HUGH Cornwell is on tour with a Monster by his side, concluding his November travels in York tomorrow (November 17) in support of his new album of that name.

The former frontman and premier songwriter of The Stranglers is bringing his Hugh Cornwell Electric – The Monster Tour show to Fibbers. Expect an opening set of solo songs, led by five picks from Monster, his October release on Sony Music, followed by a storming second half of such Stranglers strong suits as Golden Brown, Strange Little Girl, Always The Sun, Peaches, No More Heroes and Nice & Sleazy.

“Just strap on your guitar and we’ll play some rock’n’roll,” comes Cornwell’s invitation to join him tomorrow.

In the spotlight will be Monster, "maybe the ninth or perhaps tenth" solo studio album of Cornwell's five-decade career, after his collaborative covers project with Dr John Cooper Clarke, This Time It's Personal, two years ago.

How did this one take shape, Hugh? "I like the idea of it being an itch, to make a record," he says. "A lot of human behaviour comes down to patterns of behaviour, to ritualistic patterns, so it's a mixture of being the right time to do a record and having that itch to write songs.

"After a couple of years, it's a natural itch and then there's the curiosity of what will come up, and that makes it interesting as there can be surprising stuff that comes out of nowhere that I wouldn't have predicted.

"I get ideas in my head before I've even picked up a guitar and for me a song exists once I have a title. All I then have to do is find music and words to put flesh on to the title's bones."

In this instance, 69-year-old Cornwell was prompted to write ten songs that consider some of the most remarkable, and indeed infamous, people of the 20th century, both heroes and villains.

He has passed this way before, penning The Stranglers’ 1977 hit No More Heroes, with its references to Leon Trotsky, Lenin and Sancho Panza. Forty-one years later, he writes of music legends Lou Reed (on Mr. Leather) and Mose Allison (Mosin’); 1970s' stuntman Evel Knievel (Pure Evel); 1940s' Hollywood goddess Hedy Lamarr (The Most Beautiful Girl In Hollywood); Sgt Bilko star Phil Silvers (Bilko); Italian dictator Benito Mussolini (Duce Coochie Man) and tyrannical Zimbabwean ex-president Robert Mugabe (Robert).

"These are people who have defied categorisation," he says of his choices. "I’ve spent my whole life trying to defy categorisation. If someone wants to put me into some sort of a box, I'll do my best to defy it. You could call it being obstreperous, but it’s also got something to do with being drawn to people who are dichotomous."

Alongside these luminaries, Cornwell drew inspiration initially from an extraordinary woman who swam every day in Hampstead ponds: his late mother, Winifred. To locals, she was a heroine who swam five or six times a day in all weathers; to Hugh’s family, however, she was the villain who kept them all in check. This juxtaposition, the subject of the song La Grande Dame, set the album in motion.

"My mum died five or six years ago and I wanted to write a song as a tribute to her. She didn't suffer fools;she was La Grande Dame, and that's what triggered the thought that maybe I could write about other people too, like Ray Harryhausen, a genius who's never had a song written about him before."

The album title is derived from Cornwell's love letter to Harryhausen, the trail-blazing model-maker and animator whose films Jason & The Argonauts and Clash Of The Titans paved the way for Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. "I'm passionate about movies; that's how I like to escape," he says.

Harryhausen is not alone in being the subject of a song for the first time. So is Seventies' stuntman Evel Knievel. "He was probably the most famous man in the world at the time; it's a remarkable story but no-one has sung about him. Someone had to do it!" says Cornwell.

The double-disc version of Monster offers a collection of re-recorded acoustic versions of Stranglers songs that Cornwell has rediscovered, such as No More Heroes, Always The Sun and Don’t Bring Harry, under the title Restoration.

The tour show will be anything but acoustic, however. "It will be totally, totally electric; basically a trio of drums, bass, and me on guitar. The first half will be something I've never done before, entirely my solo songs, then in the second half I'm going to ram Stranglers songs down their throats. It'll be like Stranglers foie gras."

Tickets cost £20 at fibbers.co.uk or on the door from 7pm.

/