By Ian Harvey

Midlands rocker Tony Clarkin has been there done it all. He’s appeared on Top Of The Pops, he’s played at the NEC, he’s travelled the world.

Headlines, as he one wrote, have been courted by stretch limousines.

And now, after being songwriter and guitarist with classic rockers Magnum for 37 years he thinks he’s just written his best album ever.

Into The Valley of The Moon King, a 12-song collection featuring Magnum’s trademark soaring melodies and sweeping anthems, is released on Monday, June 15.

It follows the release of Brand New Morning in 2004 and Princess Alice and the Broken Arrow in 2007, the trio of albums marking a creative rebirth for Magnum since they reformed after eight years in 2002 to produce Breath of Life.

That was an album which Clarkin, in retrospect, is not terribly fond of. But ‘Moon King’ is a different matter all together.

Speaking at his home not far from Lichfield, Clarkin says: “I’m very happy with it. The last three albums that we’ve done I’ve liked very much indeed. I feel that they’ve got better.

“When we did the Princess Alice album I was really inspired and this seems a step further along the road. So those three albums are my favourite three albums really.”

That’s quite a statement when you’re comparing them with established Magnum classics like Chase The Dragon, Vigilante and On A Storyteller’s Night.

“They just seem more complete,” says Clarkin. “It seems like it’s taken me 25 years to learn how to do it properly. There are still things that I know I’ve got to learn – it’s the same old story, you never stop learning. But it seems to be coming right all of a sudden.”

‘Moon King’ is an instantly accessible album, the melodies sticking under your skin on first listen, carried along by Bob Catley’s evocative vocals, Mark Stanway’s tasteful keyboards and the rhythm section of  Al Barrow on bass and Harry James on drums.

It reminds this listener of the glory days of the Wings of Heaven album when Magnum stormed the top 40 with the singles Start Talking Love, Days Of No Trust and It Must Have Been Love.

“Do you think it’s an accessible album?” asks Clarkin. “That’s great if you think that.

“When we’ve done an album I play it for a friend that I’ve had since I was about 10 years old, so I sling him a copy and say ‘Tell me what you think’, and he’s very, very blunt and he goes ‘Oh it’s great, I love it . . . there’s not a commercial track on it’!”

“And I’m thinking, now is that right? I do understand what he’s saying because there’s not a pop tune on there, we’re not a pop band. But it just made me smile.”

I wonder how autobiographical Clarkin’s lyrics are on the new album, especially one line, “I don’t want money, I want fame”.

“Well, yes some of them are,” he replies, “But not overly, a line here or there. But ‘I don’t want money, I don’t want fame’, that’s definitely right.

“I think a lot of people know that I’m like that anyway. I just thought I’d put that down just for the record.”

But Clarkin is not a reluctant performer.

“Oh no, I love making records and I love playing live especially. I mean, travelling all over the world, it’s like a fantastic job.

“When we go on tour in September we’re going to quite a lot of countries, it’s fantastic to sit on a bus, watch the telly, get out and one day you’re in Italy, then you’re in Switzerland then you’re in Spain, then Portugal.”

It means he doesn’t particularly hanker back to the ‘good old days’ of stadium gigs and stretch limousines.

“Back in the 80s we were playing the NEC but when we were doing that sort of stuff it wasn’t that enjoyable when you’re being pushed from pillar to post. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I think we’re better these days and that the material is better and the sound of the albums is better.

“I don’t have anyone saying you’ve got to do this, you’ve got to come up with a hit single, you’ve got to come up with multi-faceted ideas that people come up with to make a commercial album so they can make lots of money.”

Into The Valley of the Moon King is also noteable for it striking cover, once again designed by reknowned fantasy artist Rodney Matthews.

“He did a fabulous job on that, absolutely fabulous,” says Clarkin, who dreamed up the basic concept.

” It’s all in my head. I’m surrounded by people who will sit and give me time to explain what’s inside my crazy nut. Rodney comes up to the studio and he’ll just sit with a pad and a pencil and I’m going ‘I want this guy with really long hair and  a robe, a benevolent figure, talking to this little guy in a school uniform with his catapult’ and he’s drawing as I’m speaking.

“And I was trying to explain to him about the dragon and the tiger that’s representing Heaven and Earth. Then he puts the city off the Chase The Dragon album and the mice from On A Storyteller’s Night, the lamp from Princess Alice and all these various things that I’d never thought of. And he asks me ‘What do you think?’ and I go ‘It’s brillliant’.”

So, does Clarkin get to keep the artwork?

“If only!”

What about the album title? After Princess Alice and the Broken Arrow, Clarkin’s titles seem to be reading more and more like cryptic crossword clues.

“Princess Alice was an orhpanage in Perry Barr,” Clarkin explains. ” People always seem to be looking back at their family trees and I found out some things. An uncle who has since died started to tell me about someone who had been at the Princess Alice orphanage.

“And I thought, I’ll find out about this and I went to the central library in Birmingham and asked could I look at their archives. The whole album wasn’t about that but it really kicked off and gave me such an interest.

“I actually went to where the Princess Alice Orphanage was. It’s a Victorian place, now knocked down. There’s now one building left there and it’s now an old folk’s home or something. The Broken Arrow means peace, as in your weapon being broken

As for Into the Valley of the Moon King, he says: “I had quite a lot of titles for this album but this was before I’d written lyrics. I was looking for a title that would make me go ‘Wow!’ that will make me fly off and write all these lyrics’. I have lots of the music written and then I think ‘Now I’ve got to write a song, I’ve got to write lyrics ‘and it’s the scariest feeling.

“I jot lots of words down and things I hear in my lyric book and Bob was looking though it and he said ‘What’s this, the Moon King’? and I went ‘Hang on a minute that sounds like a title’ and it started from there.

“I didn’t want to call it just The Moon King. I used to live in Devon and there was a place called Valley of the Rocks, and I went ‘Aahh . . . Into the Valley of the Moon King’, and that’s how it ended up. To me it sounded magical.”

Clarkin’s confidence in the new album and his songwriting also extends into his playing, with clean cut guitar lines and tasteful solos. Normally a refreshingly unfussy guitarist, he cuts loose a couple of time, particularly on his solo towards the end of Feel Like Treason.

“Oh yeah, I must have thought I was a rock god,” he laughs.

“I guess it’s whatever takes my fancy really. If I’m doing solos I try to do something that fits the backing that’s there already.

“We’re not known as fiddly type players, although I do like some of that stuff. I do some of that at home . . . where nobody can hear me!”

• Magnum’s new album, into the Valley of the Moon King is out on June 15.
• Magnum’s 35-date European tour calls in at Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton on October 31, 2009. Tickets cost £18.50 plus booking fees.
• Visit the official website at www.magnumonline.co.uk