IAN McNabb turns 50 in November next year, an anniversary that already has prompted the Icicle Works leader to flick through his back pages to write his first book.

He is putting the finishing touches to Merseybeast: A Musical Memoir, an autobiography that will lift the lid on the musical scene in his home city of Liverpool.

“It’s frightening how the years have gone by! I started when I was 14, doing working men’s clubs, social clubs, not just Liverpool, but Cumbria, Manchester too, but we didn’t stray too, though it felt a long way,” says Ian, who will be straying as far as York tomorrow to play and electric and acoustic set of old and new material at The Duchess.

“I began the Icicle Works in 1981 and it looks like this is what I’m going to be doing forever – though when I started I didn’t think I’d still be doing it now, but then I never plan ahead.”

He is still enjoying it too, whether doing solo albums and tours or reviving the Icicle Works.

“I’ve just done the Icicle Works’ 30th anniversary tour and I’m chuffed that the songs I wrote back then still resound,” says Ian.

“Obviously they must be pretty good songs, but they resonate with people because they grew up with them, and they don’t just hear them, the songs bring out a part of their life that they’d put in a drawer.”

Nostalgia plays a big part in music, suggests Ian. “When people go and see the Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, Neil Young, it transports you back to a happy place they want to be,” he says.

“The only problem I have with singing those old songs is that I didn’t really know what I was on about as I didn’t really know anything, which you don’t when you’re 23 or 24.

“But I found that singing them now, they don’t really feel any different to me and they don’t feel any different to the audience: when the lights go down and the band are there, and I start singing, I’m not questioning the lyrics. They must mean something.

“I was just thrilled I could still sing them because they’re all high and fast and I was absolutely knackered by the end; two hours and 20 minutes without a fag!”

Ian’s set in York will span his career, taking in not only the likes of 1983’s Love Is A Wonderful Colour and 1984’s Birds Fly (Whisper To A Scream) but also songs from his latest album, Great Things, a title that chimes with his penchant for making big music.

“It’s ‘big music’ because it’s all big choruses, big singalong tunes and big emotional lyrics,” he says. “But the reason why the record is called Great Things as that I’d written a song called that and it just seemed the right choice as I like to keep things positive and forward-thinking.

“It’s dead easy to write a whingeing, rambling, seven-minute ballad about how terrible things are, because we already know how bad things are, so I’ll leave that to Nick Cave, our antipodean miserable friend.

“The hardest thing as a songwriter is to write a three-and-a-half-minute pop song that is dead positive with a great message and you can dance to it.”

• Ian McNabb plays The Duchess, York, tomorrow, supported by Andy Doonan. Tickets: £15 on 0844 477 1000 or £17 on the door from 7.30pm.