He’s the antihero of the popular music world. More Wurzel Gummage than Pete Wentz, and infinitely more talented than his preened peers, Newton Faulkner is enjoying the ride.

Speaking down the line from his central London flat, the dread-locked singer/songwriter meanders through the conversation with a hospitable humility that’s in keeping with his free-love aesthetic.

The serenity conveyed in Faulkner’s words is impressive when you look back over the last few years. After his surprise hit Dream Catch Me took off in 2007, Faulkner found himself heading toward fortune and fame, wholly uncharted waters for a self-confessed country-boy. Luckily, his grip was tight enough to survive that initial burst of notoriety earning a swing at album number two.

Rebuilt By Humans is Faulkner’s follow up to 2007’s debut, Hand Built By Robots, and it has proven to be the album that almost never was. While on a skiing holiday with his family in France, Faulkner slipped on an icy path fracturing his radius and dislocating his hand. The cruel irony was, Faulkner had made a decision to stay off the slopes for fear of injuring himself a week before commencing work on his second record.

In keeping with his positive attitude toward just about everything, Faulkner explained how his falling down helped the album reach greater heights. “I think my injury had an incredibly positive effect on the album” he says. “Just that tiny bit of extra time was invaluable because I’d been on the road for three years before that. I remember being on the phone to one of the label guys and he was saying ‘ok Newton, just take all the time you need, just make sure you fix it properly before you start doing stuff again’ and I was like ‘take all the time I need’? I could never imagine anyone saying to me in any other situation”.

As Faulkner began down the road to rehabilitation, he began looking at the loose threads and the refinements he now had time to indulge, but also he was looking at the statement he was about to make with Rebuilt By Humans. “I knew what I didn’t want to do with this album” he says. “I didn’t want to make a depressing second record you know? If you write an album that’s more depressing than the first one it’s kind of like you’re complaining about how well things have gone and I wanted to make something that was grateful”.

“There’s a track called Been Thinking About It, I started writing that on a plane, actually I was on my way from Australia to Bangkok and there was mega-turbulence, like the scariest turbulence I’ve ever experienced, so after it had calmed down I started scribbling. I really thought that was the end, I thought we were going down, but then something just clicked in my head and I thought ‘you know what? I’ve actually had a pretty good run, so if this is how it’s meant to be… fine’. I just relaxed and accepted death and thought if you have to go… go with a grateful smile”.

And what’s not to smile about? An international home run with your first record and entry into the upper echelon of the world’s touring circuit would make anyone’s day. Faulkner’s mid-ground sound has seen him land some serious supports with some serious artists, none more so than our own John Butler Trio. “Oh man, John is a proper legend” Faulkner laughs.

“It’s actually quite strange because I did a gig at Ronnie Scotts years ago and I hadn’t heard of John Butler at that point, and someone came up to me rather sheepishly and said ‘excuse me, are you John Butler?’ and I was like ‘no’, then a whole bunch of people started asking if I was John Butler. Someone said, ‘wow, it’s amazing, you look just like him’ and to be honest we look nothing alike we just both have dreads” Faulkner says, laughing at the suggestion.

“So I was like ‘who is this guy?’ and actually, the first picture I saw of him was a picture of him from the back, just sitting on a chair, and I actually thought it was me”.

After so many comparisons, it wouldn’t be long before the dreaded dynamos would share a stage together with Faulkner supporting Butler at Camden’s Round House in mid 2007. From there Butler would give his young colleague a few insights into life on the road and the harmony one can find there.

“There was a tour in Germany that we did that was a lot of fun” says Faulkner. “It was probably the nicest vibe I’ve ever come across. I think it’s because my tours are just a lot of guys on the road all on the one bus and it does kind of turn into a pirate ship fairly quickly. So things kind of go a bit mental out there and I had gotten used to that you know? That’s just how touring was, on the road, being a pirate, playing music. So when I went on tour with John Butler it was really different, I mean his wife and kids were there and that kind of changed everything, everyone was quite sensible, people were going on bicycle trips around cities and I was like ‘wow’.