In the city there's a thousand things I want to say to you

But, the man who even has a city centre street carrying his moniker, has a major worry.

"I'm going to run out of place names before long because they keep knocking the f******s down," he quips.

The man is fascinated by history and almost obsessive with Sheffield's heritage.

When we catch up he's just spent time in between promotion in Sweden checking out the Vassa, a boat sunk in the 17th century in the harbour at Stockholm. "It's not salt water there so it's been preserved and you can go right round it."

For all the Guinness, Hendersons Relish and occasional smart remarks, Hawley is a simple bloke who cares about family, friends and the social and architectural history of a city he sees being eroded without due thought.

"Not a lot of people care about it, that's the thing. When they do care it's too late and it is going to get knocked down and suddenly they say 'we don't want to lose that'.

"The council and the developers seem to do it by stealth. A notice gets put up in the Town Hall, but who goes in there? So much has disappeared over the last 20 years and it's vanishing at such a rapid rate."

And in a northern city obsessed with sending the ubiqituous 'luxury apartment' blocks towards the clouds, he has plenty to grumble about.

"It's the idiocy that drives me nuts, converting all those old buildings into flats far above the income level of local people, but for these mythical single professionals.

"It puts a massive strain on local services - where are the doctors surgeries?"

Some of these characters probably heard Hawley slagging off their city living utopia from across the way on Bridge Street last Thursday when, at the perhaps unlikely location of a tyre centre he premiered songs from the new record.

To an invited audience at Hawley's Tyres (no relation) in a Bridge Street building he reckons probably won't be there for much longer, the suited man with the slicked back hair condemned the very characters who could over hear his music from their apartment balconies across the way.

Maybe there was more to his "idiot manager" Graham Wrench's idea than plain gimmick after all.

Richard Hawley returns to the City Hall on September 12.