The singer-songwriter talks about his relative William Faulkner, his violent childhood and drugs – and saves a surprise until the end

If you’re after cheery crowdpleasers, John Murry is not your man. Murry is 41, barely known, and has never come close to denting the charts. Yet he has been compared to the great existential pop poets Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen and Scott Walker. And with good reason – he has a rich baritone, writes gorgeous ballads and is half in love with death. The titles of his first two albums, The Graceless Age and A Short History of Decay, reflect the melancholy at the heart of his work. The title of his third, The Stars Are God’s Bullet Holes, is equally bleak. Yet, it turns out that Murry has a surprise in store.

The singer-songwriter is related to the Nobel-prize winning American novelist William Faulkner. Like Faulkner, he paddles along his stream of consciousness – sometimes ferociously. You get a sense of what his songs are about, but seldom know for sure. Take the new album’s opener, Oscar Wilde (Came Here to Make Fun of You). We get the references to terrorist attacks and the images of foreboding, but the meaning is left to us.