Music

He microwaves his T-shirts
‘Sometimes, after a gig, even my socks and pants are soaked with sweat. I have to wring my T-shirts out after every show. I actually burnt the black T-shirt I’d played live in for two years trying to dry it out in a microwave. One and a half minutes on high heat – it’d never failed – and then at Leeds Met University the bloody thing disintegrated.’

He was once partially crucified by his brother
‘I was building a tree house on the edge of Dartmoor with my big brother Sean. He nailed the plank to the tree with my finger in between. My father managed to get the nail out of the tree, but not out of my finger, so I had to be driven to A&E with this six-foot plank sticking out of the car window. I’ve still got a scar on my left index finger but, y’know, it’s quite nice doing what I’m doing now and Sean has to play guitar behind me.’

He used to be a skater boy…
‘Skating, making ramps, wearing socks that had to be different colours – I loved it. I can do ollies, kick-flips, grinds… but I’m 31 now and I have too much fear. If I break my wrist, there’s a lot of people who aren’t gonna work for six weeks.’ Feature continues

… and a firestarter, a twisted firestarter
‘My brothers and I were building a den out of hay bales and we had these binoculars. What for? Bird watching, probably – the other kind of birds. It was a hot day and, y’know, magnification. The whole place just went up in flames. I hid for three days. I still live four miles from Farmer Butland – hopefully he doesn’t read Time Out.’

Grandad Lakeman struck him from the family will for getting his ear pierced
‘He took one look at my ear and said, “Right, that’s it, no money from me.” He’s in a nursing home in Torquay now, he doesn’t remember. He’s a very important figure in the family, a Second World War veteran. He was a big inspiration for my album “Freedom Fields”, actually. He was a sergeant on the Normandy beaches – “Saving Private Ryan”, that was him.’

He does like a bit of shooting
‘It’s great going out but it does feel quite strange shooting a bird, walking away with it and sticking it in a pie. I still go out ruck shooting with my old man in the backfields. Last time, he’d had a couple of pints and he wasn’t all there. He’s striding along with his 12-bore shotgun and we get to this electric fence. The spaniel goes under, I go over and my dad manages to get stuck halfway and electrocutes his testicles.’

He failed his music A-level
‘The teacher was an organist from the local church and you had to do stuff like write out a piece of music by Mozart. I always got A’s in performance, though. There was an improvisation bit where the examiner gave you a word and you had to play it. I got “thunder”. Maybe that was the start of me getting really aggressive with my violin.’

… which cost just a few shillings
‘The violin I play is about 150 years old. My great-great-granny bought it in a bric-a-brac shop. It’s a copy of a Carlo Bergonzi, and it’s not the most expensive thing in the world but it’s got a smooth tone and the strings are quite high so you can dig in hard.’

He’d rather be turned to stone than die inside the body of a dead horse
‘There are lots of grisly ways to go in my songs. There’s a woman who gets her hair stuck in the ship’s rigging. There’s dying in the rotting carcass of a horse which you’ve disembowelled so you can shelter from the weather. I think the best way to go would be the one in “Hurling”. Just because they haven’t been to church, the men get turned to stone – but at least you’ve got a good view for eternity up on Bodmin Moor.’

‘Saturday Superstore’ was the highlight of his career
‘I used to be in a band with my brothers – I was eight, Sean was 11 and Sam played tea-chest bass. We were on “Saturday Superstore” playing a song called “Sister Kate” which went, “If I could shake it like my sister Kate, shake it like a bowl of jelly on a plate”. Keith Chegwin said I was the smallest violinist in the world. After that I got all the girls at school.’

Seth Lakeman plays the Open-Air Theatre, Regent's Park on Aug 24.