Sussex boy Leo Sayer is back in the old country - Guildford and Worthing dates

It was in Worthing that Leo composed the song Moonlighting – a song which even references Montague Street in its lyric, a fact commemorated with a plaque.

“It's lovely to be back,” says Leo whose home is now in Australia: “I gave up my life here to go to Australia in 2005. It was a bit of a leap of a decision but myself and Donatella, now my wife, just got to that point, and three or four years before that we came to a decision one Christmas when we were at Melbourne airport coming back home. We said ‘We're going home’ but then she said ‘Are you sure we're going home?’ because really home had become much more Australia by then.

“My career was at a point where I was trying to get some new ideas and a fresh start in the UK. Basically I was looking creatively from now on but everyone in England wanted to go from now to back then. People were saying ‘Your hair is not as long as it used to be. Could you put a wig on?’ I was wanting to move forward but people were asking me what was it like to work with Slade. But in Australia everyone was saying ‘You've got good new ideas? Bring them on!’

“But actually now we legatee artists are leading the way. You've got your Taylor Swift and your Ed Sheeran and people love them but at the same time guys from my era are being seen as really valuable, especially to young people. I had a builder round my house in Australia and his 14-year-old son was looking at my record collection and said ‘Have you got any Led Zeppelin?’ Steely Dan and Toto and all those artists are bigger now than they ever were.

“And if I say this I might sound big headed or overly focused on my own group but I think it was because there was real talent among those people, that they were great performers and people really want to hear them again and celebrate them and lend themselves into that time. A lot of artists in America from that time have been called back in the studio.

“I made a record called 1992. It was all made at the time, and I was going back into my archives thinking that I was never going to do anything with the songs but at the time I recorded them I couldn't get a record deal. Back then they were not interested in singers like me. They just said ‘But it doesn't sound very now, Leo.’ I got rejected, rejected, rejected but I just recorded it for myself and I just kept on doing it. And you think of painters like Jackson Pollock who never sold a painting in their lifetime but they kept on working because they knew what they were doing was good and that someone would pick it up eventually. It's about having faith in your own talents. I basically think art should be timeless but it's full circle now and now I've got 1992 and people are saying ‘It's fantastic! Did you record these songs last week?’”

Leo is loving being back in the UK: “I have already been all over Sussex. I went to see my sister in Saltdean and I have been driving all over the Sussex hills. And I did Butlins in Bognor the other day and it was fantastic. Where I live in Australia actually looks a bit like Sussex, and I live in a little village that looks like a Sussex village and you have to pinch yourself to think whether you are in Australia or in Sussex. It’s got that quality of Henfield or Beeding or Bramber and actually most of my neighbours are British as well.

“And I look back on in living in the UK and it was a big part of my life. But I did get ripped off in my career and there are bad memories and there are reasons not to be here, reminders of all that but it is lovely to be here. I don’t think I would want to live here again but I'm really happy to be visiting and to have that one foot in the door and I find it a really inspiring place to be.”