Bernard Fanning on the eve of the release his third solo album, Civil Dusk. Credit:Cybele Malinowski "Is Andrea here yet?" Fanning asks his publicist, before we even sit down for coffee in the lobby of the harbour front hotel where he is staying in Sydney. Andrea? Unless he's run off with a woman who has exactly the same name, that would be Andrea Moreno, who he married in 2007. "Well, that's a relief to hear you're still together," I say. "From listening to Civil Dusk, I assumed…" "You assumed it was a break-up album?" he says. "Someone said that to me the other day, too, and I can understand why. But it's not all about me. It's about stuff I've seen and stuff I've imagined. I'm sure you're the same, that you see friends get into their 40s and stuff starts falling apart."

Fanning turns 47 this month. His face is a little craggier and his beard is streaked with grey, but he's still got the rock frontman hair and looks rakish in a grey corduroy jacket over a denim shirt. You don't need to point out the march of time to him. He's there to do it for you. "I don't do social media. I'm on Facebook, but I've only got two friends, my wife and my bass player. And I've never made a post for either of them. I'm contactable enough, aren't I? I've got a phone. "I need glasses for reading now but I've needed glasses for long distance for over 10 years. I realised I needed them when I was playing golf." Because your playing was so terrible? "No, because I was hitting the ball so well, Barry," he says drily, with a smile. "I've also got a bad shoulder from a surfing accident."

For the last half dozen years, since Powderfiner dissolved in 2010, he's been a nomad. The family has bounced around between Madrid (his wife is Spanish), Brisbane, Kingscliff in northern NSW and Los Angeles. In August last year he bought a place in Byron Bay and they intend to stay there for a long while. Fanning and Nick DiDia – who produced Civil Dusk, and whose name graces albums by Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam, Rage Against The Machine and Powderfinger – have set up their own studio in town, converting a former pool house for their purposes. It's called La Cueva – "the cave" in Spanish. He's been thinking a lot lately about decisions and consequences. It's the central theme of Civil Dusk. Fanning once had ambitions of being a sports journalist: "What's better than talking about cricket all day? There are other things in life, but I can't think of any off the top of my head." He decided to join a rock band instead. Now all he wants to do is make music until the end of his days. Or as he wryly puts it, "I'm just into writing depressing, maudlin, mid-tempo ballads." With that said, he enjoyed writing the treatment for the video of Wasting Time, the first single from the new album, and especially liked poking fun at himself. The clip stars Damon Herriman (from Justified) and is set in a suburban '70s world of shagpile carpet, The Joy of Sex, Jason Reclina rockers and Sandman panel vans. At one point Herriman clicks a clunky remote control at his television set and on every channel there's a music video featuring Powderfinger or Fanning – Pick You Up, My Happiness, On My Mind, Wish You Well. He finally tosses the remote at the TV in frustration.

It's pretty funny for a guy who was in a band that was often criticised for not having a sense of humour. "I reckon we had a sense of humour, but it was missed," he insists. "I was punched or head-butted or killed in a lot of our videos. I thought that was funny. We hated being in photos, so that's why we always looked glum in them. And then we started talking about things that weren't palatable, like how racist Australia was and how badly off Aboriginal people were. And I think people thought 'Aren't pop stars supposed to be fun? Aren't they meant to be banging hookers and snorting coke?'" His penchant for being outspoken hasn't softened much. In fact, new song Belly of the Beast is his most overtly political moment since Like a Dog, the incendiary protest song about the Howard years, or Black Tears, inspired by a death in custody on Palm Island. Was there a particular event that prompted Belly of the Beast or was it just a general malaise with the body politic? "Malaise is the exact word. It's just a failure at all levels across the globe. It's very pointed in Australia how we've had a failure of leadership and how any kind of public discourse has gone in the last 15 or 20 years. It's become completely polarised and there's this 'with us or against us' mentality. Since the Tampa election the Labor party has just drifted to the right. "And then there's the issue of asylum seekers and how little humanity has been brought into that debate. The idea that you lock up people and throw them away like animals is just bizarre. The thing about that song is that I wanted to be careful to include everybody. It's your fault, it's my fault, it's our fault."

Recently he was asked if he had ever considered entering politics. When he dismissed the notion, the story appeared with the headline "Bernard Fanning Rules Out Political Career". He lets out an exasperated sigh. "Why would you do it? Look at Peter Garrett and the very difficult path he had to tread. It just goes to show what the machine is like. I mean, Powderfinger was enough of a political machine for me to deal with and there were only six of us." In the wash-up of the band's split, it emerged there was disquiet about Fanning's attention to his solo career, which had taken off with his 2005 debut solo album Tea & Sympathy (which won three ARIAs). And when he had to return to Australia to play Powderfinger shows while his wife was recovering from open-heart surgery in Spain, he reassessed everything. "That was the moment where I thought, 'OK, I can't control what I'm doing. Despite the fact I'm in this band and these guys are my best mates, my first obligation is to her.' When she got through the operation and everything was fine and she got pregnant, that's when the discussions were happening about whether the band would keep going. And I said 'No, I'm out.' I have zero regrets about that. And now I think all of us do." Six years after that decision – and its consequences – he says he's still friends with every member of Powderfinger, but even though there are plans for the 20-year anniversary of their breakthrough album Double Allergic, there won't be a live reunion. Still, he's constantly reminded of the group's impact.

"People come up and tell me about how particular songs were important in certain parts of their lives and how they've played them at weddings and baptisms and funerals – all the sacraments. I wrote songs about grieving, so if I'm partly responsible for helping people during that time, then that's a truly wonderful thing." As for Fanning's future, he's on a creative roll. There's a companion album to Civil Dusk arriving early next year. It's a work in progress and will be called Brutal Dawn. "I very much like the idea of pointing to stuff from Civil Dusk on the next record," he says. "I loved that self-referential thing about the Beatles, when they sang things like 'the walrus was Paul'. It's also a living thing, because I haven't finished Brutal Dawn yet, and with Civil Dusk coming out I can respond to how people react to it." He thinks for a second. "And I don't mean that in a Kanye 'I'm going to remix this after people have bought it' kind of way." So he won't be premiering it on his laptop at Madison Square Garden?

"I can pretty safely say that's a no. It's not some big wanky art concept. But it's still going to look at decisions and consequences." And with that, he takes his leave to go upstairs and catch up with the woman who has been at the heart of some of those decisions and – happily – their consequences. Civil Dusk is released August 5.