Itch

The strongest wisdom can come from the strangest places. "Do or do not... there is no try," said Yoda; essentially, the first step to success is throwing yourself in at the deep end.

Jonny 'iTCH' Fox understands this. Hence 'The Deep End': not so much a culmination of his career to date as his next destination in an unstoppable journey.

"The potential for where this album could take me is certainly different from where people might expect," iTCH says. "It's not about being part of a tribe or a particular scene. The King Blues covered a lot of ground, but what I'm doing now is more universal and about trying to create something new." iTCH continues, "It's been nice not having to rely on former glories, especially in the US. No one knows who The King Blues were there, apart from other bands, and so I've been able to go out from scratch and build it up."

Over four albums and more than seven years with The King Blues - a band both acclaimed by critics and respected on the streets - iTCH acted as bandleader and majority shareholder in a group that, as exciting as it was, was inevitably unstable. But while this band may now be gone, the legacy they created rings loud: everything that England is in 2014, the mess, the trouble and those little beams of hope was predicted in the years previous by a band who went from playing squats in Camden Town to headlining one of the city's most prestigious venues in the same district to 3,000 party people desperate for a voice.

iTCH grew up on the streets of London and wears his local pride like a bandana wrapped around his face. In the past his songs were grimy and gritty and irresistible in a way that's inexplicable - but now, even though he's retained that strong sense of place, his sights have been set in a different direction. Where once he found joy hiding in the shadows (this is a man after all who wrote and romanticised the line "The smell of kebab meat and sausage in batter will always remind me of you") 'The Deep End' deals with universal issues without losing his pin-sharp focus and eye for detail.

Standout track 'Homeless Romantic', which features Taking Back Sunday vocalist Adam Lazzara, is a textbook example of what makes 'The Deep End' so vital - a wryly bittersweet tale of watching your best friend waste their life with a waster, rendered irresistibly.

'Bottom Of A Glass' too, co-written with Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump, hits with immediacy but contains layers on layers on layers. It's about the sweet self-torture of going back over old photos of happier times and kidding yourself that everything was better way back when, but the narrative twists in indictments of memory, addiction and isolation, all set to the bounce of John Feldmann's production.

"I've never been afraid of making myself vulnerable. When you're honest people take to it, and the only way you can be vulnerable is by not caring about the audience. When that happens, songs come out quickly, and this one came out really easily. Today, people romanticise a time before smartphones when you'd go and drink a bottle of cider in the park... but you'd forget how cold and boring it actually was! Living in the moment is actually pretty cool when you start to appreciate your reality as it is."

"I never have a backup plan - I have a vision of what I want to do and just believe it and live it so much that eventually it becomes a reality, no matter how long it takes. I just believe in throwing myself in head-first."

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