Interviewer: With us today is Ricky Foyles, a songwriter you might be familiar with if you are under 20 ...Ricky, your songs are really extraordinary. Are they about real people?
Ricky Foyles: Well, yes, there's nothing in them that I've invented. For example, my latest song, 'Sara Jane', is about a young woman I know well, and it's basically about her strength in a difficult situation. My subjects are people and events I'm familiar with, but not the well known personalities everyone would recognise...
Interviewer: And people like that kind of subject matter...
Ricky Foyles: Yes, though you often have to listen three or four times to one of my songs before you realise that it's about something completely different from what you thought it was about. That's because I use everyday words, so you understand their meaning straight away. It's the message behind them that's more complex, what the song as a whole is really saying. I suppose the advantage of that is you don't get bored and tired of a song so quickly...
Interviewer: Would you say you're more popular now than you were when your album Rocket Love appeared last year?
Ricky Foyles: Mmm... I've always dreamt of selling millions of records, but that hasn't happened of course. I've got faithful followers, though, and I know that I'd be able to fill a 500 seat concert hall now, just as easily as I did two or three years ago. When my next album appears, that will certainly change things, that'll be in about six months' time.
Interviewer: So you might make a fortune then...
Ricky Foyles: Well, funnily enough I've always written my songs for the pleasure of it. The financial side of it has never been the driving force.
Interviewer: So is your new album very different from what you've done so far?
Ricky Foyles: Well, for a start, I took into account what some of my fans had said about my songs. They'd said I only write about what's unhappy, you know, they asked me to be a bit more optimistic. Well, I find that strange, because on the whole I think my songs are about real life, and in real life it's not always summer time... But I've tried to give it a more positive flavour, see what happens.
Interviewer: So are you writing more songs at the moment?
Ricky Foyles: Oh, sure, I need to have a new challenge all the time. I'm convinced my next album is going to be better than anything I've produced so far.
Interviewer: Well, we all wish you the very best of luck. Ricky Foyles, thank you for talking to us today...