Scott Lavene today announces his third album 'Disneyland In Dagenham' due for release May 10 2024, led off by beautifully bonkers 'Debbie'. A born storyteller, through his records and his writing ­– he sends out monthly short stories under the title ‘Bits & Bobs’ via his mailing list and is currently working on his first novel – Lavene has long been populating a hallucinogenic world of his own creation with ne’er do wells, ragamuffins and eccentrics. 'Debbie', the latest example, is a bizarre and semi-fictional song about fading love, based around a transfixingly woozy guitar line.

“It’s a fucking weird song, but also my favourite thing I’ve ever done. So how could I not include it?” Lavene says. “The album is really about saying fuck the rules, write whatever you like.”

Whether lyrically, or through music that leaps from spiky psychedelia to flute-driven crooning, driving wah-wah rock n roll to a sleazy Serge Gainsbourg-esque shuffle, the upcoming Disneyland In Dagenham is a record that’s frankly bonkers in its scope. For the first time he’s completely abandoned any pretence of coolness. “I was not afraid to include everything that I like, whether or not it’s really eccentric. I wasn’t afraid of just making the record that I wanted.”

He made it at swift pace Benjamin Woods of The Golden Dregs, after Lavene sold a guitar to pay for a week at Greenwich’s Vacant TV studios. It was a cold December and they were limited for both time and gear so they recorded quickly in hats and coats, Woods adding drums and occasional guitar and synth. It was fleshed out later with some further home recordings and friends’ contributions on saxophone, flutes and percussion.

After a triumphant set at End Of The Road Festival, he then capped 2023 opening for The Hold Steady proper at the band’s legendary annual New York residency. Craig Finn, front man of The Hold Steady who has Lavene opening for him across the UK this month, is among the many converted to Lavene’s work, and he appears on Disneyland In Dagenham opener Paper Roses. Finn had Tweeted about his enjoyment of Lavene’s music while he was in the studio with Benjamin Woods. “I’m not very good at self-promotion but I was with someone who was. Benjamin was like, ‘Fucking tweet him back! Get him on the album! We went for a coffee and he asked me to go on tour with him, it’s a relationship of mutual admiration really. And what a bloody gift he’s given me – I’ve definitely stolen quite a lot of Hold Steady fans.”

It’s not hard to see why. Though in person he’s thoughtful and softly-spoken, onstage Lavene is a born entertainer; a comedian, raconteur and storyteller as much as a musician. “I’m like a Butlins Redcoat,” he jokes. "It doesn’t matter if it’s 10 people or 1,000, I can entertain a crowd with a drum machine and a guitar. I like when people say that they can be laughing, then crying literally five seconds later within the same song.” It’s a safe bet, then, that in the wake of Disneyland In Dagenham there’ll be plenty more converts to follow. After all, Lavene jokes, “I’m like The Beatles, but a little bit Tom Waits, a little bit Whitesnake, a little bit Chas & Dave, and a little bit power ballads.” All worthy comparisons, but ultimately Scott Lavene is the kind of artist that can be compared only to himself.