreciates Scotland is struggling. “I look at the shipyards, I look at our history. But do I want nationalism? I really don’t know. I just want what’s best for my country. I love Scotland. I carry it with me. But I’m not knowledgeable enough to peel back the layers of what they [politicians] tell me. Yet I was scared to realise when I came back from America we were out of Europe. Wow!”

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Pellow lives between leafy Berkshire and the States. “I take long leases in homes in America. I had a loft in Los Angeles recently and moved into an arts commune. There was a wee pool area and it was great because no-one knew me. I just said I was a songwriter.”

And when he played them a few songs? “It was, ‘Ah, you’ve done that before!’ The songs I played them I had written with the Tower of Power horns and Quincy Jones boys, guys who wrote Boogie Wonderland. The album comes out in February.”

Did Donald Trump surprise him by winning the American presidential election? “Oh, aye. I thought the lady [Hillary Clinton] was the better choice but in a global sense we’re all frustrated and looking for answers. 

“And it’s not good because we’re looking for answers in the wrong place.”

What about Pellow’s personal life? Is (former model) Eileen Catterson still part of it?

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“I love her to bits, and she’s so supportive of the projects I work on,” he says. Will he marry her? “We are happy,” he says, smiling. “If we get married you’ll be the first to know.”

Aladdin, Clyde Auditorium, Glasgow, tomorrow until December 31.