THIS November, folk artist Joshua Burnside will return to the road for the UK and Ireland leg of his biggest tour yet. With shows in Europe and North America in early Autumn, Joshua heads home to Belfast to kick off a string of 14 gigs with a date at Bury Met the perfect opportunity to catch the Northern Irish singer-songwriter.

“I’ve had a great time so far and I’m looking forward to the upcoming shows,” said Joshua. “I’ve always loved playing in America and this was my second time there. A lot of the plays I get on streaming sites are from the US so it’s good for me to get out there and play as much as I can.

“I was reared on the likes of Paul Simon and Johnny Cash and people really appreciate songwriters and the songwriting craft over there.”

Back home, the 30-year-old won the Northern Ireland Music Prize in 2017 for his debut album EPHRATA which will see a vinyl re-issuing this autumn.

“Belfast is a great place to learn music and has a great scene,” he said. “I’ve certainly benefited from living here especially at the minute as there is a real resurgence in Irish folk music with some amazing bands and artists and I like to think I am a part of that. It’s an exciting time.”

Balanced with a diverse palette of sounds, Joshua deftly blends alt-folk and elements of Irish folk song tradition with South American rhythms and Eastern European influences.

“It all happened naturally,” he said. “I’ve always dipped my toes in traditional Irish folk but in the last few years I’ve been trying to play to my strengths as a songwriter and gone down a folkier route. When it comes to my actual recordings I like to muck around a bit and do what I can to make things sound a bit more modern. I think you have to try and keep things fresh and see what works and what doesn’t.”

2020 sees Joshua heading back to the States again with a trip to New Orleans the highlight for the guitarist.

“I’ve just finished recording my second album which I recorded mostly myself in Belfast,” he added. “I’m looking forward to that coming out next Spring and we’ll be playing a few songs from it on this tour.

“There’s a lot of electronic elements and the songs are a bit less ‘song-y’ than the last album if that makes sense. They don’t have coherent structures or as many obvious hooks and choruses and I’m very excited about it.

“I like to think of it as ‘doom folk’ - there’s a lot of doom and gloom around at the moment in every way and not just in the obvious things like the state of the climate and the state of the UK politics but in a deeper way too there’s a bit of a crisis about who we are as humans.”

Joshua Burnside plays The Box at Bury Met on Friday, November 15 at 8pm. Tickets: £11.