One of the stars at the Alliance Festival is singer/songwriter MARTYN JOSEPH. It's not been an easy time for Martyn, having recently parted from record giant Sony. Gavin Drake spoke to the Welsh crafter of songs.

"There are lovely little things like at the end of the song you will hear pouring rain. When I was recording the guitar track the heavens opened on my velux windows in my attic and spilt all over. But it sounded so great. And in fact if you listen very closely you will hear the Christmas party of the hospital which is just a few hundred yards away from my house blaring away. And there are some seagulls chattering away as well.

"There is another song on the album called 'The Ballad Of Richard Lewis' which is about a Welsh martyr called Dick Penderrin. There is a petition going to the Home Secretary to try and get him a posthumous pardon. He was hanged in Cardiff for something he didn't do in .1931. He was made a scapegoat when the government had shot down 24 people and one soldier got slightly hurt. They hanged this guy for that. This is part of the thing I have been doing about discovering some of my Welsh roots and history. Not in an antagonistic way but just to see where I come from and what has been happening around me.

"There is a song called 'Everything Is New' which is an assault on the tabloid press and their disgusting behaviour sometimes. Stewart Henderson wrote that lyric and it is always good to do something with him. 'Going Home' is about crossing the Severn Bridge without having enough money - a little spoof song. I was on tour with Art Garfunkel on the tour bus. And I woke up in a cold sweat because I had this dream because I had got to the Severn Bridge and the guy said, 'You can't come in.'

"Song writing is like a therapy. I write about what is going on and I thought, 'Oh my goodness, you have got to write this down.' But it was fun as well. And even in that there is a sense of trying to get back, trying to get home. There is a serious side too. So the record has an intimacy that perhaps the others haven't had. I really enjoyed the time with Sony, huge loads of money and big producers. But I can't get away from the fact that most people seem to enjoy me just standing there with the guitar and this album is like that, kind of stripped down. It reminds me of 'An Aching And A Longing' which was the album made many years ago which is still popular. I hope this will have the same effect.

"The other great thing is the liberation of not being with Sony. Obviously, there are great big advantages being with one of the biggest companies in the world, but now if I have an idea, there is no one saying you can't do that because we haven't got a product out or because Celine Dionne is in town and we can't get our people. If I want to tour now then I can. If I have an idea for some video then I do it immediately. If I want to play golf then I can. So I am certainly far more in control of my life, I can see my kids more.

"And it has been liberating too from a writing point of view because I haven't been sat there looking at the clock thinking will this song fit on radio? Is this hook good enough for Radio 1? Suddenly I am just writing my songs and being a storyteller and all those sort of things. So in a sense while there is obvious disappointment, suddenly it is like wow, there is a lot of other stuff opening up, and using what has happened in the past four years of so-called crossing over, now my audiences are made up of 60 per cent non-Christian, 40 per cent church background. Now I have all that to use for me to plough forward and see where the road takes me. I am looking more to the Billy Bragg, Christie Moore, Mary Black kind of people who don't have the single but can still sell the Albert Hall or something. That is where I am trying to go now."

While Martyn Joseph hasn't given up on the idea of having a top 10 single, he no longer sees that as his main goal. "To measure what you do by the top 40 is to commit artistic suicide. I have watched Top Of The Pops at home and, apart from the odd thing, I sit there, eating my tea and I will stop and look like this (pulls a face)."

"I did the Joan Osborne song last night, 'What If God Was One Of Us', and I thought a year ago no one had heard of that song. I should have written that song, I could have written that song. And so you think, 'Damn!'

"That has been a world-wide hit and I was looking from the stage last night and kids of 14 were singing it right through to adults. It is one of those songs. I think I have got one of those in me somewhere. I just need to find it. But if I got that and even if I I write it... I honestly feel | that if Paul Simon was ^ a songwriter today who, say he was in my situation and he wrote 'Bridge Over Troubled Water', I can't see how they would market it, I don't see it getting there. That is how we have moved on. So you need to write a song like that and then have an awful lot of a word I don't understand, and that is called luck.

"We have released five singles and all went top 50. 28 was the highest I got. But it costs 40,000 pounds to put a single out properly. You need to have distribution; you have to have it out there, a video, all that sort of stuff. So if I write a song that I get an inkling that this could do something then... but there is not a single on this new album. And I am kind of pleased, because it means I am not looking for it and I am just writing what I want to write."

So if Martyn Joseph feels that the mainstream music industry is fickle to judge success by the singles charts, how does he judge success? "99 per cent of the time I fall into the same trap. We are human and we judge success on how well you are doing. But I guess the biggest sense of fulfilment I get is positive audience response. Last night for me was tremendously fulfilling. I do not know how to describe the feeling I get when I get that sort of reaction. It mystifies me.

"I don't mean that in any kind of pathetic 'love me' type of way. It is a mystery to me, and therefore when I get letters from people and they tell me how a song I etched out in my bedroom or little studio one day has somehow encouraged, inspired or done the trick for them - that is probably how I judge my success. At the end of the day I am a communicator and record sales doesn't mean anything. Look at The Spice Girls - they are selling. The quantity doesn't mean anything. It just means they have sold more than you have. It is a question of quality. I would like to think so anyway.

"I think I judge it by the letters I get and on the one-to-one conversations and the overall effect that you feel your music has upon people. And I think what my music seems to do is attract those folks that struggle with spirituality, that struggle with their faith to some extent. Because to some extent I have tried to articulate my own struggles within my music and therefore I think what I get is the people who love God, who know he is there, but sometimes for one reason or another find it very difficult. Like many, many people.

In recent years Martyn's lyrics have often dealt with issues that Christians find difficult to deal with - prostitution, unemployment, injustice. Would Martyn have continued to sing about such issues if he had been successful with his Sony career and gained the large house, posh car and all the other trappings associated with mainstream music success?

"All that stuff does affect you. You only see from where you stand and if you stand long enough on the side of comfort, then you will begin to get very comfortable. There is something about struggling to pay the bills but I think I have kept my feet on the ground. I haven't had the chance to see if I would change. I don't think I would. I am surrounded by too many people who would just come up and slap me in the mouth if I went off the rails in any sense like that. I have an ego like anybody else but I like to think I am down to earth. I take my kids to school!"

Things have changed a lot for Martyn Joseph in the last 12 months, but the next year will be a time of consolidation for him. "I have got some great ideas for things I want to do song-wise. I hope to have another album finished by this time next year. I would like to keep moving up that ladder but again what is that ladder? What is success? It is a question of being true to yourself and that is the most important thing. But on a human level, still etching a living won't be a bad thing," said Martyn.