"It's just a passion. I love to do it. I love to play. If you're a singer like me, the ultimate payoff after you've recorded a song is to go out and play it. I still really enjoy it." John Hiatt could be accused of protesting too much. But this vibrant 45-year-old American singer-songwriter is no glum encapsulation of the ageing would-be rock star still waiting on his big break. This is a man whose songs have been recorded by more artists than most people have years; this is a man whose track record totals 14 albums stretching back to his debut in 1974; this is a man freely cited by many as one of the key songwriters of his time, whose deceptively easy way with words and melody has created an oeuvre of daunting impressiveness.
He doesn't exactly see it this way. Thankfully, while not embarrassingly modest, Hiatt, on phone from his ranch near Nashville, Tennessee, is not carried away with a sense of his own importance. "It's pretty simple three-chord music that draws on simple themes." Judging by Little Head, his current and second album for his new label Capitol, our hero is stretching our belief.
Powered by the Nashville Queens, a loose-fitting rocking band, who accompany him in Dublin, Hiatt rakes through the coals of small twisted lives with the kind of sure touch and vivid humour which has brought rave reviews in all the right places, if not exactly making him a household name.
"People tend to dwell on my lyrics a lot but frankly the lyrics are the last thing I think about. It's the music that makes it." And that music is a gritty mixture of folk, blues, country and our old friend rock 'n' roll. "I was greatly formed by the radio of the day when you could hear Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin and Mitch Ryder and so forth. Then through Bob Dylan I got interested in Mississippi John Hurt who had a sort of country style. Ultimately I got into Hank Williams and made the connection between the lot. So it's basically Southern music."
He is particularly proud of his current band. "I've never gone just for a bunch of guys backing me. I've always gone for a band identity and we've got a good one going with this one. I love working in a quartet live. It just seems right. There is just enough left to the imagination."
Another band in which he was involved also promised much. Little Village included Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe and Jim Keltner, but the stellar mix largely failed to deliver. "It was an over-thought album. We're at our best when we work fast and don't know what we are doing," he says disarmingly, adding, however, that he thinks that the same personnel will get together again for another crack at the stars. In the meantime, tomorrow's concert should provide enough sparks for the faithful.