Damon Albarn

The former Britpop star and Gorillaz songwriter has resurrected his 2007 band The Bad & The Queen with ex-Clash bassist Paul Simonon.

And the as-yet untitled album is a love letter to the resort, where demos for the record due out next month were recorded.

Originally the intention was to focus entirely on Blackpool and its people and stories.

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“But that didn’t provide the whole answer for me,” Albarn told Mojo magazine.

However, Simonon says Blackpool is central to the album and explained the decision to start recording in the resort.

He said: “I’ve got a penchant for piers and Blackpool has three.

“They are like an extension of the island, these arms reaching out.”

Song titles include The Great Fire, Nineteen Seventeen, Lady Boston and Drifters and Trawlers, with Bowie and T-Rex producer Tony Visconti at the controls.

Albarn added: “I felt like I was writing my first proper short story.

“Every song is like a chapter. There are a lot of words and lots of seagull sounds.

Simonon said: “It’s as if rock ‘n’ roll never happened. It’s modern English folk music with a bit of rub-a-dub in it. It’s also incredibly personal. There’s a lot of us in it, our emotions, our melancholia, sadness and anger. It’s out thoughts on where we are and where we live.”