‘I’ve always been romantic, it’s always burned away inside of me,’ says the Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh. He may not be your go-to romance writer yet the thrice-married Scottish writer assures me he’s a fool for love. His latest book and accompanying music album Men in Love proves it, and in a surprising turn of events the unlikely romantic heroes featured are the older and wiser Renton, Spud, Sick Boy and Begbie. As the 1980s ends the gang break up with heroin and embrace rave culture to dance their way into the early 1990s, hopping on a love train bound for love and romance via Edinburgh, London, Amsterdam, Paris and in an unlikely turn of events, the wedding of Sick Boy. Now in their late twenties, having bought every album and tried every drug, the Trainspotters choose love. Whether they will also choose a starter home, dental insurance, leisure wear and matching luggage will be revealed when Men In Love is released this month. Will the path of true love run smooth or end in disaster? And does Men in Love have Welsh’s trademark darkly funny touch? “It’s very dark and funny” he says, down the phone from Miami, where he’s complaining about it being “too hot” in the time-honoured way of Scots transplanted to sunnier climes and sounding reassured when I tell him it’s Baltic in Leith. “It’s about guys in their mid twenties who are getting serious about life. You go through stages in life where you start off influenced by your family when you’re a kid, then break away from that and your peers are everything when you’re a teenager and young, then you break from them in your mid twenties into serious romance and think about settling down and having a proper relationship. So these guys are at that time in their lives and they’re looking to be serious about relationships and love. People bond at that age. It’s strange, you get people getting together and setting themselves up… Good luck, you know, it’s a f***ing tough shift.” That’s more like it. It’s a tough shift. “Life’s experiential by nature and you have to learn through mistakes,” he says. “It’s horrible but the people you get into relationships with and you yourself are actual collateral damage in that process and that’s just the way it is unfortunately.” But we’ve already established that Welsh is a romantic, which by its nature necessitates being an optimist too. “I think you get better at relationships the older you get,” he says. “The first big relationships your ego’s in charge and when things go south you point the finger at the other person. When you get older and wiser, you start thinking ‘well the common denominator in all of this is me’ so you start looking at yourself and how you show up in relationships. And I think that’s when you start getting good at them.” Now in his sixties - my enquiry as to his exact age is met with “I stopped caring after my forties” - did Welsh research the book by talking to twentysomethings or rely on memory? “It’s memory and observation. It’s set in the 1980s because back then people fucked up in more interesting ways. Now they just fuck up online and are nervous and anxious and depressed and all that. And they don’t really go out in the same way and interact with other people. “So they don’t have the physical danger of street violence and drug overdoses but have much more psychological peril. There’s so much more pressure on young people in terms of it’s so hard to earn a living, the resources of the planet are running out, climate change, the economy is tanking, so they have all that existential pressure and the psychological reduction of social media to contend with. It’s a tougher life in a lot of ways now, much more insecure. And I don’t have the tools, really, to write about that. I want to write things where there’s more optimism and buoyancy and people have some of that delusion that things could get better.” Apart from the appeal of returning to find out what Renton & Co did next, Welsh wasn’t done with writing about the 1980s. Isn’t it surprising to be looking back at the end of the Thatcher era with nostalgia? “Yeah, but it was brilliant,” he says. “The Eighties and Nineties were fabulous because ordinary people had the resources to live. They had the resources to be alive and create culture and get involved. The Eighties were horrible and class ridden and conflict based and there was so much drugs and empty hedonism and collateral damage but they were great times as well, because people had the money to do things and now they no longer do. “The only people who have money now are billionaires. I got asked to do a talk about why people aren’t going to clubs any more and the basic answer is because they don’t have any money to go out. The only people who have money are people who don’t dance.” Dancing is a passion for Welsh so it’s no surprise it’s at the heart of Men in Love, with a soundtrack to go along with the novel. Will the book and album appeal to different audiences, or seduce lovers of both? “The two operate separately,” he says. “It’s not like ‘read this chapter to this track’. The album is gently about the characters and scenarios in Men In Love and was inspired by the emotions I felt about love and romance but couldn’t quite express in the books through the characters. Love and romance don’t transfer that great to fiction because when people are in love there is no drama. It’s harmony. The only drama comes when you thwart them in some way from getting together. But what love does transfer well to emotionally is music. The Men In Love album is aspirational, as all love is, whereas the book is more like the realpolitik of it. “So I feel I haven't covered the beauty of love in the book and haven’t covered the pitfalls of love in the album, but the two together give a comprehensive picture of… luuuurve.” Welsh has spoken about the album being ‘twisted disco’ in the past, how would he describe it now that it’s complete? “It’s actually a very uplifting kind of soul and disco album. It’s fabulous. Steve Mac who is my music partner in the label we have [Jack Said What, formed by Welsh, Mac and Carl Loben] - we’ve written songs for the Trainspotting musical - we work in every genre. And the strange thing is I like quite edgy fiction and edgy techno but we found we were interested in doing really uplifting soulful disco tracks. We started off in disco and moved into real Harold Melvin, Marvin Gaye and Motown stuff and disco as well, and we were just so surprised. “We got together with Scott Booth, one of the young guys on our label who’s a brilliant musician and pulled all these sounds together, and we’ve replicated an old school Motown sound. The guide vocal was me singing like this total jakeball, staggering hame fae the pub, and it was terrible, so we found proper vocalists: Shaun Escoffery who has been the Lion King for 17 years and has a fabulous range, like Teddy Pendergrass, Luther Vandross, and Louise Marshall who has been touring with David Gilmour from Pink Floyd and is a fabulous singer, and it’s turned out absolutely brilliant. I’m absolutely blown away by it.” It’s good to hear that the Men In Love album gives voice to women too and I tell Welsh I’ve always been intrigued by the females who got themselves involved with the Trainspotting crew. “That was the thing about the music,” he says. “We’ve got ten tracks on the album and five are sung by a guy and five by a woman. I wanted to write songs in women’s voices. The book is primarily about men being in love, but it’s also the woman’s experience of these men in love. The men in the album are singing about the complexity of their emotions and expressing them to themselves and the women are looking in and saying you have to step up. They’re quite captivated by these men but also quite scornful of them, seeing their flaws and limitations and that they’ve got a long way to go if they’re going to step up to the love plate.” Does he envisage a follow on to Men In Love, taking the Trainspotters further into the Nineties and beyond? “Yes, possibly. This one is in the late Eighties and I want to do one going into the Nineties, so I’ll probably do a Men In Love Two.” In Miami Welsh enjoys a regular routine of writing, after nipping across the road to his mate’s boxing club to train first thing then back to ‘smash out the words’, on a variety of projects. These include a new novel about a crime dynasty set in Vegas, film, TV and stage scripts, and producing music, as he prepares to return to Scotland to headline The Paisley Book Festival which runs in the town from April 25-28. He’s looking forward to being back in Scotland and the approaching book festival where he will talk about his writing and music on stage with award-winning Scottish thriller writer Ewan Morrison. “It’s always nice to meet people that support books and meet other writers. They’re full of people who like reading and ideas and it’s a nice vibe. And this is the first year of this one in Paisley. I’ve always liked Paisley, it’s a great Victorian town with statues and buildings, so many under-utilised. I think the only way you can regenerate economies now is through culture, and even that’s kind of beyond us at the moment. But get towns known for grassroots arts and Paisley is a great spot for young artists to create a little scene and a little vibe. Edinburgh and Glasgow are so expensive and I think grassroots is forgotten by the [Edinburgh] Festival. It’s an international event for international capital, for international people who have money. There are certain things that get people involved, like comedy, or The Lady Boys of Bangkok is one that all working class people are fascinated by, parties of families, coach-loads of middle aged women and all that. I don’t quite get it myself like, but it’s an interesting phenomenon.” “Here’s me getting involved in urban regeneration,” he says and laughs. “I’ll be opening a library next.” An interesting thought but let’s get back to talking about ‘luuuurve’ and Welsh’s own experience of it. “For me growing up in Leith and Muirhouse in Scotland, basically you went to school in the scheme, everybody lived there, worked nearby and you knew everybody that you fancied. There were only a couple of dozen candidates. Now you’re on the internet and it’s only limited by your finances, how far you can travel. “So people have different expectations and aspirations and I don’t think people see relationships as being everlasting, despite all the stuff we weave into it and believe at the time. I think people are a lot more instrumental. I was talking to a couple of women the other day and they were very matter of fact about it, saying this guy was my first love, this was the guy I had my kids with, this guy now is my real soulmate, so there was an idea that certain people are going to be with you at certain times. It’s a very individualised, atomised culture and in some ways quite bleak and maybe not as romantic as the knight in shining armour aspiration, but it seems to be the way the world is.” Would he say he’s more romantic now than he used to be? “No, I’ve always been romantic. I’ve always been very, very romantic. But it’s something that you have to watch growing up in Murihouse, how much of that you show, because it’s piss-rip territory. You know your mates are there ready to do that, so you have to be quite judicious about the exhibition of romance. But I’ve always been romantic.” What’s the most romantic thing he’s ever done? “I think probably, ehhh…. Probably told my wife… we were going away for a romantic weekend in Paris but then I proposed to her on the floor of a grotty club in Tollcross before we went. A Parisian proposal would have been romantic, but the Edinburgh version has more of a ring of authenticity about it. “Yeah. It’s also, I had the ring in my pocket and thought I’m going to make an arse of myself, lose it, but it was also a gesture in the moment. I thought if we’re going to Paris I’m not going to take her by surprise but if I do it in Tollcross in a pub, that’s going to sort of make some kind of impression.” It was an appropriate venue too, as when he was single, Welsh eschewed dating apps in favour of In Real Life encounters. “When I was between relationships and doing quite a bit of dating I never went on Tinder or used online sites. I just couldn’t do it. For me, it’s just bumping into somebody in the pub and chatting away… What did his online profile sound like? ‘Sixty something Scottish written looking for… what? “Well my manager Trevor was trying to get me to go on this website - he’s Megan Markle’s ex-husband - and said this is for long distance, rich and famous people, an encrypted site, and I’m neither rich nor famous, but he thought that would be a good site for me to go on, but I wasn’t interested at all. That would be the most horrible thing I could think of. I’d rather just bump into somebody basically.” Which is what he did? “Yeah. In the pub.” He made the right impression and Welsh married Emma Currie in 2022 and now they split their time between the UK and US. Back in Edinburgh and London this summer he’ll be busy with a book and album to promote, as well as the documentary by BAFTA nominated, BIFA winner Paul Sng, Reality is Not Enough, for which the director followed Welsh around for a year. He has an Edinburgh International Book Festival appearance pencilled in alongside UK book promotions, which may include Aberdeen Dundee, and rehearsals for the Trainspotting musical. There’s also the Las Vegas book to write and TV versions of The Blade Artist with Robert Carlyle reprising his role as Begbie, and possibly another series of Crime, adapted from the final Resolution novel, down the line. With a workload of writing and music to deliver, does he think he’ll ever retire? “I have retired. I’ve been retired for 30-odd years like. Seriously. I mean, what do people do when they retire? They write and paint and draw and exercise and go on walks and stuff like that. And that’s just what I’ve been doing for 30 years. I’ve made my hobby pay.” Which leaves him all the more time for love. Irvine Welsh appears at Paisley Book Festival, April 25, 7.30-8.30pm, Paisley Town Hall. Tickets – £10/£12. www.paisleybookfestival.com Men In Love is published on 24 July by Jonathan Cape/Penguin Books. The Men in Love album is published by Jack Said What on 8 July 2025.