It wasn’t until after Brit rocker Miles Kane had mostly finished his new solo album, Change The Show, that he realized much of it had to do with him coming to grips with his own aging. The 35-year-old guitarist, more recently best known as Lana Del Rey’s cowriter, Alex Turner’s (Arctic Monkeys) partner in the Last Shadow Puppets and member of all-star band The Jaded Hearts Club, said he dealt with all the stages of grief when he found the throughline: fear, confusion, anger… even bargaining.

“Yeah, I’d love to have five years back and be 30,” he said in a recent video call. “When I stop and think of my life, sometimes it’s been absolutely chaotic … like a bit of a rollercoaster at times. You’ve been doing this since you were 17, so you’ve experienced a lot. But when I hit 30 … I kind of wanted to learn more things about myself and understand my bad traits and not be afraid to go inside and better myself.”

Then, Kane also discovered a sort of acceptance.

“When you’re in your late teens, 20s, it’s two fingers against the world and fuck everyone. Don’t get me wrong; it’s still in me,” he said. “But I’m not afraid to take a step back and not get clouded by any nonsense. I don’t need any bad people around me; I keep my unit tight—friends and stuff. I’m not searching for anything, and I’m just content with who I am as a person. That helps me write songs easier.

“It’s so much more enjoyable. This record shows that, I think, as well.”

Change The Show is Kane’s first album since he moved back to England from Los Angeles in 2018. While Coup De Gracetechnically came out after he returned home, the album was entirely made during his three years living in L.A.—a dream destination for many U.K. artists but one that had soured on him.

Eventually, he was ready for a change of scenery.

“I still haven’t even done a solo gig in America, man,” he said. “Every album I do, I’m like, ‘Can I go to America? Can I get to America?’ and they go, ‘Oh no, it’s too expensive,’ or ‘You’re not big enough.’”

Had he had a chance to stretch his legs, play some shows, and prove himself, his perspective might be different, he concedes. Alas… In London—pandemic aside—he’s been able to play shows, be closer to his home base, and find his groove again.

“I want to work. I’m a grafter. I sort of have Rocky’s mentality, sometimes,” Miles Kane said. “I feel like I’m fighting against everyone, and I just want to be on my own path. I felt I could just do that more from being back here.

What he’s done is create an album that retains some of the glammy inflections in his sound but otherwise shifts to the northern soul sound of The Jaded Hearts Club. But while that band does covers of songs from the ‘60s and ‘70s, Change The Show consists entirely of originals that sound like they could be long-lost northern soul recordings.

Some of these songs actually preceded the Jaded Hearts project, which includes Matt Bellamy of Muse, Graham Coxon of Blur, Nic Cester of Jet, guitarist Jamie Davis and drummer Sean Payne of Zutons.

“To do old lost northern soul Motown covers is something that we all talked about,” he said. For the new solo album “I tried setting things a little bit harder, a little bit rockier, but the thing I kept coming back round to was trying to make a modern northern soul album, basically.”

Miles Kane grew up listening to Motown. His mom and “nan” would constantly play groups like the Four Tops, the Temptations and Diana Ross at any family party. He’s been adding various elements from that era and sound throughout his songs, whether solo or even in The Last Shadow Puppets.

But the new album is his biggest step into that territory.

“It just became very clear that I wanted to make this sort of cohesive record with these deep lyrics, in this Motown sort of style,” he said.

The album shows quite a bit of range. Midtempo opener “Tears Are Falling” unveils the rich sonic palate, with organ-like keys, accented guitars and steady bass as Miles Kane sings, “I’m done with playing the fool/ … Tired of bending all the rules.”

“Nothing’s Ever Gonna Be Good Enough” is a flirtatious and dance-floor-ready Motown duet that features friend Corinne Bailey Rae. Kane didn’t intend for the song to feature two points of view until after she told him she wanted to sing on it. “See Ya When I See Ya” is a kiss-off to Kane’s old self, who the writer refers to as “Mr. Johnny Know It All.” Hip-swiveling “Never Get Tired of Dancing” literally came together after putting on a “best of Motown” compilation record, dancing into the wee hours of the morning and feeling the effects on his body the next day. The album includes smoky foxtrot tune “Coming of Age” (Kane has said that he was writing on the pratfalls of elicit substances, rather than on the effects of growing older) and the upbeat “Caroline.”

The latter song was written as a message of love and support to both a friend “on the edge” in a time of need —”I can understand their mindset because I’ve sort of been in this position as well. I get it.”—and also to himself.

On “Don’t Let It Get You Down,” which sounds like it could score a ‘60s spy caper flick, Miles Kane paints a picture of growing weary with Los Angeles and needing to escape. He rides in the backseat of a Chevrolet, not liking the looks he gets.

“It’s very sort of cinematic, visual lyrics in that song, and it’s almost like you’re driving through somewhere. It’s like nighttime sort of L.A. vibe, really,” he said.

Also noteworthy is the way the song starts, with a brief dialog by British comedian Paul O’Grady in his classic (in the U.K.) drag character, Lily Savage.

“This is going back to when I was a kid,” Kane said. “Drag, now, is quite popular, isn’t it? It’s quite en vogue. He was doing it like when it was still a bit frowned upon, or not as mainstream as what it is today.”

O’Grady had his own TV show on the BBC as Savage, and Kane ran into a clip from the show where he was talking about what made something modern and current. He thought it was a good description for the type of music he was making, and as a huge fan of O’Grady, he wanted to incorporate that into the song. The problem was that the BBC wanted more money than he could afford to license it.

His team reached out to O’Grady, who turned out to be a fan of Miles Kane, too, and O’Grady came up with the idea to re-record the bit for him.

The title track, “Change The Show,” was one of the last songs Kane wrote for the album, but it ended up having a tremendous effect on everything that preceded it.

One dreary morning, Kane was watching the news and got sick of the cyclone of bad news on his screen. He remembers the horrible weather and the deluge of negativity, which prompted him to say “change the show”—as in, change the channel—out loud.

“Then I picked up the acoustic. Everyone was sort of fighting against each other, and I just thought, ‘But we’re too busy losing battles, I get by, but I always get better.’ It almost like a nursery rhyme. I started playing this thing,” he said.

Nonetheless, he demoed it the first day in the studio, and because it sounded rougher than much of the more polished songs on the album, it stood out.

“It wasn’t meant to be recorded, if that makes sense. It wasn’t in the plan,” he said. “But me management and any friends, anyone I played that session to, they love that song. It had a bit of a rawer energy, and I [thought] the album’s kind of missing that.”

Miles Kane began to feel that that should have been his approach on the album, even after finishing the other songs.

All through lockdown, his neighbors, psych-rock duo Sunglasses For Jaws, had been coaxing him into coming down to their studio for a recording or jamming session. He had already known Oscar Robertson and David Bardon and had seen them out at the pub many times, but he ignored the invite at first.

But eventually, thinking he had nothing to lose, he caved, and the three of them recorded “Tell Me What You Feel.” By the time he got home, he couldn’t stop playing it. It matched the vibe of the title track, and suddenly everything clicked into place. With his new friends, he re-recorded the rest of the album.

“It was really painless, man. I think we bashed down in about two, three weeks,” he said.

Follow editor Roman Gokhman at Twitter.com/RomiTheWriter.