Tim Booth has been the lead singer of James and a whirling dervish for 32 years. The band has just produced its 13th album and sold out another successful tour.

But life hasn’t always been so rosy for the 50-something adoptive Manc who now lives in a National Park in California.

As a youngster liver disease nearly killed him several times and life and death feature large in many of his lyrics. And, he really only found the band by chance, thanks to a half-decent marker pen.

At a student gig his wild and wonderful dancing attracted the attention of bass guitarist Jim Glennie (hence the band’s name, James) who asked him to join up as a dancer.

All Tim Booth remembers is that he’d split with his girlfriend that weekend and people were stealing his drinks so fast he wasn’t getting as drunk as he hoped.

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The next morning our hero awoke and remembered nothing, but luckily for him Glennie had the foresight to scrawl his phone number on the back of Tim’s hand – the rest is history.

It wasn’t all plain sailing though, at one point the band was so poor they signed up as human guinea pigs for medical experiments, the subject of a TV documentary about how cash-strapped rock stars can become.

As a fellow drama student of the same age, with my own wildly-ecstatic dance style, I suppose I was destined to be a fan of James’ uncompromising indie style.

And, it’s great to discover your idol doesn’t have feet of clay.

In fact, Tim is now far more likely to have his feet in a pair of hiking boots, preferably on a long walk with his 10-year-old son at his side.

Usually people start out as healthy youngsters whose health tends to deteriorate as they get older.

Booth seems to be working in reverse. Of course, the liver disease might actually have helped save him as he couldn’t do the levels of booze and drugs usually associated with his professional colleagues.

The enigmatic front man says he feels healthier now, in his fifties, than he has ever done.

And what’s more, as the years go by, his voice seems to be getting stronger too.

Originally signed up as a dancer, Tim says: “Actually I didn’t like my voice for the first seven years, but since James reformed it seems to have got stronger, more authentic.

“I’ve done vocal warm-ups for years, but somehow in the last seven years I’ve become more accepting of my voice and it’s developed a more interesting, if slightly ragged, quality.”

The illness he suffered as a youngster not only turned him yellow but gave him hallucinations so severe he feared he might end up sectioned.

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His over-riding thought on his 30th birthday was “I can’t believe I’ve got away with this”.

But reaching his 50s sees him in the rudest health of his life.

As he says: “I can’t believe how lucky I am to be this skinny, goat man who’s still so fit and strong”

And he’s discovered a new respect for older people that eluded him when he was younger.

“All too often old people are just shunted away,” he says. In particular he talks in glowing terms about Leonard Cohen, David Hockney, Brian Eno, to name but a few, and says he has developed a new found respect for the wisdom and depth of spirit that go with age

James are touring their new album La Petite Mort in November.

On Wednesday, November 19, they play the Albert Hall, followed on the Friday by the O2 Brixton Academy.

Asked which gig he’s looking forward to most, Tim said: “They both have a great appeal but both will bring out different aspects. When I first played the Albert Hall in 1984 I was too young to appreciate it, but now I love it.

The O2 will be a much more punky gig with a great vibe, but a totally different set from a seated, more acoustic venue. I’m sure they’ll both be great, but maybe Albert Hall just nicks it, now I get the place.”

Once a member of a sect called Lifewave, the themes of life and death have always featured heavily in Tim Booth’s lyrics, with heavy overtones of sexual and religious experiences wound into them. I asked Tim if he has faith.

“I definitely do have faith, in that I believe there is some intelligence to life. Birth and death are more real than anything, perhaps other than sex. There’s definitely something bigger than ourselves.

“Religions though I don’t have time for, they all seem so body-hating to me, I haven’t got time for that”.

Given such views, it’s particularly pleasing that La Petite Mort is such a wonderfully upbeat album about death that harks back to all that’s best about James.

Personally, I have a slight preference for the first half of the album and hope the O2 appearance is even better than the Albert Hall as that’s where I’ll be seeing them. 

La Petite Mort is out now. James play the Royal Albert Hall on November 19 and Brixton Academy on November 21. Go to wearejames.com