THE easiest route would have seen Roddy Woomble release his latest songs under his usual guise of Idlewild, his Scottish rock band of 11 years' standing and 12 Top 40 singles.

Instead, My Secret Is My Silence will form the 30-year-old lead singer's debut solo album, released on Monday by Pure Records, the South Yorkshire label run by the family of folk siren Kate Rusby.

Three nights later, Roddy and Idlewild guitarist Rod Jones will be accompanied in concert at The Wardrobe in Leeds by folk luminaries John McCusker, on violin, and Andy Cutting, on accordion, as well as Sons And Daughters drummer David Gow and bassist Ailidh Lennon (Roddy's wife, by the way).

"It really needs previewing," says Roddy, sounding refreshingly unsure of what lies in store on a tour where he will combine solo material with acoustic versions of Idlewild numbers. "If I'd put the name Idlewild up there, I know the Wardrobe would have sold out in hours, but I'm very excited by this tour because it's a one-off.

"People don't know what to expect because the album's not out yet and the nature of singer-songwriter projects is usually a man on his stool lamenting his lot in life, whereas this is different. It's very much a group thing, a real collaboration between Idlewild, Sons And Daughters, Foxface and all those wonderful folk musicians. I think we have something really cool with the record and with the live show."

Roddy's progression to a solo album rooted in folk is not startling when Idlewild's history is traced. The abrasive punk rock of their early records gradually made way for the country and folk inflections of Warnings/Promises last year, when the band headlined the second stage at the Cambridge Folk Festival.

He had long professed his love of traditional Scottish music and the folk forays of Fairport Convention and The Incredible String Band, and time spent in the Scottish Highlands and islands set him thinking about "the spaces between the words, the language of silence, which is something you see a lot of in Scotland".

"It's about what we don't say, what we leave on the table for other people to pick up," he says, explaining the album title. "It's about understanding the context of your life, trying to make sense of that while you live."

He had not envisaged making an album initially. "It wasn't necessarily planned as a record; it came about accidentally whereas with Idlewild everything is planned, there's an infrastructure in place and each record has to live up to what we've done before. This has been a lot more low-key."

Roddy says the Silence songs would never have lived with Idlewild but are still very much a part of him. Working with Jones, McCusker, Rusby, Borders folk singer Karine Polwart and Foxface frontman Michael Angus had freed him in a manner he had long desired.

"The easiest thing would have been to put it out under Idlewild's name, but we feel the songs are more a reflection of me and Rod and not Idlewild, although you can see links with the band, so we decided to do it under my name, but then came all the accusations of Are Idlewild splitting up?'."

The answer is no. Idlewild are midway through recording their next album after a six-month rest and will be touring once more next year.

"But the older you get, the more you need to experiment too, and other guys have been really encouraging about me doing this solo record," Roddy says.

That album took only nine days to record at John McCusker and Kate Rusby's home studio in South Yorkshire in March, and Kate had played her own role in Roddy's decision to branch out.

"She asked me to do a duet for her album last year. I was quite nervous singing No Names, but it was great to work with John McCusker and engineer Andy Cutting, in that lovely Yorkshire countryside. Very Wuthering Heights! Singing on Kate's album sowed the seeds, and it's worked out really well."

Roddy returned the compliment by asking Kate to sing on one of his album's stand-out tracks, Act IV. "She was always going to do that but she then she ended up singing on six songs," he says.

Such is the role of fate on an album where Roddy more than once uses the word If'. "To me, lyrics are not poetry or prose, they exist in a strange world where they're given meaning by music," he says. "Though there are more story songs on this record, there are suggestions and questions without answers until the music has its say."

Roddy Woomble plays The Wardrobe, St Peter's Square, Leeds, on Thursday. Box office: 0113 383 8800.