Andy White: Alt Rock.

Andy White plays the Federal Hotel, Ipswich on Thursday and the Waterloo Hotel Lounge on Friday.

Andy White's a Belfast-born Irishman who recently moved to Melbourne with his family. The singer/songwriter and rock'n'roll poet who's already enjoyed Antipodean fame with Liam O Maonlai and Tim Finn as ALT. And he's just a thoroughly nice bloke who has a way with songs. White and is his ‘little family’ are no strangers to travel. They previously lived in Switzerland and decided rather than return to the Shamrock isle they should have an ‘Australian adventure’.

"It's a very welcoming environment. If you're Irish you are used to people telling you how great Ireland is," he says, "so it's funny telling Australians how great Australia is. Culturally, because the country is so far from England or America and isn't necessarily exposed to every facet of those cultures, I think it makes people here try harder - in all the arts. It's also much more relaxed here. There's not as much severity as in Europe now where it's a fight for space. Space for everything. Space on the train, space on the arts pages, space in the record store if you release a CD. Everything is very crowded. In Europe it's a race to get to the top of the chart and you've got a week to do it because everything is a different price for a week. And radio is different from here. Your radio is good."

Since ALT and their album Altitude (recorded in Australia) White has quietly established himself as a passionate and celebrated performer who not only has won all of Ireland's top songwriting awards but also collaborated with the likes of Peter Gabriel and Neil Finn. And, of course, he's stayed mates with Tim and has two co-writes on the elder Finn's new album, Feeding the Gods.

White's new self-titled solo album is a gem. A collection of poetic and oft beautiful glimpses of our world. Try the elegant and moving I Want It Straight, the wicked rocker Jesus In A Cadillac, the perceptive, wry and charming Body Builder (you can imagine the late Kirsty MacColl singing this) and Hysteria, and his very different revision of the song he co-wrote with Christine Anu, ‘Coz I'm Free (aka the Cathy Freeman song). Nick Seymour, David Bridie and O Maonlai all drop in at various points on an album that is much bigger than anything he's done before.

"There's lots of stuff that went into that record. A whole few years of thinking about stuff. I did a compilation album, a 'best of' record so, in my mind it ended that chapter and the story started again from this record. That's why I didn't give it a title - because any title I could give it would put it next in a line of things. I just wanted to take that theme which is introduced by the opening song Let Me Be Free and reaches some resolution at the end with 'Coz I'm Free and to explore the journey from one to the other.”

"It starts off at sunrise at the beginning of the day and ends up really late at night. It's dealing with not having enough time and the like. It's all about changing your life. I knew it was the change of life record."

Enter Jesus In A Cadillac: "For a while everybody thought he was going to come back as a peasant somewhere but I reckon if he's going to come back we're all going to know about it."

He'll have to be American.

"Exactly, and he'll probably borrow Bono's glasses. That's what Jesus' problem is – not to look like Bono. We actually heard from (producer and musician) Daniel Lanois that they were told U2 couldn't bring their mobile phones anywhere near the studio one day. Even if it was the Pope they couldn't take the phone call.”

"After a couple of hours playing, there was knock on the door and the receptionist came in and said, 'I'm sorry but you've got to take this call’. And who was it? It was the Vatican for Bono. Bono has that messianic thing. That's important: he really wants it; he wants to be a messiah figure; he wants to be the greatest rock'n'roll singer in the world whereas as, I guess, someone like Neil Young doesn't really."

Neither does Andy White, no matter that he cares just as deeply. You see, he's still got his tongue firmly wedged in his cheek.