If you’re going to write about love and sex then you’ve got to be able to write about it in a realistic sense and not paint a false picture of it.”He is happy to talk about the songwriting process, though wishes to draw a veil over that song, “Candle in the Wind 1997″ It was not his greatest lyric, but it served its purpose. “I don’t know how to answer that; I’d never even thought about it I think I want to tell more road stories. Who knows, maybe it’ll come along later on, although on the first album there’s a song called ‘Burn this Bed’ which is extremely erotic.”I’m always trying to push the envelope as far as sex and songs goes, because I think it’s important to be as realistic as possible. On the new Farm Dogs album they are absent.”Maybe it’s more of a boys’ club,” he concedes. Often, as with “Sweet Painted Ladies” and “Since God Invented Girls”, they are quite risque.

It’s definitely from experience.”He is a man who generally loves women, and eroticism has been a constant theme There is usually at least one such tale on each Elton album. Immigrant Sons continues the recurring themes of loneliness, loss and anger. In the song “Bird of Prey” he sings, “A wedding ring just hid the whore”, and paints a picture of a woman desperate to grab his money I suggest this is his first wife Maxine He laughs “You think I’m going to admit to that I’m surprised you even know the name You judge for yourself I will tell you as much as this. This has inspired his best songs, narratives with a cinematic feel. He wants his tombstone to read: “He was a good storyteller.”Taupin always was a bit of a sly writer, masking his intent with words that appeared to be upbeat but were in reality exploring the underbelly of life. He would listen to Guthrie and Leadbelly and read Tennyson and Macaulay.

He says that at least they are not recycling old hits; that their music is very viable now. He cites American bands such as Wilco and Son Volt, who have been successful at exploring similar American roots music.Taupin grew up with the advantage of a mother and grandfather who sparked his imagination in narrative poetry. They have all lived under the shadows of big egos and want their band to be a democracy, all co-writing the music to Taupin’s lyrics.Taupin doesn’t object to one critic’s assertion that they are a “mid- life crisis band” though he reckons he had his mid-life crisis at least 10 years ago. The musicians include Jim Cregan and Robin Le Mesurier, old guitar muckers with Rod Stewart.

Taupin acquits himself with a voice that, though not strong, is expressive in a bar-room, telling tales kind of way. The Tumbleweed Connection album cover, all sepia and olde worlde, is not dissimilar in theme to the sepia-tinted new album cover of Immigrant Sons, though the music is radically different. He was gently prodded into action by his cohorts, who first encouraged him to play on radio stations, then in his wife Stephanie’s LA restaurant Cicada, and gradually in clubs and now theatres.Taupin’s fascination with the American Old West has been evident since his earliest work with Elton John. I didn’t even contemplate it.”Their second album, aptly titled Immigrant Sons, is just out, and gradually their touring is building in America.