“If it was up to me I would play 365 shows a year.” So says Inme frontman Dave McPherson as he prepares to embark on both a solo acoustic tour and an autumn jaunt around the UK with his band of 13 years.

His appearance at the Engine Room is part of a series of unaccompanied shows he has been doing for the past two years.

“Whenever Inme is not busy I get itchy,” he says. “I started writing songs that were more folk music and doing covers in pubs, and this is the natural progression from that.”

Fans can expect to hear a lot of new material from his forthcoming solo album, as well as a selection of covers and Inme favourites.

“When I pick up my acoustic guitar folk music comes out, so its pretty obvious when I’m writing solo material,” says McPherson. “It’s completely different. It is more about feeling. The lyrics are straight from the heart and have to be quite clever. Inme is more about creating good music than being really precise.

“It is interesting in the way I sing, too. It’s a lot harder singing over four guys making as much noise as possible, as opposed to when it’s stripped down. Solo you can hear my voice and I do different things with it. But then in Inme I can scream and it adds to the power.”

He is currently in the middle of writing orchestral parts for his solo album, which at present doesn’t have a release date. But Inme fans will be glad to hear the band’s fourth album, Herald Moth, is set to hit the high street in only a couple of weeks.

The album has been preceded by the new radio-baiting song Single Of The Weak, which was released earlier this month.

“It’s probably the only song on the album that is slightly tongue-in-cheek,” says McPherson of the single. “The other songs on the album are a bit darker and more serious. We wanted to create an album that was a lot more complex and progressive than anything we’d done before.”

Part of that complexity comes from the introduction of another guitar to the mix courtesy of Ben Konstantinovic.

“A second guitarist is something we’ve been looking for, for a long time,” says McPherson. “Being a three-piece limits you. You can’t fill out the sound live. Now we can throw in all the guitar lines on the record, and Ben has come up with some really cool licks I wouldn’t have been able to play. It’s exciting to make it a bit more challenging for us as musicians.”

The darkness comes following a particularly tough few years in McPherson’s life.

“I got in quite a bit of debt, which I’m out of now,” he says. “It was a big wake-up call. I also lost a couple of people close to me, which was a new experience – I hadn’t lost anyone that close before. I became quite lazy, moping around at home. This album helped me get rid of those demons and now I’m moving forward.

“That is the great thing about music – I have always got it to turn to. I can put out things and express myself. If your life’s all perfect then you don’t have much to write about.”

* 8pm, £5, 01273 728999

* Inme play The Best Of Both Worlds Festival on Sunday, September 27, as part of a line-up including We Are The Ocean, Spunge and Exit Ten at Concorde 2, Madeira Drive, Brighton, doors 2pm, £14, call 01273 673311.