There'll be no photocall, just a Saturday morning cup of coffee and a chat before the performance on Tubridy Tonight.

I'm lucky, however. This is Ray's only interview. He doesn't really like interviews either. "They are necessary, " he tells me when he does arrive in the foyer of the Clarence hotel. Flinching in his chair, patting his mop of dishevelled hair, LaMontagne says he'll "do the best I can". Now 33 years old, he has no love of music writing, never read about music nor listened to it until in his 20s. Ray speaks at a whisper. The hotel receptionist is asked to turn down the piped music so the interview can occur. I'm not bothered, it's Saturday morning after all. Ray does all the talking he needs to on record. And myth is always more powerful than the facts.

Some of those are sketchy. Ray is "from all over the place, " with a leaning towards New England.

Women have shaped him from the day he was born when his reputedly violent father, also a musician, left them alone not long after.

Three older sisters, one younger one and a younger brother accompanied him and his mom on a nonstop tour of the United States until he was old enough to carry it on himself. It takes him about a minute, but his earliest memory is of Staten Island, New York city "when I was really young". He does remember changing schools a lot, getting into fights, being an outsider. "My mom had a hard time figuring herself out, you know, " he says barely audibly by way of explanation. "She ran away from home when she was 13. She was just a baby when she ran away. It was just weird." There wasn't even any music. "My mom never had a stereo [but] I was always drawn to instruments as a kid, most kids are really. If we were staying at someone's house with a piano I would gravitate towards it but we were always moving and mom just never listened to anything."

When he was about 10 years old, art became an outlet until he was old enough to experiment with drugs. Menial job after menial job saw Ray have what is often referred to as an epiphany akin to Robert Johnson at the crossroads. Living in a log cabin, he heard a Stephen Stills song and knew, just knew, that he had to make music. The bolt of lightning does appear to have been a more gradual current of electricity. LaMontagne got into music at about the age of 21 and spent the next five years educating himself on the years 1965-1973. "I went into a record shop and started working backwards through Stills's stuff and Bob Dylan. I began to collect records, listen to them from start to finish and then put them on again straight away."

What was it about Stills as opposed to Dylan, Young or David Crosby? "He was just the first one I heard and that led me to the record store. Joni Mitchell, Dylan, Neil Young, the Band, Nina Simone, Ray Charles. All that stuff as well as older blues like Lightnin' Hopkins."

He began writing songs and gigging in coffee shops from New England to the Mid West, ending up in LA where he was introduced to Ethan Johns, who has produced Ryan Adams, Kings of Leon and Rufus Wainwright.

LaMontagne's budget extended to making a few demos but when they started recording, Johns persuaded him to cut the album right there and then . . . without a big record label and the consequent obligations/interference.

Trouble was released almost two and a half years ago and has steadily sold close to 500,000 copies.

LaMontagne's almost surreal, volcanic voice elevated traditional song structures to create something strange, something pure. He toured and toured until a major came in. Success brought its own problems. One time, during a routine autograph session after a show, he attacked a fan who was drunk and being abusive. The volcano erupted. "You get people really invading your space. That's what happened the last time. This guy had too much to drink, he overstayed his welcome so I asked him to leave and he came back and I said, 'Look, I'm going to give you 30 seconds to leave, ' and he just kept going on and on and whatever he said, it just got ugly from there on. . ." Did he bite his ear off or something? "No, " he laughs for the first time. "It just got ugly. It was retarded."

It was time to head back to the studio, again with collaborator Johns. LaMontagne had about 30 songs to whittle down into an album. This time the record company wanted to see what sort of return it was getting on its investment. They were kept at bay. "I was trying to do something that felt very complete. I wanted to make something that would draw you in and just keep drawing you in deeper and deeper and deeper all the way through it. I also wanted to make something that sonically sounded very complete."

Till The Sun Turns Black actually makes Trouble sound musically immature. Electric piano, horns and strings create a traditional blues/soul sound so impressive that it's hard to believe it was recorded last year. The guitar playing is also much more ambitious, more complex.

"There's an emotional thread that runs through the album because I wrote the songs and I know where I was when I wrote them and I know how I was feeling when I wrote them, " he says. "I can see myself shutting down as I made the record; I can see myself getting more withdrawn and more withdrawn and more withdrawn until about three quarters of the way through the record I'm about as closed up as I can be. And then I kind of work my way back up towards the last two or three songs. I see a light at the end of the tunnel."

It sounds like a difficult emotional journey to have put himself through. "It was. Very. But when it was finished I knew it was exactly what I needed to do to get this stuff . . . these feelings . . . out of my system.

I'm past it now that I have expressed it. . . Some fans of the first record really can't stand this new one. It's natural, though, you know.

The songs are different. I've accepted that I will lose some fans.

People who like the first record won't like the second, but they might like the third and so on."

Unfortunately LaMontagne has to go and prepare for the TV show. I ask which song he's going to play, given that his record company are still promoting Trouble and have 'soft released' Till The Sun Turns Black.

"What do you think?" he asks with a glint in his eye and a hint of resignation in his voice. "I'm gonna play [the debut album's title track] 'Trouble'. Fake it one more time. . ."

>> Till The Sun Turns Black is out now on 14th Floor Records >> Ray Lamontagne tours Dublin, Cork and Limerick in January ndunphy@tribune. ie