Mike Rimmer went to Belfast recently to meet up with the city's critically acclaimed singer/songwriter BRIAN HOUSTON.

And for "Childish Things" he's deliberately stolen a memorable riff from Morrison's "Caravan". "Very much so!", he affirms. "It was so similar. Melodically the song was so similar I thought, well I may as well just say, 'Hey, I'm aware of it too!'" He laughs again. And in concert he emphasises this even more as he does a few Morrison styles kicks at the appropriate moment.

I want to explore a little more of how his faith and his music interact with each other because he's a singer/songwriter but he's not always writing about his faith. Like many Christian artists who have recorded worship material or albums with a strong faith bias, I have come across fans who are disappointed when his songwriting albums seem to not contain any mention of his faith. Houston's response to my questioning of this approach makes me feel that he is a little uncomfortable to be boxed or pigeon holed by people's expectations. He simply wants to write songs. "I just write about life," he explains. "I just write about whatever happens along the way. If a good thing happens or a bad thing happens, if I'm angry at someone or if I'm happy about something I just write about those things. I don't measure it, I don't calculate it, I don't come back and revisit it and re-jig it to push it in a certain way. What I'm looking for is integrity in terms of whether the lyrics line up with my feelings. Am I really getting across what I want to say emotionally? From that point of view, when it all comes out, I guess it just is what it is. It's very altruistic in that sense. I genuinely try to just be true to the emotion and I think sometimes if you do have beliefs and faith, then that's going to come out sooner or later. I've literally tried to write songs that had nothing to do with faith and people have come and said, 'Wow! That song really said this to me!' And I'm like, 'Really?!' So it's almost an in-spite-of-yourself thing."

So, in certain circumstances does he want to play down that because he doesn't want people to know? Does he think that his Christian faith might put a mainstream audience off? He responds, "I think when I was about 17 I'd just become a Christian and I was really fired up about telling the whole world. I worked in a Belfast shipyard at that stage and I got the living daylights beat out of me, emotionally speaking. I got ostracised. I got completely turned off. Around the bars in Belfast when we were starting out, and still even to this day on radio and in certain places, there's a big turn-off factor in Belfast to do with religion for what I consider to be obvious reasons. I think people have had too much of it and they've had too much of the wrong kind of it. And if they hear the word 'religion' or 'faith' they're just, 'Nah, not interested.' I think being aware of that has meant that I've tried to be a bit more aware that there's a discrimination factor. I've certainly experienced it hundreds of times and been hurt by it hundreds of times. I just think, well if I can get my music into somebody's ears without them switching off before they've even heard it, which is what I've encountered, then at least they have a chance to judge the music for the music's sake and not just write it off beforehand. So from that point of view I think I've tried to be subtle and I've tried to be underground, or under the radar about it and just try to get my music out there. I think you've got to do what you've got to do."

With so much of a jaded response to faith in his home city, is Brian optimistic about how things are changing in Ireland with the peace process? "I think it's been interesting that people have been crying out to God for years for something to happen here. It's funny because last week there was a French journalist on the television and he said, 'There's been two miracles in Europe, politically speaking, in the last few years. The reunification of Germany and what has happened in Ireland.' No-one ever would have thought this miracle could have happened. I don't know if we have really realised. I think everybody's a little bit worried that it'll fall apart like it has done before. I think people are a wee bit inclined to be cautious and not come right out and say, 'Wow! This is fantastic!' Who'd have ever thought that Ian Paisley would be sitting down with Gerry Adams or Martin McGuinness? It's fantastic that we've got people destroying the arms and they're gradually changing the murals around the city. One by one they're turning into more optimistic every day things rather then political, angry, scary things. I think there is a miracle going on in our society. I don't think that we've fully woken up to it but I think it's awesome."

I ask Brian for a heads up on the new album even though it is really early stages. "The album's going to be called, at this stage, 'A Man Like Me'. It's very early days but it is a much more soulful record than my previous couple of records. At this stage it's certainly much more in line with albums that I did in the past like 'Hurricane', which had that more Belfast Celtic-soul feel to it and less of an Americana kind of thing. But who knows how it'll change between now and when it's actually out. At this stage it's just the songs. The songs are very rootsy. It's funny, when an album is in progress it's a wee bit like a baby in the womb, you know? You really don't know. You can kind of speculate but until you get some feedback when it's done it's hard to have a perspective on it."

He continues, "I love soulful music wherever it comes from. I think the 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?' soundtrack has a lot of music on it which is country-based but is very soulful. For me, I want to play music that gives people goosebumps. I want to play music that people constantly play in their CD player because there's a great feeling about it. I think the shows in England over this last six months or so, playing with people like Glenn Tilbrook, those things have shaped me into a different kind of artist. It's just gradually evolved. It's almost imperceptible. A woman said to me last week at the Third Day show, 'I saw you a couple of years ago and you've changed so much.' And I wasn't even aware that it's changed but obviously things are changing a wee bit at a time."

I observe that the new single, "Days Of Pearly Spencer", is an interesting choice of a cover version. He explains, "Well, this came about because I did a show which was a tribute to David McWilliams, who wrote that song. He came from here. At the end of the show this girl came up to me, who I'd known because she'd been a fan of my music for a couple of years, her name is Mandy Bingham and I played at her birthday party and stuff like that. I'd seen her at lots of shows and through our website she's ordered lots of CDs. I'd no idea who she was related to but she came up to me and said, 'I'd love you to record daddy's song.' And I said, 'Who do you mean?' And she said, 'My dad's David McWilliams.' Well, I never knew that. I was like, 'Wow!' And I'd made one of those after-gig promises, 'Yeah sure! Of course! Promise I will!' And she went, 'Promise?' And I went, 'Yes, Promise!' And once I'd made a promise I thought I'd better follow through on it.

"So when we started doing sessions for the album we did a version of 'Pearly Spencer'. It kind of reminded me of 'Another Brick In The Wall', you know, that whole minor key groove? I thought, this would sound great with kids on it! So I asked my manager if he knew somebody who could put kids together but the logistics were a nightmare. I tried two or three different avenues but it was impossible. And I thought, oh my goodness, Mandy has kids! I wonder would she get her kids to do it? So she got a few of David McWilliams' grandkids and they came down to my house and we got them singing the chorus. I found out much later that David McWilliams actually came from East Belfast, same as me, which I didn't know."

On a roll, he continues, "When we made the video, we had a guy playing Pearly Spencer as an old man. I was chatting to him during one of the breaks in shooting. I said to him, 'So what do you do?' And he said, 'I used to be an estate agent. In fact I sold a small holding, which is a small farm, to David McWilliams in 1967 or '68.' I says, 'Really?! How did he pay for it?' He said, 'He came in and he paid cash.' I thought, that's been the royalties of 'Pearly Spencer'! And this guy sold him the farm, what a coincidence! There's been a few things like that, which are just bizarre coincidences. So I'm happy to be involved. I'm happy that family is involved with it as well because other people have been covering it for years. There have been 90 cover versions or something and finally THEY'RE covering it, which is fantastic."

Did Brian like the original version? "I think it is really cool," he confesses. "There was a stage where people said, 'America has Dylan, England has Donovan, Ireland has David McWilliams'. This guy had something like three or four hit albums in 1967. He did very well and then he disappeared off the scene. So I think he's just one of those unrecognised heroes of Irish music." Houston is doing his bit to put him back on the map!

Houston seems to be a bit of a road dog at the moment in terms of getting out there and playing an awful lot. I observe that it must put a bit of pressure on his personal life. "My wife Pauline used to work for a church and she used to have a full-time regular job. I didn't tour that much then. I was at home writing songs a lot and looking after the kids and making the dinners. I was kind of like a househusband but I wrote songs all day! And that was cool! It worked! I did the odd show and it was grand. But in this last two or three years, I think just because a friend of mine, Duke Special, got out on the road and he gradually made things happen for himself in England, I kind of followed his example bit by bit. I had done gigs in America. I had done tours and it used to be, I would do a two- or three-week tour and then I'd come home and be home for a couple of months. The only difference now is that it's kind of like a never-ending tour. It's just constant. Every week there's more shows and more shows. There's never a week goes by that there's not shows."

He continues, "Pauline left work about two and a half years ago. She got ill at that stage and she had to give up work, and then she just didn't go back. My wife had got cancer and they say you need to be positive in those situations. The problem was my mum got cancer the next month and then my granny and a few other people. It was actually a total of six people, including my mum and Pauline's mum, who all had the illness. The doctors tell you to be positive and I just felt that Pauline was remarkably positive throughout that situation. All the other five people passed away within 12 months, and even through that she managed to stay full of faith and belief that she was going to be okay. It's not been three years and she's doing really, really well. So I wrote 'Red Badge Of Courage' for her, that was like a song of admiration, a song of encouragement and I suppose it was just a heartfelt response to the situation. When she was better she started to work with me, which freed me up then to go and do more tours. She goes on tour with me as well. We have kind of focussed more on trying to win an audience and that's just involved doing a lot more shows."

Houston also seems to have found his niche working as an independent artist, recording and releasing his albums himself. "At the moment, ICC put them out for the Christian market. At one stage I worked with Kingsway but Kingsway don't do mainstream product at all. They don't do anything that's not out and out worship and so my stuff was just outside their remit. ICC have been fantastic in getting behind it and they just seem to love it, which is fantastic. In terms of mainstream, we put the records out through Universal but it's an independent situation. We just record the records and give them to the distributor and they put them in the shops. Then we hire the promo people, we hire the PR, we hire all these guys and we try to get it on the radio. It is a home-grown thing. Believe you me, a big part of me would rather it wasn't. I mean, if there was another way of doing this. . .! If somebody else said, 'Look, I love what you do! I've got this and this and this and I want to come and work with you.' I'd be going, well okay! You know? Because we are 24/7 flat-out doing this."

Brian Houston's working life might surprise people but it is a strong illustration of how hard it is to make a living as a singer songwriter even when you are beginning to get national exposure. If you've seen him as an opening act or doing his own gigs, you might not be aware of what is happening behind the scenes. "When I do opening-act parts, the deals are pretty poor. Sometimes there's no money at all and you've got to get there yourself. You've got to feed yourself, cover your fuel and airport costs and all those things. Sometimes you get 50 quid. You never - very, very rarely, get more than 50 quid. So I maybe do four gigs in England, say a Thursday to a Sunday or something. 50 quid for all the gigs and £200 to get there on the boat and another £100 in fuel. So I'm down a hundred pounds and I haven't slept anywhere or eaten anything before I start. I'll end up sleeping on somebody's floor or some people will be kind enough to give me a mattress somewhere. I just sort of stay there and try to eat as little as possible." He laughs, "I eat whatever people give me. And then when I sell my CDs I'll try and scrape all the money together so that I go home and I have something for my family. That's kind of, at the bottom end, that's what happens."