Dougie Payne on going from chart success with Travis to writing a children's book about finding joy in music

“I loved that bit of their lives. I loved that part of being a parent. So, I wrote them this wee story and drew it out and I showed it to a friend and got introduced to the author Maisie Chan. She kind of took me under her wing a couple of years ago and mentored me. She read a bunch of stuff that I’d written because I started writing more of these stories. She was like, this one, talking about Poochie Pete. This is really close to being what she called an orange - ready, ripe and perfect.

“One of her pointers was to concentrate on the writing and not think about illustrations, which was really good advice as that really concentrated things in terms of this story. Maisie then introduced me to Alan at Little Door Books up in Oban who really liked it and was keen to get it together. Following that, he then introduced me to the illustrator Rachel Seago who from the start was just brilliant. The first thumbnails she sent were exactly what was in my head. We just went forward from there and now it’s here.

There’s a certain craft and rhythm to writing children’s literature, Dougie found “You have to be pretty succinct. I was thinking about kids having it read to them. I was thinking about tired parents at the end of the day. If you’ve got a tricky book to read, it can be really draining at the end of a long day. Because it’s a rhyming book, I had to work really hard on getting the metre right so nothing tripped you up.

“I think it’s something quite similar to songwriting because you’ve got to be succinct. If you’re writing a three-minute pop song, you’ve got to get your point across quite quickly and make sure that it’s accessible and easy to understand.”

Some of the themes that come through in this book are individuality, creativity and joy. In the book, Poochie Pete longs to find his place in the world and where he belongs. It’s not until he discovers a music shop and its helpful owner, Henry Large, that he finds his own song and where his heart truly belongs.

I asked Dougie whether there were influences from his own life in the tale. “The initial story wrote itself. The initial thought was, when I sit and play the piano, my dog Iggy sits behind me and stays as long as I’m playing looking at me. You really wonder what’s going on in their heads, which is where the initial thought for the book came from as I wondered if he was maybe a musician in a past life. I guess it’s about finding joy in music, music being a kind of bonding thing, finding strength and being yourself.

“I think that music has obviously been central to my life for my whole life. Before the band, I was always pretty obsessed with music because I grew up with three sisters who were eight, 10 and 13 years older. It was very much a pop house. It was Top of the Pops from as long as I can remember and my sister sitting playing me records.

“Whether it was the Bay City Rollers or my sister Jill sitting me down and playing me Hunky Dory when I was probably six. Music has always been absolutely central. Going out buying records from the age of 10 and then playing piano a bit as a kid, playing saxophone was the first thing that I really did, because of Bowie. I was like, his first instrument was saxophone and so I’ll do that. And then getting guitars when I was in my teens, then just recording and writing with friends at art school and then me and Franny playing together and then joining the band when I was 22. And finally being in the band for 30 years.

“Its always been a central part so it’s not really a giant leap to put it in the book and make the book about music.”

Poochie Pete and His Very Big Feet by Dougie Payne, illustrated by Rachel Seago, will be published by Little Door Books on World Book Day, 5th March 2026, priced £7.99.