Gruff takes his revenge on hotel detritus

many people like to collect things: stamps, books, even vintage cars.

But complimentary bathroom products from hotels surely ranks as one of the more unusual habits. Yet Gruff Rhys’s collection of shampoo bottles, toothbrushes, shower caps and disposable slippers proved an unlikely inspiration for an art installation as well as his latest solo album, Hotel Shampoo.

Given the fact that he’s the frontman of maverick Welsh psychedelic rockers the Super Furry Animals, we shouldn’t really be surprised by such eccentricities. But what made him turn this cultural flotsam into a work of art, in this case a miniature hotel?

“In 1995, I began touring the world industrially as a pop musician. A gleaming new cosmos of hotel accommodation opened up for me and in an instant I was seduced by the free products available in the rooms,” he explains. He then began hoarding them in what he calls a “rush of mild kleptomania”.

“Every room in my house began to amass these plastic bottles and various, hotel-related things from every continent on earth. I had all this rubbish that I’d been collecting over the years and it was starting to take over. My wardrobes were full and there was stuff in boxes on the stairs. As an act of revenge against the colonisation of our house, I vowed to build a hotel out of the items as a monument to the waste that’s produced in our disposable age and to catalogue my transient existence.”

Rhys then spent a night sleeping in his creation which has since gone on display at the Chapter Arts centre in Cardiff. It was while working on his temporary artwork that he stumbled on the idea of using these raw materials as a springboard for a new record. “Having never kept a journal, these items have become like diary entries – triggering memories of all those buildings and random people I’ve met and inspiring some of the songs on the album.”

His new record, his third as a solo artist, is an eclectic mix of introspective ballads and mariachi-tinged pop. “It’s full of personal observations of the last 15 years, looking back at my life and how things have changed,” he says.

“My first album took one week, the second took two weeks and this one took three weeks, so it’s the most refined. I had a lot of piano-based songs I wanted to record and it’s a bit more lush and melancholy than the other two.”

Even so, it didn’t quite work out as he had expected. “I thought that as I’m getting on a bit, the time had come to buy a suit and record an album of piano ballads. However, I got bored, the record diversified and evolved and things turned out differently.”

To mark the release of his new album this month, Rhys is taking over an entire hotel, The Gresham, in Blackpool, before kicking off his UK tour on Valentine’s Day at Sheffield City Hall. He is being joined on the road by Welsh instrumental surf rock quartet Y Niwl.

“I know the band and they’re very good and they will be playing on some of my songs. The gig will have a west coast vibe, a bit mellower than Dick Dale. So if you’re feeling cold and miserable it’s something warm to lift the spirits,” he says. Rhys was raised in Wales and his interest in music was evident from an early age.

“I wrote my first song when I was five. My brother had a tape recorder and I used to write different songs and play them on the tape. The first one was about getting older and becoming a train driver,” he says. “I remember speaking to Euros Childs from Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci and he said he wrote his first song about people jumping off the Severn Bridge, when he was only three.”

Although he made his name as a singer it was the back, rather than the front, of the stage where he started out. “I always wanted to play drums and I started collecting bottles when I was six to make a drum kit,” he says.

He used his brother’s guitar to learn how to play the instrument and later played in a couple of bands as a teenager before joining as frontman of Ffa Coffi Pawb, translated, the name means “everyone’s coffee beans”, which went on to become one of the leading lights on the Welsh rock music scene.

When they disbanded in 1993, he and a fellow group of musicians formed the Super Furry Animals whose debut album, Fuzzy Logic, was released to critical acclaim in 1996. “It was the height of Britpop and we wanted to set ourselves apart from all that, we wanted to have our own identity.” The band quickly gained a reputation for musical experimentation and through their nine studio albums they gained a cult following.

Over the years Rhys has collaborated with artists as diverse as Sparklehorse and De La Soul, but admits it can still feel strange playing with other musicians. “I’ve been defined by the Super Furry Animals and it’s always been extremely rewarding playing together. When we make a record we tend to push the boundaries much further sonically than on a solo record. On the other hand, it’s refreshing to get into the studio and record songs very quickly.”

Although his old band is taking a break, he says we haven’t heard the last of them. “We are still together. We’ve been working hard for 15 years and last summer was the first time in 15 years where we weren’t playing festivals and it was nice to have our lives back,” he says.

“We aren’t in any rush but I’m sure we’ll all get back to the studio at some point in the future.”

Gruff Rhys plays Sheffield City Hall on February 14. 0114 278 9789,