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Former Ordinary Boys frontman Preston talks about his new album, his "surreal" past and "crushing" divorce from ex-wife Chantelle, and why he reckons he's a changed man.

It's great, I'm seeing people who I haven't seen in six or seven years. I'm aware this is a second chance. I hate the idea of a comeback - I hate the word. I'm very aware that people haven't been up all night thinking 'when's Preston going to come back with another record'. It's been a struggle, but I feel like I'm clearing my name a bit.

I was so young and naive. I don't regret the decisions themselves, I just regret the way I handled myself. I think I tried to put on this persona of a moody, sulky, indie rocker. I just really hate those sort of people anyway, I don't know why I thought it was a good idea. At the time I was really enjoying myself - but in the same way people look back at old photos of themselves, it's very embarrassing.

It was surreal. I remember it as a series of facts, rather than something that actually happened to me. Then I got divorced - that is a crushing, heartbreaking thing to go through. Whether you get married in OK magazine or not, it's still horrible.

Yes, I am now. When we got divorced I went off travelling. I think she fell in with a bad bunch who told her to speak badly of me. We weren't in touch. She's changed agents and she's apologised for being horrible. We're friends again - which is probably what we should have been all along.

You know what, if you are doing a lot of interviews, you sometimes start to believe the hype. It's such an unattractive thing to happen to someone. We were masquerading as a rockstar and a super model - but I was in a little snotty indie band and she was a page three model - it was a mickey mouse version!

We're still in touch, still friends. I would have carried on, I was having a ball. But the guitarist wanted to go to university. We'd been a massive success - our last four singles were in the top 10. We thought this can't last, we can leave this now and stand proud as a successful band, or we can go down with ship and die an undignified death - we didn't want that.

I was naive about how much I had to clear my name, but I'm perfectly willing to do that. I think my album is good enough to take me though the other side and establish me. People are starting to respond to the music. I got my name known through surreal ways - now I'm reading stuff that's about my music, that's a bigger rush.

I guess it's an electric pop album. I've always loved pop music - and it's really exciting that pop and electronic music is the music that exciting creative people at the moment. I play the guitar and piano so it's got a lot of instrumentation in there, it does hark back to the indie of old. There's some slow gloomy ballads too.. I was pretty heartbroken towards the beginning of it.

Yes, I looked in mirror and thought no-one's going to buy record from you. I stopped drinking and knocked sleeping pills on the head.

Music is going through see change - I just want to earn the right to make another record. I want to be forgiven for the sort of loopy things I might have done in the past and for people to remember I am a good song writer - I want to be acknowledged as a good lyricist. I want to do some sweaty gigs. I don't want to take any cheap ways out, I want to do it the hard way.

Preston's new single Dressed To Kill is released on 23 August