“Late night last night?” Marti Pellow asks in a gloopy Scottish accent. I look at him through red eyes and mumble, “Jaysus yeah… I feel like I’m about to collapse.” Probably not the best way to introduce yourself to one of the most famous collapsers in the music business.

But Marti does not seem to mind my little blooper. Since his own well documented breakdown he has managed to get his life back together and although the Wet Wet Wet era has long since passed, Marti is hoping to re-launch himself back into the spotlight with his first solo album Smile. And this time he’s going to do it sober.

“It’s a bit like getting into a lift and going straight up to the penthouse and not getting off at any of the other floors,” says Marti, describing in one line his rocket rise to fame. Having walked out of the schoolyard straight on to the cover of Smash Hits, Pellow was like a kid in a heroin, coke and booze store. The grinning chap who everybody thought was as good as gold eventually ended up addicted to just about everything that was going.

“I don’t want to sound like a whinging pop star, that’s the worst thing,” says Pellow more than a few times. “I’ve been a success, I’ve sold billions of records, I’ve seen things I thought I would never see and all through the gift of song, and that’s only a good thing.”

The way he talks, down to earth with a smattering of bad language here and there, he seems a lot more like the average guy on the street than the former pin-up. Rather than taking the usual route of ignoring former band mates, Pellow is still friends with the WWW boys: “We grew up together, and that’s part of why when the end of it came it was so difficult. I don’t wish any malice against any of Wet Wet Wet, change is a difficult thing, it’s about moving on.”

“Humbling” is how he describes his recovery. “You find yourself on the bones of your arse and an addiction is a heavy situation. You push people away because you don’t want them to take your candy away, at one point I thought I wouldn’t be able to deal without some sort of crutch, but I am two years clean now. Addiction is not fussy about who it breaks bread with, it could be me or it could be the housewife on valium… and that’s just the way it happens. Shit happens.”

In conversation Pellow uses the words and phrases of a recovered addict – “focused”, “in control”, “positive place” crop up regularly. On the strength of his sobriety he has made an album full of soul. Smile brings that voice back from the edge, largely intact and if anything, improved for being a little rough around the edges.

“All I can do is make the best possible album that I can make. I don’t have any God-given right to think that I should continue having the phenomenal success as I had with Wet Wet Wet, I can’t be that stupid,” says Marti, pointing out that WWW sold more albums than Boyzone and Westlife combined. “But if you continue to make good music, as naive as this may sound, I think that’s enough ammo and that’s what you need.”

It has been three years since Pellow was last in Dublin.

“It’s a lot like Glasgow,” he reflects. “The people will either shake your hand or punch you in the face and I think that’s refreshing.”

A supporter of Glasgow Rangers he may be, but if Pellow is a football bigot, as many exaggerated stories on the street state, he is one of the best actors I have ever seen. Quick to tip his hat to the Celtic manager and players, he points out that he met his wife at a Celtic/Rangers match – and she was supporting Celtic.

“For me, football will always be about entertainment as opposed to sectarianism. There’s an undercurrent that goes on there, and that’s a very powerful place where both sides are coming from, but for me it’s all about entertainment.”

Things were getting a bit serious in our conversation, and after all, Pellow’s new album is called Smile. I decided to tell Marti that an anagram of his name is ‘Ill Tapeworm’.

“That is a beautiful word, man, that’s fucking brilliant. Print it… put it in writing!”

As I leave the room, Marti is smiling that trademark grin of his. But having heard his story and his new album, I don’t think it was my poor attempt at a joke he was smiling about. b

Smile is now available on Universal records